Who Is On Your Mission?
Hires, and Especially VPs, Not On Your Mission Never Really Work Out
A few years back on SaaStr, I wrote a post about personas that generally don't seem to work out in SaaS start-ups:
- ex-CEOs joining as VPs (they have the skills, but do they really want it?),
- Hiring an "Architect" instead of a true CTO or VP of Engineering,
- "Dualies" (folks that want to be VP of Sales and Marketing are never really great at either) ...
- and engineers (and probably any hire) from gaming companies.
I stand behind this. Sometimes these folks work out, but there are just too many flags 9 times out of 10. More on why this is the case here:
Each scenario is pretty different, but I wrote of hiring B2C folks into a B2B business that the cultural transition can just be so tough:
Game Developers. This isn’t personal. But I’ve learned in SaaS at least, consumer guys usually don’t work out. Folks from consumer internet are used to users, not customers. They don’t like it when you have to build something for a customer. But at least sometimes, they sort of get it if they were at least sort of close to consumers-as-customers. But engineers from gaming companies. They just are so far from SaaS customers, it just doesn’t seem to work. They are often super smart (lots of maths here). They build games. Millions use them. If the game is cool, they win. No need to talk to anyone, or make anyone happy — directly. They seem to hate working at SaaS companies in the end, and just leave, and go back to gaming or something very consumer-y.
I stand by this observation. Most B2C folks trying B2B, especially very enterprise B2B, end up unhappy and leave in a few months.
But there is one exception, and if you pay attention, you'll see it in about 5 minutes: When They Are On Your Mission.
A top mistake we've made on little team SaaStr, and that I see again and again with the startups I work with and invest in, is hiring folks not on your mission.
Look, SaaS can be boring. I mean, spending years building workflow software? Getting tables to work? Calculating pricing discounts? Building an SAP integration?
It's only worth it, at least for the first 50 employees or so, if they are on your mission. Your mission to change at least a little tiny part of the world.
Being on a mission together is glorious and wonderful. It may even be a bit of a mitzvah. But it's also so hard. And there are just so, so many startups these days.
If a potential hire seems great, and checks out, but just isn't on your mission ... move on.
A Secret, 30% Off Code for Jason's Friends for 2020 Annual
Want to come to SaaStr Annual for 30% off the November prices?
My special, secret code "JASON30" still works -- for now.
Go to https://www.saastrannual.com/buy-tickets and type in JASON30 before the team expires it.
See you March 10-11-12 in SF Bay Area!
Jason+Team SaaStr