Why I Left a Six-Figure Role to Become a Fractional Sales Leader

I left a six-figure leadership role at monday.com in December 2024, closing out a 14-year career built on delivering revenue through both direct and channel sales. My last four years were spent as Head of Channel Partnerships for Northern Europe. Not because I burnt out, and not for "more freedom." I left because I'd worked out that succeeding and failing in a corporate sales role lead to the same place: a job search.

The trap of succeeding in a big company

Here's the pattern I kept living through. Build a repeatable sales motion. Build a high-performing team. The company grows. Growth adds hierarchy and red tape. I lose interest and start looking for a smaller company to do it again.

Fail, and the outcome is the same job search, just faster and with a P45.

Both paths have a shelf life. Neither gave me what I actually wanted, which was to keep doing the part of the job I was best at and cared about most.

What I actually love: 0 to 1

The part I never got tired of was 0 to 1. Selling a product that doesn't quite exist yet. Using the first few pounds of customer revenue to shape what gets built next, not the other way round. That phase disappears the moment a company has product-market fit and starts scaling process instead of testing it.

Across my career, at Struq, Captify, Fountain and monday.com, I got 0 to 1 in short bursts, then watched it get replaced by process each time. I wanted to live in that phase permanently. The only way to do that on repeat is to work with a new 0 to 1 founder every few months instead of staying inside one company as it grows past that stage. That's what a fractional sales leader does, and it's why I started Project Revenue.

The first six months were a mess

I won't pretend I had a clean thesis on day one. For the first six months, I was "fixing sales" for whoever hired me, with no defined offer. Every engagement was different. I was context-switching hour to hour, which meant I was delivering value but couldn't repeat any of it.

Working across those first clients, one gap kept showing up regardless of industry or product: sales foundations. Messaging that didn't say anything specific. No defined ICP, so every lead looked equally worth chasing. No sales process, so deals stalled for reasons nobody could name. Founders who'd sold well themselves but had nothing repeatable to hand to the first sales hire.

That pattern is what became Revenue Sprints: a fixed-scope engagement that fixes messaging, ICP and sales process before anything else. Foundations before tactics, every time, because tactics built on nothing collapse the moment the founder isn't in the room.

Why fractional, not another full-time role

A fractional sales leader gets paid to solve the 0 to 1 problem, then move to the next one. No hierarchy to manage, no growth-stage red tape to wait out, no cliff-edge between "still useful" and "restructured out." The constraint that made corporate sales a dead end for me is the same constraint a fractional model removes.

It also matches what most early-stage AI founders actually need. Most of my clients come from product, engineering or marketing, not sales. They don't need a VP Sales hire, which is expensive, slow to ramp, and premature before the foundations exist. They need someone who's built the motion before to build it with them, then leave them able to run it without me.

What "done" looks like now

I judge my own work on two tests: can the founder repeat what I built without me in the room, and would a buyer actually act on it. That's a higher bar than "the deck looked good in the review call," and it's the bar monday.com never really asked me to hit, because a big company doesn't need everything to be repeatable by one person. A 0 to 1 founder does.

Frequently asked questions

What does a fractional sales leader do?
A fractional sales leader builds the sales foundations, messaging, ICP definition and process, a startup needs to sell repeatably, working part-time or project-based rather than as a full-time hire. It suits founders who've sold well themselves but have nothing documented or repeatable to hand off.

Why is fractional sales leadership a good fit for early-stage AI startups?
Early-stage AI founders are usually strong on product but light on sales structure. A full-time VP Sales hire is expensive and premature before the foundations exist. A fractional leader solves the immediate gap at a fraction of the cost and hands over something the founder can run alone.

How long does a typical engagement take?
A Revenue Sprint, covering messaging, ICP and sales process, typically runs four to six weeks. It starts with a Diagnostic call to surface the specific gaps before any work begins.

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