Jason M. Lemkin says companies scaling to $100-$200 million ARR often make a mistake: replacing the VP of sales who built the business instead of keeping them. Move them to VP of Commercial Sales to handle smaller accounts while a new CRO takes the big deals. You keep the institutional knowledge and avoid losing a proven leader.
Chapters
You want to keep them. So look, if they're good, find a place for them. And one of the classic mistakes you see all the time is a company hits a certain phase, and that great first VP of sales is not— it's not clear they can be the CRO at $100 million, $200 million ARR. And the founders bring in some CRO, and that first VP of sales leaves. No, that's a tragedy. That's a tragedy. If that person is the one that got you from nothing to $10 million as your head of sales, keep them whatever it takes. If you need to change their role, if they need to be VP VP of commercial sales, which is a common way to do it. You take that existing VP of sales and you have them handle the smaller customers that sometimes the CRO doesn't want to do. That's a classic way to do it. A VP of something, even an SVP of something. I, I never see it work out well when some fancy CRO comes in and that, that great first VP of sales departs quickly. No, that's the most extreme example. Never let them go. Yes, do you have to top people?