At $20M revenue, hire a recruiter before anything else. The CEO would otherwise spend a full day recruiting, pulling them from strategy. Other roles like project manager, operations, and sales should already be in place.
A customer success manager or a project manager?
At this point, project manager probably makes some sense. You should already have a customer success manager at $20 mil.
A project manager or an executive assistant? I mean, you personally at $20 mil, yeah, you definitely need an EA. An executive assistant or a recruiter?
Recruiter.
A recruiter or an ops manager?
It probably makes sense to bring in ops at this point, but I'm still gonna give the nod to recruiting.
A recruiter or a head of sales?
You should already have a head of sales, so I'm gonna say recruiting.
A recruiter or an integrator COO?
I still don't like the integrator COO role, so I'm still gonna say recruiter.
So, is a recruiter the key hire at $20 million in revenue?
It is, because at $20 million, people are gonna be your big constraint, and if you don't have a recruiter, then recruiting is going to be your full-time job as the CEO.
