(Post 1 of 4 in the series on Scaling CROs) In most startups, the founder is the first salesperson and while it may be difficult to let that go you’ll eventually scale, add sales reps, or maybe some form of a Sales Manager once there are more than a couple of reps. In Startup CXO our Return Path CRO, Anita Absey, wrote about the journey of startup sales, from “selling on whiteboard” to “selling with PowerPoint” to “selling with PDF.” I encourage you to read that section if you’re wondering about hiring a CRO, but all of the hiring of sales reps and (possibly) a sales manager happens during what Anita calls the “White Board” stage as you’re beginning to…
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scaling
Scaling Me
Scaling Me Two things have come up over the last couple years for me that are frustrations for me as a CEO of a high growth company. These are both people related — an area that’s always been the cornerstone of my leadership patterns. That probably makes them even more frustrating. Frustration 1: Not knowing if I can completely trust the feedback I get from deep in the organization. I’ve always relied on direct interactions with junior staff and personal observation and data collection in order to get a feel for what’s going on. But a couple times lately, people had been admonishing me (for the first time) when I’ve relayed feedback with comments like, “of course you heard that…
Building the Company vs. Building the Business
Building the Company vs. Building the Business I was being interviewed recently for a book someone is writing on entrepreneurship, which focused on identifying the elements of my “playbook” for entrepreneurial success at Return Path. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a full playbook, though I’ve certainly documented pieces of it in this blog over the years. One of the conversations we had in the interview was around the topic of building the company vs. building the business. The classic entrepreneur builds the business — quite frankly, he or she probably just builds the product for a long time first, then the business. In the course of the interview, I realized that I’ve spent at least as much energy over…
Retail, No Longer
Retail, No Longer I’ve evolved my operating system as a CEO many times over the years as our business at Return Path has changed and as the company has scaled up. I’ve changed my meeting routines, I’ve delegated more things, and I’ve gotten less in the details of the business. But there’s one specific thing where I’ve remained very “retail,” or on the front lines, and that is the interview process. I still interview every new hire, usually on the phone or Skype and in most cases only for 15-30 minutes, and then I also do an in-person 15-30 minute check-in when someone is around the 90-day mark as an employee. For me, these have both been great mechanisms for…
Size of Pie, a.k.a. What Type of Entrepreneur Are You?
Size of Pie, a.k.a. What Type of Entrepreneur Are You? Mmmm…pie. A post that Fred had up a few weeks ago about an M&A Case study involving WhatCounts, a company in the email space that I’ve known and had a lot of respect for for years, got me thinking about two different topics. The first is thinking about types of entrepreneurs. I’ve always said there were two types: serial entrepreneurs who are great at starting companies but less great at scaling them, and entrepreneurs who are often part of a group of founders but who go on to continue to run the business for the long-haul. CEO David Geller’s quote that gets to the heart of this in Fred’s post…