Jason M. LemkinCEO, SaaStr · Co-Founder of SaaStr AI, SaaStr Fund, Adobe Sign

The Stress of Leveling & Losing Talent: A Lesson for Success

29 Jul 2023 · 1 min

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Jason M. Lemkin discusses the stress of "leveling" or "topping" employees when a company reaches higher revenue milestones. He gives practical advice: avoid stealth searches or half-hearted replacements, be transparent when you find clearly better candidates, and onboard them directly. He recounts going through two levelings around $30M in revenue; in one case the incumbent wanted to become CMO and immediately quit, leaving the company worse off and forcing a months-long hiring process.

Questions this video answers

$10 million, $20 million, and about $30 million.

About $30 million.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

Chapters

The second point is about leveling or topping someone. Look, it's really stressful and we all go through it. You know, I'm hitting 10 million, 20 million. Third, this. I'm not sure Bob can still do it or Jane can still do it. And I'm worried they'll quit if they do it right. Don't, don't hide the ball. Don't try to do a stealth search unless you magically find someone. Like if you bump into someone here and they're your new VP of sales and they're clearly better, you did a stealth search, Congratulations. Walk her into work on Monday and things will be good. But you can't do a half ass search. You can't do something. And I've recently gone through two of these toppings or levelings with a company at about 30 million in revenue. Went through it with one and the person wanted to be a CMO and immediately quit. Immediately quit. Did a lot of did. And things are worse without him now. They're not bad, but they're clearly worse. And it stinks that they left. And it took a few months to hire the person, but this person was unwilling and able to get to the next level.