Last week, I heard a number that should terrify every founder raising a Series A.
Between 50% and 60% of Israeli tech startups that reach round A never make it to round B. Think of it: You’ve pitched, hustled, and convinced initial investors that your idea is worth betting on… yet statistically, you’re more likely to flame out before the next round than not.
The reasons are messier than most founders want to admit. It’s not always the product or market. A lot of the time, it comes down to one hire. The first real sales leader you bring in to crack the US market. Get it right, and you’re soaring your company to new levels. But get it wrong, and you’ll be burning through runway while pretending everything is still fine.
This week on The Spiro Circle, I spoke with Giora Gil-Ad about the most dangerous (and weirdly emotional) hire in Startup Nation - the first serious US sales executive.
That’s exactly the world he operates in. As the founder of CQ Global, Giora specialises in one very specific, very high-stakes moment in a company’s life: finding the sales exec who will either unlock the US market or become a very expensive lesson.
In our conversation, Giora puts the cost of a wrong VP hire at somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million, once you account for the salary, the team members who follow them out the door, the deals that slipped through the cracks, and the months of momentum lost.
But the money is almost the easy part to quantify. What’s harder to measure is the founder who starts second-guessing themselves. The team morale evaporates, or investors start asking harder questions. A bad hire can cost confidence, and in the early startup space, confidence is everything.
So what does getting it right actually look like? According to Giora, it starts with founders being honest about what they actually need, and accounting for cultural, business, and personal needs along the way.
You can learn more about this whole area in the episode above.
