We all make the same mistakes, so share our learnings sowe can all get better. I can get behind that message from @jasonlk on how to grow a fast SaaS company. @PointNineCap 
Step 1 (actually 0) Get over your imposter syndrome.
Step 1 (actual step 1) hire all your VPs as soon as you can find them after $1m ARR. Sales, Marketing, Product, CS and Engineering. Hire whichever one you find first. Find a VP of Product first - hire her. Find a VP of Sales next - hire her. Just get them all onboard.
Your product won’t scale it will fall apart. Hire the VP of Engineering early and she will make it scale.
Step 2 (or are these points not steps? Never mind). Drive a high NPS as a company goal. I would say NPS can be great word of mouth and doesn’t have to be NPS. It’s just a way of measuring, but agree get everyone to care about this and measure it.
Stepoint 3 - take friction out of sales. Let customers buy what ever way they want to. Most of them are veterans and know how much they should pay and how easy it should be. Don’t lock them in. Consider auto downgrades. The easier you make the process the happier the customer
(See stepoint 2 about NPS / word of mouth)
Lesson 4 (they are lessons) specialise your sales team early by $2m ARR. closers do closing. Openers do opening. A full stack sales person doesn’t scale - She at best is only great at 50% of the stuff she does. Sales people don’t make marketing materials. Specialis(z)e
Steplessonpoint 5. Outbound ALWAYS works. Build the outbound team early. You can’t lose. Try everything. If there are customers out there go find them. If they are not out there you DON’T have a business. Don’t wait for them to google you. Go get em.
6. Spent 20% of your time recruiting (as a CEO but I recon this applies to you execs and VPs too). Learn to love it. Besides you meet cool people. Interview 30 people for each senior role. No one loves it because there’s always a fire, but it’s so important.
Rule VII. Keep $1 on the balance sheet for each $2 or ARR. if you have 50-100% of your ARR on your balance sheet - you can afford to. You have to balance this with the earlier point about hiring all the VPs but what this means is you may need to raise. Raise!
If you cut it too fine you won’t hire the accreditive valuable people.
Mistake numero 8. Staff up biz dev and partnerships early. I call this the Pierre Emmanuel Perruchot de La Bussière strategy. Or just PE.
9. More customer marketing. After 100 customers dedicate someone to marketing them.
X 10. Invest heavily in brand. Non early adopters shop and choose on brand. Brands are shortcuts to trust. Brands in SaaS last 30+ years. Customers don’t have time to compare 10 products. Maybe do billboards 😬 talk at events. Be everywhere and be religious about the experience.
And that’s it. @jasonlk makes it look so simple he always almost tricks me to try it all again. Ten steps, lessons, mistakes, things to keep in mind. Brilliant. #P9Summit18
Have a @Pierre_Em
