Taking your SaaS to the US? Build the revenue team that makes it work.
Strive is the go-to-market and sales recruitment partner for UK and European SaaS companies scaling into America. We place your first US hire, and the team that follows.
The US isn't a bigger UK. Don't hire like it is.
Most founders open a US chapter with an office, an entity and a logo on a door. But an office doesn't sell anything. The first thing that decides whether America works for you is the person you put in front of American buyers. Get that hire right and you learn what actually lands. Get it wrong and you spend a year mistaking a bad hire for a broken market.
From your first US hire to a full revenue org
One partner across the whole journey into the US market, so you're not rebuilding your hiring process every time you scale.
Your first US hire
The market-entry hire that carries your read on the whole market. A player-coach VP Sales or a founding AE who can close early logos and lay the foundations for the team behind them.
The revenue team
AEs, SDRs, Sales Engineers, Customer Success and RevOps. We build out the team that turns a beachhead into a repeatable US motion.
GTM leadership
VP Sales, CRO and Head of Revenue searches for companies ready to put a senior leader on the ground and scale with intent.
The first hire sets the trajectory
Expanding to the US is a series of decisions, and the earliest ones compound. Here's where founders most often win or lose the market.
Hire first
The right salesperson before the office, the entity or the launch party. Let evidence, not a slide, drive the rest of the plan.
Local knowledge
Someone who has carried a bag in the US, knows the patch and is realistic about ramp, not your best London rep learning on the job.
Right comp
US on-target earnings sit well above UK bands. Benchmark to the US market or lose the candidate you actually want at offer stage.
What good looks like
A quick teardown of the moves that separate a smooth US launch from an expensive false start.
Hire the person, not the postcode
The first US hire is a market-entry decision dressed up as a job spec. They should close, tell you the truth about what's landing, and build the team behind them.
Match the shape to the stage
A closer when you need a builder, or a big-team leader when you need someone who'll still pick up the phone, are both expensive mistakes. Be honest about where you are.
Benchmark comp to the US
Base-to-variable splits and OTE differ from the UK. Get the package right up front and you keep your first-choice candidate in the process.
Go remote before bricks-and-mortar
A senior hire in the right time zone can prove US demand in a quarter or two, and justify the entity, office and next roles off real pipeline.
How UK SaaS teams have cracked the US
Anonymised examples from searches we've run. Details changed to protect client confidentiality.
“We were about to relocate our best London rep. Instead we hired a VP Sales in New York who'd built a US team before. She closed the first logos herself and hired the AEs who became the core of the team.”
UK B2B fintech, Series B - first US leadership hire. The London rep stayed home and hit their own number.
“We held off on the office entirely and made one senior AE hire, remote, in the right time zone. That hire generated enough US pipeline in two quarters to justify everything that came next.”
London developer-tools company - first US commercial hire. Entity and office followed the evidence.
Built for SaaS go-to-market hiring
GTM is all we do
We specialise in SaaS sales and revenue hiring, from SDR to CRO. Not a generalist agency with a tech desk on the side.
Both sides of the Atlantic
We work with UK and European SaaS companies scaling into the US, and know both talent markets and how comp, titles and expectations differ.
Quality over volume
A shortlist of people who can actually do the job in the US market, with honest guidance on shape, comp and timing at every stage.
SaaS expanding to the US: FAQs
When should we hire our first US sales leader?
When you have 2-3 founder-closed US logos, inbound US demand you can't serve from the UK, and 18+ months of runway from the hire date.
Should our first US hire be a VP Sales or an enterprise AE?
Below £5M ARR, an enterprise AE reporting into the UK CRO or founder is usually the better first hire.
Which US city should UK SaaS start in?
Pick the city where your buyers cluster. NYC for fintech/HR-tech/enterprise SaaS; SF for AI and dev tools; Boston for life sciences and higher ed; Austin for vertical SaaS.
How long does it take to hire a senior US sales leader?
Strive's average time-to-hire for a US senior sales role from a UK client is 42 days kickoff-to-offer.
Do we need a US entity to hire?
Not immediately. Most UK SaaS run their first 1-3 US hires through an Employer of Record while the entity is set up in parallel.
How is Strive different from US-based recruiters?
Strive specialises in the UK to US transition: founder context, operational layer (visa, EOR, entity), city-specific calibration, and a network of candidates who actively want to work for a UK-headquartered company.