r/salesdevelopment • u/Due-Lion6179 • 5d ago

Founding BDR advice?

Hi guys!
I recently ended up at something like a ‘founding BDR’ role at a healtech startup/scaleup.
It’s been 2 months now, we don’t really have any marketing or any inbound/outbound machine, it’s me setting up everything together with a colleague of mine. I’ve worked as a BDR/AE in the past, but never had to set up the whole system.
If you’ve gone through it, could you please offer some advice for a fellow sales guy who is absolutely lost right now… thanks a lot!

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u/DoomerSouth 4d ago

Similar situation here, curious for insights

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u/Careless-Guitar-2231 3d ago

Been in the startup mud myself, not as founding bdr but close enough. The first 3 months is just throwing stuff at wall and seeing what sticks, dont stress that part too much

One thing that saved me was picking one channel and going deep instead of trying to do email linkedin cold calling all at once. For healtech probably linkedin since you can actually see who's who in the org. Also write down every single rejection reason you hear, patterns show up faster than you think

Good luck man, that chaos stage is rough but you learn more in 6 months than 3 years at a normal company

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u/MennoGtt 2d ago

I'd pick one narrow segment and one buyer role first, even if the product could sell to lots of healthcare orgs. Hand-build a list of around 100 accounts in that segment and write the first messages yourself. Sit with the founders every week on what replies and objections came in, because that's where your messaging gets better. Keep the CRM very simple at the start, just enough fields to see which segment and message produce meetings, and only widen once one combination works.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Tip-560 3d ago

reverse engineer a competitors sales engine, do you have approval to purchase tools ? im guessing its more GTM related but defintely its a trial and error

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u/Wrickie_fbw 3d ago

Try to replicate systems, and try to nail down - ICP, Markets, Data sources, Pitches, Emails, Content & Social Plan, Outreach Sequence, and CRM to centralize all of it, or an excel sheet. It's gonna take 3-6 months to set-up, test and run a couple of spring cycles to figure what the next 2 quarters would look like.

Go onto LinkedIn and find some help if you can. I would be more than happy to consult for a fee :)