Thread by @Kellblog

Startup leaders come in three basic types and those in a given type typically neither understand nor respect those in other types. Nevertheless, it's critical to have the right types at the right time as you grow. A thread 🧵 #startups #tech #SaaS

The first are innovators. They love disrupting the status quo by doing things that haven't been done before. They don't need training or playbooks. All they need is an email, a telephone, and a machete and they can survive and thrive.

You need innovators in your early days. They tend to be smart generalists who likely don't function well in large organizations. However, they have little interest in process and industrialization and will either leave the org or need to deployed into new "hard problems"

Once the innovators to figure things out, then you need scalers to build the organization up. These people are good at building organization and process. They are structured. They execute well. They are not particularly creative.

Innovators will complain the "corporate types" haven't taken over as you replace them in leadership positions with those who have done it before and who care about structure and process. They won't get along. But you need scalers to scale.

Once you've scaled the business you will often hire extractors. These are the people who charge $130 for an Apple adaptor, have ruined Amazon product search, let Starbucks forget it was supposed to the "the third place," and let Google pollute search results with ads.

Nobody (but shareholders) likes these people. They don't innovate. They don't build. But they are wicked good at extracting value. They raise prices. They drive lock-in and exploit it. They've been running Oracle for decades.

In their myopia extractors sow the seeds for the next generation of disruption. Salesforce substituted M&A for R&D so now scores of startups are innovating in CRM. Shopify disrupts Amazon.

They key is not that some types are good and others are evil (though frankly, I'd have a beer with an innovator over an extractor any day). But that these types exist and you need to have the right types at the right time.

Imagine the poor startup that hires a big company (extractor) VP of sales. They haven't sold in years. They don't get on the front lines. Their primary skills are increasing quotas, shrinking territories, and negotiating attainable plans. They'll be gone in a year.

Or imagine the poor startup that runs too long on an innovator VP of sales. They'll have no onboarding, no hiring profiles, no ongoing training, no methodology, and no process. They'll scale the number of sellers but not new ARR. They'll be gone in a year.

So think about what type you need when, when you need to transition, how different the two will look next to each other, how hard it will be for the org to adapt to that change, and most of all -- how to deploy those who helped you build the company into the best go-forward roles