The Challenge:

This company had closed 10-12 enterprise logos over the prior four to five months, entirely through a founder-led, product-led-growth motion — the founder handling all AE work himself, with no dedicated BDR. Two channels were going underserved as a result: PLG signups from strong-fit companies weren't being followed through to a demo or close (a "reverse free trial" motion — someone signs up, gets qualified, and should get a call before the window closes), and warm-intent signals — LinkedIn engagement, newsletter signups — weren't being consistently converted from MQL to SQL. The founder named this explicitly as his chokepoint: enough pipeline that he could no longer personally handle it, but no consistent discipline calling and qualifying the warm leads already in hand.

The founder had already personally interviewed a few candidates before reaching out to Scooter, and had identified a near-miss profile — 2-3 years' experience, technical B2B SaaS background — that fell through on culture fit alone. That gave Scooter a concrete lookalike brief to source against, rather than a generic SDR spec. Budget discussed at kickoff: a fixed range of roughly ₹10-12L, with a standard 60/40 fixed-to-variable split recommended as a starting point (the role ultimately posted at a ₹6-12L fixed band).

What changed:

Scooter sourced and screened 330 candidates against the specific lookalike profile the founder had already vetted through his own process, moving 156 to video interview and completing video assessments with 67. Interviews tested for what the founder said actually mattered — not raw call volume, but qualification judgment (budget, authority, need, timing) and readiness for later-stage skills like objection handling and demo delivery, since the role was scoped broader than a pure SDR: closer to a junior AE/BDR hybrid who could eventually run demos himself and free up founder time for closing.

The results:

From the kickoff call to a confirmed start date took 26 days. The candidate hired brought 4+ years of B2B SDR/BDR experience, including a 25-month stint as a Founding SDR at another B2B SaaS company, his longest tenure on record, and a direct signal he'd already done the zero-to-one version of this exact role before.

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