Prelude

Velocity Account Executive - SMB (French & English) at Prelude (Paris, France)

Prelude· Paris, France·

Role details

Work type
Hybrid
Employment
Full-Time
Skills
SaaS SalesCold CallingCold EmailingLinkedIn ProspectingOutbound SalesPipeline GenerationSMB SalesHubSpot
Benefits

Competitive Base Salary With Uncapped Commission · BSPCEs (Bonus Shares) · Hybrid Working Style · High-End Gear And Ergonomic Setup · 100% Travel Subsidized To Paris Office · Private Health Insurance · Swile Meal Vouchers · Gym Pass

Summary

The Account Executive will drive high-volume outbound sales by cold calling, emailing, and LinkedIn prospecting to build pipeline from scratch. This role involves owning the full sales cycle for SMB deals, conducting rapid discovery, and delivering tailored demos to secure quick closures.

Job description

About Prelude

Prelude is redefining how companies authenticate and onboard users - turning what's traditionally a cost center into a growth lever. Our flagship product lets businesses send OTP codes with the best price-to-conversion ratio on the market, dynamically selecting the most effective channel in real time (optimized SMS, WhatsApp, and more) while actively blocking spam and fraud that legacy providers miss. Founded in 2022 by former Zenly team members who lived the pain of broken SMS authentication firsthand, we're already serving fast-growing companies across Europe and are expanding into the US. But authentication is only the starting point - we're building the platform for trust at scale, with an ambitious roadmap of market-defining products ahead.

Why join us

Today, we're a team of 60 and growing, based in Paris, building products that power secure and high-performance user onboarding for companies across the world. We believe small, highly skilled teams outperform large, fragmented organizations, and we are intentional about staying focused on impact, quality, and speed. We operate with a flat org structure and value in-person collaboration, which helps ideas move faster, decisions stay grounded, and teams take full ownership of what they build.

Our values

  • Care We care deeply about our customers, our teammates, and the quality and reliability of what we ship.
  • Bias for Action We move fast, test in the real world, and iterate quickly rather than over-optimizing in theory.
  • Ownership We take responsibility end to end, from identifying problems to delivering outcomes and learning from results.

This Account Executive role at Prelude is a hunting position, built for an outbound-first seller who thrives on prospecting and knows how to move fast. You’ll close SMB deals at volume across multiple industries and own the full cycle from A to Z, including your own prospecting, demos, and negotiation. Because you’ll handle technical stakeholders directly, you’ll also become a true expert in our product. What will you be doing?

  • Running your own outbound motion through cold calls, emails and LinkedIn to build pipeline from the ground up, working closely with our high-performing BDRs
  • Owning the full sales cycle from first call to closed-won, typically within a short sales cycle
  • Qualifying SMB prospects across multiple industries
  • Running discovery that uncovers real pain and moves deals forward
  • Delivering demos tailored to each buyer, including technical stakeholders
  • Hitting and exceeding monthly and quarterly targets for pipeline generation, activities and closed revenue
  • Keeping HubSpot up to date for accurate forecasting

What are we looking for?

  • At least 2 to 3 years in a closing role running a full outbound sales cycle with a track record of closing high-volume SMB deals
  • A strong outbound background, ideally as a BDR or SDR - you’re comfortable picking up the phone 50+ times a day and know how to hook a prospect in the first 30 seconds
  • SaaS sales experience is a must - you know what an API is and can hold your own in a conversation with a technical buyer
  • Consistent quota attainment and overachievement
  • A hunter mindset and the ownership to build your own pipeline and drive your own metrics
  • Sharp, instinctive discovery skills - you can uncover pain efficiently
  • Curiosity and the drive to become a product expert, so every conversation is relevant and consultative
  • Fluency in English and French
  • Familiarity with HubSpot is a nice to have
  • Genuine excitement for what Prelude is building

What do we offer?

  • Competitive base salary with uncapped commission + BSPCEs
  • Hybrid working style: 4 days in-office in Paris, 1 day remote
  • High-end gear and ergonomic setup
  • 100% travel subsidised to our Paris office
  • Private health insurance
  • Swile meal vouchers
  • Gym pass
  • Annual offsites in great locations
  • The opportunity to be part of building something big, from the start!

Interview process

  • Meet a member of the Talent team
  • Interview with Hiring Manager
  • Role-play session with Sales
  • Final meeting with the CEO

We care about your potential and motivation. If you're excited about the role and this sounds like your next step, we’d love to hear from you

Why work at Prelude

  • Hybrid work model – most roles based in Paris, with some fully remote positions (e.g., Founding AE – USA)
  • Engineering culture – building critical infrastructure for the AI age; teams work on device fingerprinting, real‑time scoring, Go backend, and full‑stack development
  • Open roles include Backend Engineer (Go), Full‑Stack Engineer, Software Engineer – Internal Tools, Founding Device Fingerprinting Engineer, and sales/customer support positions
  • Salary transparency – posted ranges: BDR €57K, Mid‑Market AE €150K, Enterprise AE €170K–€180K (Paris)
  • Impact – product decisions affect millions of user onboarding flows for high‑growth companies

Application questions