RVNU #010: The Death of the Early-Stage VP of Sales
How dedicated programs combined with AI are empowering founders to own revenue for longer.
Notebook LM audio discussion of this Newsletter:
Introduction
In hindsight, founder’s who hired me as Chief Revenue Officer typically did so 2 years prematurely, before they had real product market fit, and before they had any kind of sales repeatability.
They would put the responsibility on me to do everything from build out systems and processes, to hiring reps to closing deals. And all from a tiny, sometimes non-existent, base of customers, many of whom did not meet the ideal customer profile qualification criteria. It required founder-level commitment to evolve from this point and fortunately for my founders I pulled it off more often than not.
However the founders took massive risk in doing that abstraction. They gambled on me operating like a founder, on a completely different incentive plan to them with a different set of, what often turned out to be, unrealistic expectations.
My advice to pre series B (<$10M) founders today is don’t try and hire someone like me, not yet anyway, rather engage in programs run by bona-fide experts to ensure you have achieved true product market fit, and equip yourself with the tools required to run revenue yourself for longer.
The State of the Current Market
The role of a founder in driving early revenue has evolved. In the past they’d let go of revenue after selling to a few friends in their incubator. Around now should mark the end of this bygone era!
In today’s market, founders have access to more tools, insights, and support than ever before, enabling them to stay directly involved in sales well beyond Series A. Programs like RVNU’s GTM Navigator program and First Round Capital’s Product Market Fit (PMF) program offer frameworks and human-driven support from proven experts who have built companies and had exits that guide founders through the early stages of growth, helping them build and refine and execute successful go-to-market (GTM) strategies.
Why Founders Are Ideally Suited to Lead Early Revenue
When it comes to driving early sales, founders are uniquely equipped to communicate the vision and value of their product. Founders understand their product’s potential, customer pain points, and competitive advantages better than anyone else. This gives founders an unfair advantage over non-founders, and I strongly believe they should lean into this advantage for longer than most have done in the past.
Nothing beats sitting down with customers and gaining firsthand knowledge to validate product-market fit. Staying involved in revenue activities also gives founders direct insights into what resonates with customers and where adjustments may be needed, and reduces the delay from market feedback to product iteration to an optimal state.
Common Reasons Founders Look to Step Back from Revenue — and How AI and Structured Programs Change the Equation
Through hundreds of conversations with many founders, several common reasons arise for stepping back from revenue. Here’s how AI and founder support programs challenge these assumptions:
1. Time Constraints
Rationale: “Sales takes too much time, and I need to focus on other areas.”
Counterpoint: Nothing trumps revenue, so choosing to focus elsewhere is an act of folly in itself, and a major red flag. Programs like RVNU Navigator put founders on GTM rails, helping them build an efficient GTM strategy, balancing time across core growth activities. Founders can tailor the guidance with a combination of office hours with proven experts and AI to tailor frameworks to their specific use case.
One of the major attractions of the RVNU Navigator program is that founders can run at their own pace asynchronously and deploy their own learning style to get the most out of the program, and be supported by proven experts via slack, during dedicated weekly “office-hours” sessions and in person during a retreat if they so desire.
To join the RVNU Navigator waitlist, click here.
2. Lack of Sales Skill
Rationale: “I’m not a salesperson; my strength lies in product development.”
Counterpoint: Founders don’t need to be seasoned sales experts to lead revenue successfully. Programs like First Round PMF focus on frameworks and strategies tailored for non-sales founders, breaking down the sales process into actionable steps.
The RVNU Navigator program goes even deeper and breaks down things like:
- How to create your unique value proposition
- How to develop an elevator pitch
- How to establish design partners
- How to partner with clients to establish value exchange
- How to leverage data to iterate towards an optimal pricing strategy
- How to run optimal discovery meetings
- A process for hiring A-player reps, that fit your culture
- How to renew and expand accounts early
- A framework for measuring sales efficiency
And much more… to join the waitlist, click here
AI tools can further assist plugging in the guidance of these programs and their frameworks in order to rapidly tailor them for your use case.
3. Need for Systematization
Rationale: “I need someone to create a repeatable sales system for us.”
Counterpoint: Most sales leaders I have met are ill-equipped to develop scalable go-to-market systems from scratch, so expecting them to do so likely going to waste time and be hugely disappointing.
Frankly, the smartest sales leaders partner with revenue operations to deliver this.
However, with support programs like First Round’s and RVNU’s you are provided with the spine of the systems required to build a go-to-market machine, so you can lean on a smart administrator to implement your version of the systems provided in these programs.
4. Investor Pressure to Scale Quickly
Rationale: “Our investors expect rapid ARR growth, and a revenue leader feels necessary to meet those expectations.”
Counterpoint: Despite popular opinion revenue leaders are not silver bullets. A revenue leader will not magically grow revenue, they need a firm foundation upon which to grow that revenue, and the timing needs to be right. There is a time a place for hiring that revenue leader, and in my opinion it’s later than it once was.
Founders making the most of the tools and resources at their disposal can own revenue optimally through to series B in my opinion. And the very best, like Henry Schuck profiled below, will stay very close to revenue in perpetuity.
Industry Case Study: Henry Schuck, founder & CEO of Zoominfo
Henry Schuck, founder and CEO of ZoomInfo, has been directly involved in revenue leadership since the company’s early days (when it was called DiscoverOrg) and continues to play an active role in the company’s go-to-market strategies, even after ZoomInfo went public.
Schuck, without a background in sales (he studied law and has an operations background according to Linkedin), initially led revenue personally, deeply involving himself in sales and customer relationships, which helped him understand customer pain points and refine the product to address the market’s needs directly.
Even without knowing Henry personally, there’s no question in my mind that his hands-on approach contributed to ZoomInfo’s rapid growth, enabling it to go public in 2020 at a valuation of $8 billion.
Today, even as a public company CEO, Schuck remains highly engaged in revenue operations, setting the standard for sales strategy alignment with the company’s data-driven approach.
He personally replies to comments and InMails on Linkedin frequently and when I shared a draft of this newsletter, within minutes he confirmed that he does not use a ghostwriter and any replies on Linkedin are penned personally by him. He is front of house at most industry events, hustling attendees to customer dinners he holds whilst on the road. Outside looking in, he’s a personal demand generation machine on behalf of the sales org, driving top of funnel pipeline through leveraging his personal profile, and yet he’s also the CEO. I’d love to see their opportunity attribution data, I bet “Henry Schuck” is one of the top performing channels!
In my opinion Henry is the model CEO for go-to-market organizations, and someone we will try and get onto the upcoming RVNU podcast series (details of the pod coming soon).
Programs such as RVNU’s and First Round’s empower founders to operate more like Schuck, which in our opinion is the optimal leadership style of a SaaS CEO.
Conclusion
Whilst we majored on RVNU and First Round’s programs in this newsletter respectively, there are other programs we’d encourage founders to lean in on:
1. Y Combinator: Offers intense mentorship, networking, and guidance to early-stage startups across all growth areas.
2. Techstars: Provides mentorship-driven accelerators worldwide with a strong focus on market fit and customer discovery.
3. 500 Global: Specializes in scalable growth and traction strategies, with resources in product-market fit and capital raising.
4. Salesforce Accelerate: Focuses on enterprise SaaS companies, especially in go-to-market support and channel partnerships.
For founders, leading revenue should no longer be a daunting endeavor. With the right support, it becomes an effective strategy for efficient growth, creating long-term value while building a foundation for a future VP of Sales to be successful at the very first attempt.
You got this 👊🏼
Wayne