Tech Support: Posing Questions to Yellow Jacket Business Execs

These three Yellow Jacket entrepreneurs pose startup questions to seasoned Tech business executives.

Question: At what point do we pivot from founder-led sales to hiring a full-time sales team?
–Joseph Ashley, BME 23, M BID 25, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, RD Medical

Cole Malenich, BME 25, and I started RD Medical after working as interns with the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Security Innovation Network. We spent summer 2023 at Fort Stewart helping soldiers advance their own innovations as well as working on our own project to develop improved equipment for medical training. After interviewing medics, instructors, and others, we focused on tourniquet application and wound packing, an area lacking accessible and effective training aids.

Using 3D printers, we created an arm replicating bloodflow through various wound types. Through feedback, testing, and additional iterations, we developed a high-fidelity, low-cost training aid that found immediate interest. The first week we started accepting orders at RD Medical, in fact, we sold our first set of arms to Metro Atlanta Ambulance. Over the last year, we’ve continued to scale sales with first responder agencies and, more recently, technical colleges.

We’re engineers, so we’re good at building things. However, sales are not our core competency. At what point do we raise money and pivot from founder-led sales to hiring a full-time sales team?

Expert Answer: Deborah Kilpatrick, ESM 89, MS ME 94, PhD ME 96, is a partner with Sonder Capital, a Silicon Valley–based venture firm partnering with cutting-edge companies to transform standards of care in the medtech and healthtech landscapes. She received the 2025 John B. Carter, Jr. Spirit of Georgia Tech Award.

This is a common issue that hits all founders at one time or another. One thing to know immediately: Founders like you are often the company’s best salespeople. You understand the company better than anyone. You’ve practiced the foundational message and pitch more than anyone. And you made the company’s first sales. So you should never really stop selling because you are the unique voice of your company. Now, when it comes to hiring a sales team, I’d look for signals the company is getting close to a repeatable sales process. If you have more than 10 customers and you’re hitting a 20 to 30 percent close rate on qualified leads, for instance, those are signs there’s probably something repeatable here. Then, maybe you hire one to two full-time sellers who work directly with you to learn the pitch and sales motion. As deal volume grows, you can incorporate a junior salesperson to focus on sales operations or enablement to maximize efficiency of your commercial effort overall.

Before investing in a sales team of any size, however, it’s my strong opinion you should have solid hygiene around customer relationship management (CRM) because that’s the foundation of scaling a sales team and how it operates. For me, the earlier you can tighten things up in this area, the better, because it establishes discipline and allows you to align incentives in creative ways. For me, it’s pragmatic, not magic. “Plan the work and work the plan” is real.

As a founder, you will never really stop selling, but your sales role should evolve to focus on your most important and significant customers and strategic partnerships. And because you know your product better than anyone else, your involvement here always provides an important feedback loop to your product team. In the end, building a successful sales team takes intention and focus, just like when you started the company in the first place.

Question: What are sound strategies for converting inbound leads into high-value clients?

–Jeffrey Murray, CmpE 21, founder & CEO, dot. cards

I started dot. cards in Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X incubator program during the early months of the pandemic. I had done a lot of freelance photography and videography, and whenever I was out on a shoot, people would inevitably come up to me and ask for my info.

Just as QR codes and tap technology were taking off, I created dot. cards as a digital business card. Our products use NFC (near-field communication) to seamlessly, quickly transfer contact information and social media links. After developing our initial software and finding a manufacturing partner, an early seed investment helped us get off the ground. Since then, we’ve bootstrapped things, relying on the profit margins of the business, growing to 35 team members and various form factors, including stickers and a premium metal version. We recently crossed 2 million devices sold and have 1.3 million users on our platform.

We’re in the early stages of building out our sales team, and we want to convert the inbound volume of requests into high-value clients and subscriptions. What strategies and tips would you offer for accomplishing that objective?

Expert Answer: Kofi Smith, IE 99, MBA 09, is the founder of Atlanta-based Keystone Management, a fully integrated facility management, construction management, program, and property management company. He previously served a 10-year stint as president and CEO of the Atlanta Airlines Terminal Company. 

