Human-First: The GTM Hiring Show

How to Build a US Sales Team When You're Expanding From Europe with James Isilay

Most European founders expanding to the US make the same hiring mistake. This episode breaks down what actually works when building a commercial team across the Atlantic. Tired of watching US expansion burn through cash with nothing to show for it? Wondering whether to hire senior or junior first, which city to land in, or how to stop your new US team from churning out within a year? James Isilay founded Cognism and scaled it from zero to $80M+ ARR, navigating the move from the UK to the US firsthand, including an early pivot from New York to Boston that changed the trajectory of the business. He's since advised multiple high-growth B2B software companies on strategic expansion and go-to-market. You'll walk away with a clear framework for sequencing your US expansion: when to transplant your own people, when to start hiring locally, and the positioning work most founders skip that determines whether the whole thing sticks. This isn't theory, it's a playbook built from real decisions and real mistakes. This one is for European and UK-based SaaS founders and GTM leaders who are planning or actively navigating US expansion. If you're deciding on your first US hire, choosing a city, or trying to figure out why your US pipeline isn't converting, this is the episode. Key Takeaways >> Hiring a senior US sales leader before you've built a working system on the ground is the most common and most expensive way European founders fail at US expansion. >> Transplanting early employees from your home base creates a bridge between your existing playbooks and the new market, giving your US team access to the knowledge network that remote hires simply can't replicate. >> Choosing a city based on where your specific industry talent lives, not prestige or personal preference, dramatically affects hiring quality, retention, and cost. >> Founders need to find a tight ICP with high win rates in the US market before putting their foot on the pedal with sales hiring; without that foundation, you're accelerating from nothing. Chapter Markers 00:00 - Why hiring senior in the US usually fails 02:59 - The pattern behind failed European expansions 05:17 - Starting junior vs. transplanting your own team 06:32 - How often founders need to be on the ground 07:50 - New York to Boston: why geography matters 10:01 - Choosing a city based on talent, not prestige 12:27 - The competitor that burned through a Series A in San Francisco 14:04 - Time zone overlap and the East Coast advantage 15:09 - US vs. UK sales talent: cost, churn, and calibration 17:44 - Adapting your hiring process for the US market 20:33 - Building culture across a satellite office 22:33 - Why your UK brand doesn't transfer to the US 24:44 - Reducing churn: comp, culture, and in-office presence 26:46 - Working with specialist recruiters in the US 28:55 - The one thing James would tell every founder before expanding 30:17 - Honest signals that you're ready and false ones that trick you 33:08 - Quickfire round Useful Links & Resources James Isilay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-isilay/ Captivate Talent: https://www.captivatetalent.com/ Danielle Parker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/ Chris Gannon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gannonchristopher/ Connect With the Show LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/ What's been your biggest surprise expanding a team into the US? Or if you're planning it right now, what's the question keeping you up at night? Drop it in the comments, we read every one and it helps shape future episodes. If this episode gave you a clearer picture of what US expansion actually takes, subscribe and share it with a founder who's about to make the move. New episodes drop every fortnight.

