I burned $20k in hiring sales guys in the past 60 days

Wanted to share my experience as it may save some of you headaches (and money) when you hire. This will be a master class on DON'T DO WHAT I DID. So let me set the background. I have multiple degrees from top Universities, made millions in e-commerce and consumer products, but I decided to build apps because I hate managing inventory. Apps evolved into SaaS and on a recent project I interviewed 100 sales people to help me sell. What I learned is the following: NEVER RUSH INTO HIRING - take your time and schedule at least 3 rounds of interviews to spot the fraudsters. I stopped at 2 rounds and met the candidates in person in some cases, but that wasn't enough time to uncover incompetence. ASK VERY HARD QUESTIONS - I trusted people's resumes and assumed they were qualified, especially with prior experience in the same industry. But selling is a very difficult game and if you don't actually listen to their pitches and have them outline a detailed sales approach, your money will go down the toilet. MICROMANAGE - I have always been generous in letting people run their own schedules but never again. Sales people should report back every day on their progress so Founders can learn from the feedback and see if the sales person really knows what they're doing. ASK TO JOIN A MEETING - I never once was invited to join a call nor did I ask to be invited. Looking back this was very asinine of me as I completely trusted the progress of my company to a bunch of strangers. I never got to the bottom of any warm leads and interested buyers, I just trusted the excuses were legit and progress was happening. ASK FOR PROOF - this is a tough ask because people don't like to do free work, but in this tough job market where sales people are being replaced by AI I don't think it's wrong to ask sales people to prove they can sell before you go through an onboarding process and all this paperwork just to find out they can't close. Now of course it depends on the total pay comp and how easy the job is, but my SaaS product was very advanced in the industry and we had the right branding. Sales guys shouldn't have difficulty getting meetings just to test the waters. CUT INTERVIEWS SHORT - I had many interviews where people didn't download the app or do research on the company. I was gracious enough to finish the interviews but man, never again. Time is too precious to waste on people who don't spend 10min on your product and have a list of questions prepared in advance of the interview. So by no means am I stupid or inexperienced. Been working for 20+ years across industries across continents and I can fund my startups myself, but this was a humbling experience in understanding how I didn't approach a situation efficiently and effectively. I've since fired the entire sales team and have been self analyzing more than product building in the past few weeks. I've heard of other managers calling their sales guys every day to monitor progress; I thought it was excessive but now I'm starting to think differently. Nice guys finish last... I heard this growing up. There's some truth to it, which is fly I'm flipping the switch and shifting my demeanor to being more assertive and dominant. After all, it's my hard earned money and I have to provide for my family. Business school didn't teach this. I feel like a failure at times but I'm not throwing in the towel. Thanks for reading and hopefully this can help you in your start up journey.