From Burn to Earn: Sales Strategy in the Age of PE-Style VC
The shift in VC’s approach to funding and governance requires startups to build and manage their sales organizations in a new way.
Background
Venture capital is no longer playing the role it once did. What was once a high-velocity engine driving rapid, high-burn growth has slowed and morphed into something closer to private equity: cautious, operationally involved, and laser-focused on profitability. As my partner at Marlborough Street Partners Gene Zylkuski outlines in his article: “From Unicorn Dreams to PE Demands” posted two weeks ago, this shift is part of a broader realignment—one where VC increasingly adopts the tools, timeframes, and expectations once reserved for PE firms.
On the front line is sales:
Refined Sales Metrics
Sales productivity trumps simple volume. While in the past, fundraising announcements were quickly followed by aggressive hiring across sales: SDRs, AEs, enablement, and operations, VCs are now more circumspect about deploying capital merely on the promise of sales. Particularly those venture investors running small or mid-sized funds that struggle to gain LP commitments, now demand clear evidence of sales efficiency before they greenlight any expansion. Their LPs increasingly focus liquidity and predictability, which translates into VC firms asking startups to demonstrate such measures as CAC payback period of less than a year, or a path to breakeven on the current round.
Sales is no longer a volume game; it's a precision instrument, expected to prove its ROI in quarters, not years.
Focus, Not Footprint
Similarly, the “land and expand everywhere” playbook has been scrapped. Instead, startups are rewarded for their ability to dominate narrow Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) and to build deep engagement in well-defined verticals. This demand for sectoral focus closely resembles PE-backed businesses—nailing operational excellence in one vertical before daring to pursue another. From “land and expand” to “land and anchor demand.”
Spray-and-pray is dead. Strategic depth is the new frontier.
The Hybrid GTM Model
The Product-Led Growth (PLG) revolution promised sales-free growth. But in a capital-constrained world, even viral adoption models require monetization discipline. What we now see is a hybrid approach: self-serve top-of-funnel combined with highly efficient, surgically targeted sales teams. This mirrors the increasing operational involvement of VCs described by Zylkuski. Today’s investors aren’t just on the board, they’re in the trenches, bringing in CXO advisors, demanding structured reporting, and expecting the GTM engine to resemble a finely tuned machine.
This also means that sales teams are now expected to act on product usage data with near-PE level discipline, with greater emphasis on after sales customer success than ever before.
Operational Leverage over Headcount Growth
The rise of structured capital and hybrid financing models are more evidence of an increasingly mature and risk-managed approach to investing. That maturity extends into sales as well. Startups are no longer praised for headcount growth; they’re rewarded for output per rep. Automation, AI, and sales tech stacks aren’t just tools—they’re now prerequisites. The expectation is clear: grow revenue without growing burn. Scale outcomes, not org charts.
This echoes private equity’s mantra: do more with less and do it with visibility.
Final Thought: Precision Sales for a New Age
Taken together, “From Burn to Earn” and “From Unicorn Dreams to PE Demands” point to a fundamental truth: the venture capital ecosystem is undergoing a structural transformation, and startups must evolve with it. Sales, once seen as a growth catalyst at any cost, is now the frontline of financial discipline. It must produce returns, validate GTM assumptions early, and operate within constraints that echo the capital stewardship mandates of PE-backed enterprises.
Startups that succeed in this new paradigm will be the ones that blend scrappy innovation with disciplined execution—where sales isn’t just closing deals but proving the business model.
By Mike Curtin, Partner