Why Your First Sales Hire Is Making or Breaking Your Series A with Ben Newsome

Your first revenue-generating hire can unlock your Series A or quietly burn 12 months of runway. This episode breaks down how to get it right. Hiring your first salesperson when you don't come from a sales background? You don't know what "great" looks like, sellers are experts at selling themselves, and the old playbook of poaching from a big-logo company keeps backfiring. Sound familiar? Ben Newsome is VP of Talent and People at Cherry Ventures. He's spent his career inside the talent functions of major European VC firms, advising hundreds of early-stage B2B tech companies on their most critical GTM hires. You'll walk away knowing exactly what behavioral traits to interview for, why the "hire from Gong" instinct usually fails at seed stage, and the concrete steps to take before you talk to a single candidate. This is a practical hiring diagnostic, not theory. This one's for early-stage B2B founders, revenue leaders, and the VCs backing them. We cover the founding AE archetype, how to test for entrepreneurial grit in interviews, when founders hire too early, and the referencing mistakes that keep costing startups months of runway.  Key Takeaways >> The strongest first GTM hires weight 75% toward attitude and behavior and only 25% toward experience and the interview questions you ask are the fastest way to see the difference. >> Hiring a seasoned operator from a growth-stage company often backfires because you can hide inside a mature playbook. Early-stage demands a generalist who's already proven they can build from zero. >> Founders should stress-test their go-to-market assumptions before opening the role, not after. The gaps you find will reshape the job description entirely. >> Firing fast only works when you're high-conviction in your GTM strategy; if you're not, seek advice fast and audit the whole machine, not just the hire. Chapter Markers 00:00 - The cost of getting this hire wrong 02:51 - Real examples of misfired GTM hires delaying funding rounds 04:18 - The founding AE archetype: what to actually look for 05:49 - How to interview for attitude, resilience, and entrepreneurial grit 07:57 - Why the "big logo" enterprise seller keeps failing at seed stage 10:17 - Behavioral interview questions that separate operators from talkers 13:15 - Stage specificity: identifying true early-stage operators 15:26 - How exposure and relationship-building signal a great GTM hire 17:15 - The link between first sales hire quality and Series A graduation 19:54 - How to know if a founder is actually ready for their first commercial hire 21:52 - Fire fast or coach through it? When to cut ties vs. course correct 27:40 - The founder's role: coaching, relinquishing control, and setting hires up to win 30:20 - Three things every founder should do before talking to a single candidate 32:25 - The one question Ben wishes every founder would ask him Useful Links & Resources * Ben Newsome on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennewsome/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennewsome/] * Cherry Ventures: https://www.cherry.vc/ [https://www.cherry.vc/] Connect With the Show * Captivate Talent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/] * Danielle Parker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/] * Captivate Talent website: https://www.captivatetalent.com/ [https://www.captivatetalent.com/] What did your first GTM hire teach you, the hard way or the good way? Drop your story in the comments. If you're a founder navigating this decision right now, we'd love to hear what's tripping you up. Visit captivatetalent.com [http://captivatetalent.com] to learn how we help B2B tech companies hire exceptional GTM talent.

How to Build a Hiring Strategy That Survives the AI Tsunami

Welcome to Human First.  AI is reshaping every stage of the hiring funnel. But the companies winning the talent war aren't the ones automating the most, they're the ones knowing exactly where to draw the line. You're buried in AI-optimized applications, unsure which tools to trust, and wondering whether your recruiting function even has a future. Sound familiar? Hung Lee curates Recruiting Brainfood, the most trusted newsletter in the talent profession, read by over 39,000 recruiters and HR professionals weekly. With 20+ years as an agency recruiter, Head of Talent, and recruitment tech founder, he's one of the few people who can separate genuine AI signal from vendor noise. This conversation gives you a practical framework for where AI belongs in your hiring process and where human judgment is non-negotiable. You'll walk away knowing how to protect your recruiting function while using technology to move faster. Hung and the Captivate Talent team break down the real impact of AI on recruiting, the case for founder-led hiring, and why employer branding needs radical authenticity right now. Built for founders, GTM leaders, and anyone responsible for building high-performing teams at startups and SaaS companies. Key Takeaways >> AI won't kill recruiting, but it will dramatically shrink the number of specialist recruiters needed, as non-specialists gain the tools to recruit effectively on their own. >> "Human in the loop" sounds reassuring, but most companies haven't tested what happens when AI recommendations and human intuition directly conflict and the answer matters more than you think. >> The AI-powered application flood is pushing companies back toward old-school sourcing, referrals, and gated communities as the only tenable way to manage candidate quality. >> Founders who build in public sharing raw, unpolished content about what they're hiring for and why, solve their employer branding and recruiting problems simultaneously. Chapter Markers 00:00 Is recruiting dead? The case for resilience 02:15 LinkedIn, job boards, and why "recruiter killer" tech keeps failing 03:45 What "human in the loop" actually means in practice 07:10 Assessment tools, AI delegation, and the temptation to avoid risk 09:29 Where AI agents belong in the recruiting funnel 11:23 Interview scheduling, intelligence, and high-volume screening 13:00 Voice interviewing and when candidates prefer talking to AI 16:31 AI bias, LLM training data, and the honesty problem 18:41 The K-shaped job market and who wins in an AI economy 21:03 Candidates weaponizing AI: the application flood crisis 24:29 How founders should think about building their core team 25:55 Founder-led hiring: how long should CEOs stay hands-on? 28:05 Talent strategy vs. hiring plan and why founders confuse them 29:17 Employer branding in the age of AI: radical authenticity wins 32:49 Rapid fire: remote vs. in-person, favorite tools, and hot takes Useful Links & Resources * Hung Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunglee/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunglee/] * Recruiting Brainfood Newsletter: https://www.recruitingbrainfood.com/ [https://www.recruitingbrainfood.com/] * Captivate Talent: https://www.captivatetalent.com/ [https://www.captivatetalent.com/] Connect With the Show * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/] * Website: https://www.captivatetalent.com/ [https://www.captivatetalent.com/] * Danielle Parker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/] * Chris Gannon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gannonchristopher/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/gannonchristopher/] What's your take? Where should AI stop and human judgment start in your hiring process? Drop your thoughts in the comments or tag us on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear how your team is navigating the AI hiring wave. If this episode made you rethink your recruiting strategy, visit https://www.captivatetalent.com/ [https://www.captivatetalent.com/] to see how Captivate Talent helps founders and GTM leaders build the teams that matter most.

