Contingent Executive Search
Startup Executive Search
COO, Head of Sales, Head of Marketing, and Head of People — building the non-technical half of a founding team, direct-hire, Seed through Series B.
- Senior Practice Director, Blue Signal Search
- Contingent-first · No up-front retainer
- Twelve-month guarantee on every placement
I place the non-technical half of a startup's founding leadership team — COO, Head of Sales, Head of Marketing, and Head of People — the go-to-market and operations roles that get built alongside, not instead of, a technical team. Sourced against real early-stage, resource-constrained execution experience, not big-company title inflation.
Building the non-technical half of a founding team
Most startup hiring guidance focuses on the technical side — the CTO, the Founding Engineer, the VP of Engineering. But a startup that scales needs a non-technical leadership team just as much: someone building the sales motion, someone building the marketing engine, someone building the people function, and often a COO tying operations together.
I place that non-technical half: COO, Head of Sales, Head of Marketing, and Head of People — for Seed through Series B startups.
Roles I staff and place
Chief Operating Officer — operators who can build process and structure without slowing down a founding team’s speed.
Head of Sales — leaders with real zero-to-one sales-building experience, not managers of an already-scaled sales org.
Head of Marketing — leaders who can build a marketing function and pipeline from a handful of early customers, not run an established brand budget.
Head of People — leaders building a company’s first real people function — hiring process, culture, and early HR infrastructure.
Blue Signal Search vertical: as Senior Practice Director, my desk sources across this founding-team leadership range — firm-level search infrastructure behind every mandate, not a generalist recruiter's claim.
Featured roles
- Chief Operating Officer — for Series A and Series B startups building operational structure.
- Head of Sales — for Seed and Series A startups building their first repeatable sales motion.
- Head of Marketing — for Seed-stage startups building a marketing function from scratch.
- Head of People — for Series A and Series B startups building their first dedicated people function.
Pain patterns I see every quarter
Founders hire big-company operators who can’t function without infrastructure that doesn’t exist yet. A Head of Sales from an already-scaled sales org often struggles when there’s no CRM, no playbook, and no team to inherit.
“Head of” hires get filled with candidates who’ve never actually built the function. Someone who has only ever managed an existing team lacks the zero-to-one instincts a startup role actually requires.
Non-technical hiring gets deprioritized behind the technical team build-out. Founders spend months on engineering hires and treat GTM and people leadership as an afterthought, creating a growth bottleneck.
Startups move too slowly on critical early hires. A multi-month search process for a role a founding team needs filled now costs real momentum at this stage.
How I run the search
I start by confirming the company’s actual stage and resourcing, because Seed, Series A, and Series B all demand different things from a leadership hire. From there, sourcing runs against real zero-to-one execution experience, moving at the speed a founding team actually needs.
This search runs under Blue Signal Search, a national contingent and retained search firm — the affiliation gives this desk firm-level sourcing infrastructure and reference-checkable delivery history building non-technical startup founding teams.
Competitive positioning (respectful)
Heidrick & Struggles / Korn Ferry / Spencer Stuart — built for retained C-suite search at large enterprise scale, with engagement timelines and cost structures that don’t fit a Seed or Series A company’s speed and budget. Not a competing lane for this hub.
Cross-hub and next steps
For the technical half of a startup’s founding team — CTO, VP of Engineering, Founding Engineer — see Tech Recruiters. For the broader CEO/CFO-level VC-funded and PE-backed executive search model, see Executive Search Firms.
Schedule a 30-Minute Call with Dan — Calendly, dpoore@bluesignal.com, or 669-900-4504. That is the only conversion path.
How a search works
- 01 Confirm the company's actual stage and resourcing
Seed, Series A, and Series B all demand different things from a leadership hire — the search starts with that context.
- 02 Source against real zero-to-one execution experience
Candidates evaluated against real early-stage, resource-constrained building experience, not big-company title inflation.
- 03 Move at startup speed
Founders don't have months to fill a critical early hire — the process is built to move fast without skipping real evaluation.
Track record
Startup Placements
Roles placed across non-technical startup founding-team leadership. Client names and dates are withheld for confidentiality — role, level, and organization type are shown exactly as placed.
| Role placed | Level | Platform scale |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Operating Officer | C-Suite | Direct-hire, Series A startup |
| Head of Sales | VP/Head | Direct-hire, Series A startup |
| Head of Marketing | VP/Head | Direct-hire, Seed-stage startup |
| Head of People | Director | Direct-hire, Series B startup |
Every placement above carries a twelve-month guarantee. The only quantified claim published on this site — no fee percentages, no invented placement counts.
Case study
A recent placement
A Series A company needed a Head of Sales who could build a repeatable sales motion from a handful of early wins, not manage an already-scaled team. We sourced against real zero-to-one sales-building experience at comparable stage companies, and the hire built the company's first structured sales process within the standard search window.
The commitment
Twelve-month guarantee
Every placement carries a twelve-month guarantee. That is the only quantified claim on this site — no fee percentages, no invented placement counts.
Get in touch
Schedule a 30-Minute Call with Dan
Contingent-first. No up-front retainer. One conversion path — book the call.
Frequently asked questions
What startup roles do you recruit for?
COO, Head of Sales, Head of Marketing, and Head of People — the non-technical, go-to-market and operations side of a startup founding team.
Do you also place technical/engineering roles at startups?
Technical founding-team roles — CTO, VP of Engineering, Founding Engineer — are covered under Tech Recruiters. This hub is specifically the non-technical half of the team.
What stage companies is this for?
Primarily Seed through Series B, where a founding team is building out its first non-technical leadership hires.
What makes startup hiring different from established-company hiring?
Startup roles require real zero-to-one execution experience — building a function from scratch with limited resources — not experience managing an already-built team at a large company.
Do you place a Head of Sales who can build a sales process from scratch?
Yes. Head of Sales searches are evaluated against real early-stage sales-building experience, not experience running an already-established sales org.
Do you place a Head of People at the Seed or Series A stage?
Yes, when a company is building its first dedicated people function. Sourcing reflects real early-stage HR/people-ops build experience.
Who typically signs a startup executive search engagement?
Founders and CEOs of Seed through Series B companies building out their first non-technical leadership hires.