How Pump became one of the fastest growing YC companies | Why D1 Athletes Win at Sales | Why Experience is Overrated in Early-Stage Hiring | The 4:30am Cold Call Strategy | Paul Russo, Sales Leader at Pump.co

Pump.co is one of the fastest growing YC companies. They got there partially by building an incredible sales team, stacked with talent that was overlooked by many.

In this episode, Paul Russo, a sales leader at Pump unpacks a sales-hiring system built for aggressive, early-stage growth. You’ll hear how to source elite junior talent, pressure-test them with mock cold calls, and ramp them into technical AEs who still outbound hard. He also shares promotion gates, call quotas, and the culture required to chase incredibly ambitious goals.

Our guest Paul Russo is employee #1 and a sales leader at Pump.co, the company that helps startups save up to 60% on cloud costs - for free.

05:09 - The “weird” target formula forcing 20% month-over-month revenue growth.

07:48 - Do individual-sport athletes outperform team players in enterprise sales?

09:10 - Outbound-first: hire technical AEs over “been-there enterprise” veterans.

11:22 - Why we prefer scientists over business majors for AWS selling.

11:43 - Recruit “future founders” and frame the role as founder school.

13:24 - Scale with hungry rookies led by seasoned pod leaders.

15:24 - YC Bookface + Top-20 schools: an elite sales-athlete pipeline.

20:02 - Cold-call candidates with traction—sell the unicorn vision first.

23:10 - COO screen routes talent; extroverts go sales, introverts to ops.

26:01 - Mock cold calls, no context: test grit, tone, coachability fast.

29:09 - Demand real conflict stories—“I never fight” is a red flag.

29:52 - Assess disciplined routines: 4:30am calls require athlete-like habits.

31:10 - Explain FinOps simply: reserved instances are leases, not compute.

35:39 - Cultural bar: 12–16-hour days, aiming for a 2028 IPO.

37:48 - Onboarding: Pump University, daily mocks, Nooks-powered 750-call days.

40:36 - Two-month ramp; PIPs are coaching tools, not pre-firing.

43:04 - Promotion ladders with hard gates; AEs still dial 250/day.

47:08 - Friendly pod rivalry + “rebuttal ball” spreads best practices.

53:41 - First sales hire playbook: top-school hunter, athlete, founder-aspiring—equity-heavy.