How to Stop Vibe Hiring and Build a Sales Team That Actually Scales

Most companies say they want AI-native hires. Almost none of them can tell the real thing from a polished talking point. You're writing "AI fluency required" into every job description, but when you sit across from a candidate, you don't actually know what good looks like. And your interview process? It's probably optimized for charisma, not competence. Kyle Norton is CRO at Owner.com, one of the fastest-growing companies in restaurant tech B2B Tech. He leads a GTM org spanning sales, partnerships, onboarding, demand gen, rev ops, and enablement and he's built a dedicated Applied AI function inside his revenue team that most companies haven't even considered yet. This conversation gives you a concrete framework for assessing AI fluency in interviews, a clear case for centralizing AI capability instead of spreading it thin, and a structured hiring process that replaces gut feel with repeatable data. You'll walk away knowing exactly where to invest and where to stop guessing. Kyle breaks down the AI sophistication ladder for GTM professionals, explains why early-career hires are outperforming tenured reps at Owner.com, and makes the case for killing vibe-based interviews for good. This one's for revenue leaders, founders, and hiring managers building teams that need to be competitive in the next two to three years. Key Takeaways >> Centralized AI teams produce orders-of-magnitude better output than reps tinkering side-of-desk. Kyle explains why he made Applied AI the first hire after Owner.com's Series C. >> AI fluency matters most at senior and leverage roles like rev ops, but frontline managers and reps don't necessarily need it if the right infrastructure exists around them. >> The fastest way to spot genuine AI fluency in an interview is to be deeply fluent yourself or have someone who is sitting in the process. Buzzwords fall apart fast under real scrutiny. >> Structured interviews with identical questions, weighted scorecards, and separated criteria consistently outperform "vibe hiring" and they're the only way to build a data set you can actually learn from when a hire doesn't work out. Chapter Markers 00:00 - Kyle Norton on AI fluency and hiring on vibes 01:56 - The internet comparison: why AI is already table stakes 04:48 - Where to actually learn about AI: Twitter, YouTube, and the feed algorithm 08:58 - Interviewing for AI fluency: what genuine answers look like 13:39 - Building a centralized Applied AI function inside GTM 16:45 - How the Applied AI team expanded beyond sales 19:04 - Why Owner.com shifted to early-career hiring 23:33 - Finding top talent at lesser-known companies 26:15 - The structured interview process: scorecards, mock calls, and bar raisers 32:32 - Go-to-market org structures for the next 2–3 years 36:25 - One concrete step: kill vibe hiring this week 40:09 - Danielle's closing thoughts Useful Links & Resources * Kyle Norton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylecnorton/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylecnorton/] * Owner.com: https://www.owner.com/ [https://www.owner.com/] Connect With the Show * Captivate Talent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/] * Danielle Parker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/] * Captivate Talent website: https://www.captivatetalent.com/ [https://www.captivatetalent.com/] When did you last audit your interview process against real performance data? Drop your take in the comments or share the one hiring change that made the biggest difference for your team. If this episode made you rethink how you're hiring for AI fluency or structuring your interviews, share it with a founder or revenue leader who needs to hear it. And if you're building a GTM team that needs to be competitive in the next few years, visit captivatetalent.com [https://www.captivatetalent.com/]

