In my experience salespeople do need some ramp-up time (although it depends on inside/outside, size of sale, etc.), so 30 days may not be reasonable.
Commission vs. base actually argues for letting them stay LONGER. They self-select to leave if not making commission -- at a startup, that could be due to the product not being in the right place, though, so in a startup you often pay more base than at an established provider.
The other issue is that the cost of a "seat" for a salesperson, especially outside, can be really high, independent of production. It's pretty reasonable in enterprise for a great salesperson to be burning $500-1000/day in expenses (flying every couple of days, hotels, cars, meals with clients, etc.). Plus, potentially needing a sales engineer or engineering support from the development team, and of course the opportunity cost of giving them certain sales leads ("these leads are shit! give me the Glengarry leads!").
Enterprise sales is one of the reasons it sucks to do an Enterprise startup.
Commission vs. base actually argues for letting them stay LONGER. They self-select to leave if not making commission -- at a startup, that could be due to the product not being in the right place, though, so in a startup you often pay more base than at an established provider.
The other issue is that the cost of a "seat" for a salesperson, especially outside, can be really high, independent of production. It's pretty reasonable in enterprise for a great salesperson to be burning $500-1000/day in expenses (flying every couple of days, hotels, cars, meals with clients, etc.). Plus, potentially needing a sales engineer or engineering support from the development team, and of course the opportunity cost of giving them certain sales leads ("these leads are shit! give me the Glengarry leads!").
Enterprise sales is one of the reasons it sucks to do an Enterprise startup.