In the competitive world of crypto, securing the right Business Development (BD) leader can dramatically shape your project's trajectory. This guide, drawing from insights shared by Paradigm's team, outlines the pivotal role a BD hire plays in driving growth—from boosting Total Value Locked (TVL) through strategic partnerships to refining product distribution and expanding ecosystems. It also underscores why founders must lead early sales and how to time your first BD hire perfectly.
The market for early-growth talent in crypto has never been more competitive.
With open-source software offering few moats, distribution often becomes the decisive advantage for decentralized protocols and the platforms built on them. Hiring the right BD leader at the right moment can make all the difference.
Why Founders Should Lead Early Sales
Founders are inevitably their product's best salespeople. Maintaining a founder-led sales approach is critical during the initial customer acquisition and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development stages, for two key reasons:
- Higher likelihood of securing early deals: When selling an unproven product, buyers are essentially betting on the founder's ability to deliver an exciting roadmap. Founders are uniquely positioned to convey technical nuances, product vision, and genuine passion, convincing clients to take a risk on an unvalidated solution.
- Direct feedback for product refinement: In a startup's earliest days, sales and product development should be intertwined. Founders need to establish tight feedback loops with early prospects to refine the v1 product roadmap. Introducing a new hire too early can create friction and communication barriers.
Once you've validated product-market fit with an initial user base, you're typically ready to hire your first BD lead to scale distribution. The exception is if your protocol requires building a broad external ecosystem pre-launch; even then, it's best to wait until a handful of clients love your product.
Scaling Hustle into a Repeatable Process
A great BD leader takes the founder's "do things that don't scale" approach to landing first customers and transforms it into a scalable, repeatable sales machine for attracting the next hundreds or thousands of users.
Key parts of this scalable sales process include:
- Implementing a CRM (like Excel, Salesforce, or Copper) that can grow with the company and populating it with target market data.
- Qualifying inbound leads, conducting outbound outreach to new prospects, and looping in founders to help close the most impactful deals.
- Holding weekly pipeline meetings to keep leadership informed on market penetration and sales bottlenecks.
- Creating sales collateral, such as case studies, product updates, and onboarding guides, plus hypothesis-driven pitches to move leads through the funnel.
- Advocating for customer needs internally, guiding the product team toward features that drive adoption.
Ultimately, you need a BD hire who can both build sales infrastructure and execute the entire sales cycle—a blend of strategy and hands-on skill.
Prioritizing Execution and Crypto-Native Thinking
The most effective BD leaders often have backgrounds as startup founders or early employees who built functions from scratch. They take ownership, understand accountability, and align their work with broader company goals.
Beyond core communication and organizational skills, "crypto-native thinking" is a crucial hiring filter. Two soft skills help identify candidates who can endure multiple market cycles:
- Adaptability: Crypto sales differ sharply from traditional roles with established playbooks. A growth lead must improvise strategies as market conditions and narratives shift. What works in a bull market may fail in a bear market, and vice versa.
- Resilience: Crypto's cyclical nature demands a genuine belief in the industry's mission. Candidates driven solely by short-term gains often wash out during downturns. Successful BD strategies usually emerge through iteration, learning, and persistence.
While no candidate will perfectly fit every ideal, one with strong execution skills and deep crypto affinity will lay a foundation for long-term success.
The Critical Role of Tactical Execution
Many crypto startups over-index on strategy while under-investing in tactical execution. In surveys of adoption decisions, surprising determinants often come down to responsiveness: replying promptly to inquiries, following up on calls, or answering complex technical questions.
The compounding effect of superior tactics ultimately creates long-term winners. Prioritize candidates who can manage efficient processes and prevent leads from slipping away.
Consider asking interview questions like:
- What criteria do you use to tier leads as low, medium, or high priority? How does your process differ for each?
- What questions do you ask in initial conversations to assess lead fit?
- Is leading with a pitch deck a good strategy? How do you prefer to guide sales conversations?
- How soon do you follow up after an initial sales call, and what do you include?
- What strategies do you use to re-engage unresponsive leads?
- How do you adjust communication platforms, style, and frequency when a client enters implementation?
Even the most brilliant distribution strategy fails without meticulous daily execution. 👉 Explore more strategies for effective lead management
Measuring Performance with Leading Indicators
In emerging fields like crypto, external factors—market sentiment, regulatory shifts, macro trends—can heavily influence lagging indicators like revenue, TVL, user count, or volume. While these outcomes matter, it's equally important to track the leading indicators that drive them.
Founders should set a quantifiable North Star goal for the BD function based on early market signals, supported by primary and secondary metrics. This framework helps fairly evaluate performance amid industry volatility.
Example goal-setting structure:
- North Star: Achieve $5M Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) by year-end
- Primary Metrics: New paid customers; Average Annual Contract Value (ACV)
- Secondary Metrics: Deals in evaluation; New leads generated; Initial calls completed; Outbound messages sent
This approach isolates the BD team's operational effectiveness from external noise, ensuring the process remains robust regardless of market conditions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does BD stand for in crypto?
BD stands for Business Development. In crypto, it focuses on forming strategic partnerships, driving ecosystem growth, increasing TVL, and improving product distribution through collaborative deals and integrations.
When should a crypto startup hire its first BD lead?
Hire your first BD lead after achieving product-market fit with a small group of early users, when you're ready to scale distribution. If your protocol requires pre-launch ecosystem building, you might hire slightly earlier, but avoid bringing someone on before the founder has validated initial demand.
What's the difference between a BD role and a sales role in crypto?
Sales roles typically focus on closing specific deals or driving direct revenue. BD roles are broader, centering on forming long-term partnerships, expanding ecosystem integration, and developing strategic channels for growth, which indirectly drive metrics like TVL and user adoption.
How do I assess if a BD candidate is truly crypto-native?
Look for candidates who understand market cycles, can discuss key narratives (DeFi, NFTs, L2s, etc.), have on-chain experience, and show passion for crypto's core mission beyond short-term gains. Ask about their portfolio, projects they follow, and how they’ve adapted strategies across bull/bear markets.
What are the most important metrics for a crypto BD lead?
While goals vary by project, common metrics include partnership growth, integration count, TVL contribution, new user acquisition via partners, and deal pipeline health. Leading indicators like number of strategic outreaches or completed pitches are also crucial for tracking effort.
Can a founder handle BD indefinitely without hiring?
While founders should lead early sales, scaling requires dedicated focus. A BD hire allows founders to refocus on product, vision, and team building. If partnerships or business development are critical to growth, hiring a specialist becomes necessary to avoid missed opportunities.