Define the market edge
Identify the ICP, buyer, and urgent pain worth building a motion around.
Founding GTM · Enterprise Sales
Shareef
El-Sayed
I build the first commercial engine at technical startups.
The messy 0→1 stage: define the ICP, validate positioning in-market, build the sales motion, and turn early traction into repeatable pipeline.
Role at AutomatFirst sales hire
Commercial resultSeven-figure ARR
Operating stageThrough Series A
What I do
From founder-led traction to a commercial system.
The work sits between product truth and revenue execution: find the edge, prove it with customers, and build the motion around what actually converts.
Prove the positioning
Put the story in front of real buyers and sharpen it through live market feedback.
Create pipeline
Build practical outbound and demand motions that produce qualified enterprise conversations.
Run the enterprise cycle
Own discovery, technical alignment, executive buy-in, close, and expansion.
Earn reference accounts
Turn early customers into durable relationships, referrals, and strategic leverage.
Make the motion repeatable
Codify what works and help recruit, mentor, and onboard the team that follows.
Selected case study
Automat
Founding GTM, Enterprise · Mar 2024 — May 2026
Joined as the first sales hire with no established sales motion. Built the commercial engine from scratch — outbound strategy, ICP definition, and full-cycle enterprise sales.
A technical product needed a market focus, a repeatable story, and a path into enterprise accounts.
Defined and proved the lending ICP while owning outbound and enterprise cycles across complex industries.
Helped take the company through the Series A, then recruited and mentored the AE and SDR who formed the sales team.
Found and proved the lending wedge.
Built deep pipeline across mortgage lenders, credit unions, and regional banks, while selling across mortgage operations, banking, insurance, logistics, and financial services.
Made strategic accounts compound.
Closed and expanded key enterprise accounts, converting one customer relationship into a strategic investor and industry referral source.
Career track record
Technical selling, built layer by layer.
Automat2024 — 2026
Founding GTM, Enterprise
First sales hire. Built the motion from zero and helped produce seven-figure ARR through the Series A.
Granica2022 — 2023
Enterprise Account Executive
Early GTM hire selling PaaS and cloud cost optimization to Fortune 500 infrastructure and FinOps buyers.
Amplitude2020 — 2022
Enterprise Sales Development
Generated and qualified enterprise pipeline through the company’s IPO; supported complex discovery and adoption motions.
PredictHQ2019 — 2020
Enterprise Sales Development
Developed named-enterprise opportunities and built prospecting frameworks that became part of the early GTM process.
Zayo Group2018 — 2019
Account Manager
One of 10 founding Boulder team members; contributed to $1.2M in net new revenue and 100%+ first-year sales growth.
Tesla2016 — 2018
Account Executive
Ranked 4th in North America and 8th globally in month one; maintained a top-10 global ranking throughout tenure.
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