Which sales motion do CEE B2B startups use?
Mostly sales-led. 77% of the CEE founders selling to businesses who applied to BADideas in 2026 so far sell through founders or a sales team, up from 73% in 2025. 19% combine sales with self-serve sign-up, and 4% rely on self-serve alone.
The figures
| CEE founders selling to businesses | 2025 | 2026 (to date) |
|---|---|---|
| Sales-led | 73% | 77% |
| Hybrid: sales and self-serve | 20% | 19% |
| Self-serve only | 6% | 4% |
The buyer decides most of it. In BADideas application data, 82% of the B2B founders selling to large companies are sales-led, and none rely on self-serve alone. Of those selling only to small and mid-sized companies, 66% are sales-led and 13% self-serve. Founders raising seed are more often sales-led than those raising pre-seed: 81% against 74%.
What is changing
| Quarter | CEE B2B founders who are sales-led |
|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | 82% |
| Q3 2025 | 70% |
| Q4 2025 | 71% |
| Q1 2026 | 79% |
| Q2 2026 | 71% |
| Q3 2026 | 80% |
The share moves between about 70% and 80% from quarter to quarter, with no clear direction.
Across CEE
CEE founders selling to businesses who applied in 2025 and 2026 so far. We show each country with enough applicants; smaller countries count only in the CEE row.
| Where the founder is based | Sales-led | Self-serve only |
|---|---|---|
| All of CEE | 75% | 5% |
| Baltics | 77% | 4% |
| Latvia | 79% | 3% |
| Estonia | 75% | 6% |
| Lithuania | 78% | 4% |
| Poland | 76% | 8% |
| Romania | 77% | 8% |
| Ukraine | 71% | 11% |
Sales-led: highest in Latvia (79%), lowest in Ukraine (71%).
What it means for you
- Expect to sell yourself. At this stage nearly every B2B founder in CEE sells through founders or a small sales team; investors will ask who sells and how.
- Match the motion to the buyer. Selling to large companies means sales calls, pilots and procurement; self-serve is realistic only when small teams can buy without approval.
- If you plan self-serve, show it working. Few founders rely on it, so sign-ups and conversion to paid are what make the plan believable.
- Say how long a sale takes. A sales-led plan needs the sales cycle and the number of deals one person can close.
Related questions
Do early-stage B2B startups in CEE use product-led growth?
Few rely on it alone: 4% of the CEE founders selling to businesses who applied in 2026 so far are self-serve only, and 19% combine it with sales. Among those selling only to small and mid-sized companies, 13% are self-serve.
Should a startup selling to large companies be sales-led?
That is what nearly all of them do: 82% of CEE founders selling to large companies are sales-led, and the rest combine sales with self-serve.
How we measured it
- On this page: Sales-led means the deck describes founders or a sales team selling directly; self-serve means customers sign up and pay without talking to anyone; hybrid means both. Selling to businesses means the deck names small, mid-sized or large companies or government as customers, and not consumers. Shares are of those founders whose deck describes how they sell; about nine in ten do.
- Updated: 14 October 2026.
BADideas.fund, "Which sales motion do CEE B2B startups use?", updated 14 October 2026. https://badideas.fund/answers/b2b-sales-motion-cee
Read next
- Which channels do CEE B2B startups use?
- How do CEE startups spend a pre-seed round?
- What do early CEE startups charge per month?
- Do CEE startups price in euros or dollars?
Who we are
We are a pre-seed and seed fund for founders in Central and Eastern Europe. We have built and sold companies ourselves, and since 2022 we have backed more than 40.
We back founders who see something about their market that others do not see yet. They want to change how a whole industry works, and they start small.
Good founders rarely fail on the idea or the product. They fail on selling it. We give your company hands-on help from go-to-market operators who grew Zendesk, Square and Scale AI.