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

Unlocking Business Success: The Key to Becoming a Tenacious Recruiter

6 Sept 2023 · 1 min

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Jason M. Lemkin advises founders to be constantly and proactively recruiting — not just hiring to fill immediate gaps — because many startups stall at revenue milestones (he cites ~4–6M ARR and later 10–20M ARR) when leadership fails to recruit sequentially for key roles (co-founder, sales reps, marketers, VPs of sales/product). The main claim: continuous, tenacious recruiting by the CEO/leadership prevents growth plateaus.

Chapters

Point number two and I still struggle with this today. But you'll see so many VCs say this and it took me a while to get it, but you've got to become a tenacious recruiter. I see so many founders stall out somewhere between 4, 5, 6 million ARR. And then again maybe at 10 to 15 to 20 and again after that if they are not tenacious recruiters. And what I mean is, look, you can't get anywhere as founders if you're, if you're not a decent like sequential recruiter. Like you gotta find a good co founder and then you gotta find a good sales rep and then a good marketer and a good VP of sales and a good VP of product and VP of bench. But a lot of us are really sequential recruiters. When we have a desperate need, we kind of drop some things and we go out and we hire one person. Frankly, I still have those weaknesses today. But the best CEOs and founders are constantly recruiting at all times.