I am truly amazed and inspired by your ability to achieve such significant growth in such a short period of time. I also founded my company during the pandemic, so I understand firsthand how remarkable it is to build a team of 35 and reach 1.3 million users—an incredible accomplishment by any measure.

As you continue to scale your business—both in clients and subscriptions—I’d like to share three key principles I emphasize in my Entrepreneurship in Construction course at the Georgia Tech School of Building Construction. These concepts may help you as you prepare to scale effectively and sustainably.

First, prepare to scale intentionally by ensuring you have the people capacity, production capacity, and capital capacity to support your growth. The worst thing is to grow too fast, swell, and then burst because you did not anticipate or target how much growth you would like to experience.

Second, segment your clients strategically into categories so that you know where to devote most of your people resources, such as enterprise/corporate accounts. You can then leverage technology and AI to efficiently serve smaller businesses and individual users that require less human touch.

Third, put in place repeatable systems and standardized processes for qualifying leads, setting expectations for response times, and tracking conversion from leads to high-valued client adoption.

Lastly, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries, and The $100M Journey, by John St.Pierre. Both offer excellent insights into sustainable scaling and operational excellence.

Question: How do I cut through the noise to make our case to decision-makers?
–Johnathan Fitch, IE 23, co-founder, GlucoSense

I’ve lived with Type 1 diabetes for about 15 years now, and despite having access to the latest diabetes treatment technologies—including insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs)—I still experienced an unpredictable seizure during finals week in my junior year at Tech. That experience sparked the creation
of GlucoSense in 2023.

GlucoSense is a highly personal, autonomous care platform for people living with diabetes, about one in nine adults globally. Our proprietary technology turns existing data from CGMs and wearable devices into straightforward guidance on blood sugar patterns, empowering people with diabetes to make fewer, more-informed decisions about their lifestyle and better manage their condition.

At present, we have several thousand users across all 50 states, we’ve secured a partnership with Dexcom, and we recently launched pilots across Georgia with Wellstar, the largest health system in the Southeast. When a user connects their CGM to GlucoSense, we see up to 47 percent weekly active engagement, which is a significant figure for a healthcare app.

We believe the best way to scale our business is through adoption by major health payers. We have a compelling case to make for them, including up to a five-times return on investment through a reduction in ineffective forms of care and avoidable events, such as ER visits. Leaders at these enterprises get bombarded with pitches, though. So how do we cut through the noise and earn the opportunity to state our case before decision-makers?

We believe the best way to scale our business is through adoption by major health payers. We have a compelling case to make for them, including up to a five-times return on investment through a reduction in ineffective forms of care and avoidable events, such as ER visits. Leaders at these enterprises get bombarded with pitches, though. So how do we cut through the noise and earn the opportunity to state our case before decision-makers?

Expert Answer: Paul Brown, Mgt 89, is the cofounder and CEO of Inspire Brands, a multi-brand restaurant company headquartered in Atlanta. Inspire’s portfolio includes more than 33,000 Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, and SONIC restaurants around the globe.

A good starting point is going to conferences where you think these individuals will be. Good companies are always looking for the next big thing. They want innovation. They want products and services capable of enhancing their business. So, attending conferences is one way to get yourself, your business, and your product in front of these players to spark a relationship.

If you’re raising money, then do so with an eye on firms who can provide high-value connections. Having relationships with the right venture capital firms can bring a network to the table you can leverage to drive your business’s growth. Think about who can make introductions, not just who can write a check.

And network—heavily. If you’re doing work with one firm, might they give referrals to others or make a call on your behalf? Are there Tech alumni you might contact? I get a lot of calls from people I respect—vendors, colleagues, peers, and others—who ran across a product or technology they think I might be interested in, and I give them time because I know them and trust their judgment. Consider who can play a similar role for you.

Collectively, actions like these can generate positive momentum and create opportunities to get before decision-makers and share your story.