AI Fluency Is the New Hiring Litmus Test for Go-to-Market Leaders

Welcome to Human First.  The bar for AI fluency in go-to-market hiring has shifted dramatically and most executives haven't caught up. You know you need to talk about AI in interviews, but you're not sure what "good" actually looks like anymore. Is using ChatGPT to brainstorm enough? Should you be building dashboards? And how do you evaluate something you're still figuring out yourself? Andy Mowat built and scaled RevOps and demand gen at four unicorns - Box, Upwork, Culture Amp, and Carta. Now, as founder of Whispered, he's in constant conversation with senior GTM leaders about how AI is reshaping the way they hire and get hired. Few people have a broader, more grounded view of what's actually happening. In this launch episode of Human First, Danielle Parker from Captivate Talent, and Andy get tactical about what AI fluency means right now, how it's being tested in interviews, and what you can do in the next 30 days to get across the chasm. You'll walk away with a clearer picture of what hiring managers are really asking and how to answer. Key Takeaways >> The AI fluency bar has moved from "curious" to "builder" in under 12 months. Using tools like Gamma or ChatGPT for slide decks is no longer enough to impress in interviews. >> Most executives don't realize they're overselling their AI skills because the technology is moving faster than their self-assessment and many interviewers can't probe deeply enough to tell the difference. >> The traditional take-home case study is broken and AI makes every submission look polished, so hiring managers need to rethink whether they're evaluating real thinking or just well-prompted output. >> Hiring managers are over-indexing on "builder" without asking what's behind the question, whether it's doing more with less, flying low and high, or actually implementing AI tooling are three very different needs. Chapter Markers 00:00 The question behind "hire a builder" 01:00 - Introduction to Andy Mowat and Whispered 01:38 - Biggest shifts in executive hiring conversations 03:33 - How AI fluency evaluation has changed 07:23 - What AI-fluent leaders actually sound like day to day 09:27 - Rev ops as the bridge role for GTM AI adoption 13:01 - How candidates oversell AI skills without realizing it 15:22 - Recognizing genuine AI passion in interviews 17:18 - Whispered's view on roles being reshaped by AI 19:23 - What rev ops looks like in two years 22:16 - The 30-day playbook to cross the AI chasm 28:30 - Is AI fluency learnable or inherent? 33:17 - Why take-home case studies are broken 38:06 - What should replace the case study 40:59 - Where go-to-market hiring is heading in 2-3 years 43:18 - One thing to do differently this week Useful Links & Resources * Whispered: [https://www.whispered.com/] AI platform for executive career moves * Whispered Hiring Podcast: Andy's podcast on GTM hiring * Claude Code by Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com [https://www.anthropic.com/] * Lovable [https://lovable.dev/]: No-code app building platform * HyperBound [https://www.hyperbound.ai/]: AI role-play platform for sales enablement Connect With the Show * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/captivate-talent/] * Website: https://www.captivatetalent.com/ [https://www.captivatetalent.com/] * Danielle Parker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemessler/] If this conversation hit home, we'd love to hear from you. What's the hardest part of evaluating AI fluency in your hiring process? Drop a comment or send Danielle a message on LinkedIn — these are the conversations that make this show better. Head to https://www.captivatetalent.com/ [https://www.captivatetalent.com/] to see how Captivate Talent can help you find the right GTM leaders for what's next.