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At 50 people everyone is still within 1 skip-level of the CEO. That doesn’t seem overly hierarchical to me. What does seem a little surprising is how many “chi

At 50 people everyone is still within 1 skip-level of the CEO. That doesn’t seem overly hierarchical to me. What does seem a little surprising is how many “chiefs” the CEO has reporting to them. In my experience with companies around 50 people, things actually tend to not be sliced into so many pieces, but rather there are a few larger slices that are functionally heterogeneous.

ryanSrich 5y ago
I think the three machines approach works best for companies 0-100 people (depending on the company, for SaaS it makes sense). Basically have someone own: 1. The product - CTO 2. The customer - (Could be a director or VP of marketing/sales/rev) 3. The company - CEO Anything beyond those three execs at or around an A round is nuts to me. I think a lot of people underestimate just how much you can outsource at that size. There almost no reason to have a COO when you’re less than 100 people. Same with a CFO. Either of those hires don’t become strategic until you’re doing $10+m in rev. Until then, use other SaaS services for payroll, book keeping, tax savings (MainStreet), etc. These take little effort use and can be setup by one of the founders in less than a day.
- paulddraper 5y ago
  You're proposing a 100 person SaaS company without any sales or marketing exec? This is HN I suppose, so not entirely surprising.
  - ryanSrich 5y ago
    It’s literally the second bullet point in my comment. Did you miss it?
    - paulddraper 5y ago
      Oh I misread that as Customer Success, but you meant Sales and Marketing. I still think you're going to be light with 100 people and no dedicated VP of Product or VP of Customer Success. But not absurdly so
      - ryanSrich 5y ago
        Ah, yeah when I say someone should own the customer, I mean you should have an exec dedicated to finding, closing, and keeping customers. One slight contention here is who owns the keeping part. I’ve seen that under both sales and product, and don’t have strong convictions either way. I think it mostly depends on the type of product you’re selling.

ryanSrich 5y ago

I think the three machines approach works best for companies 0-100 people (depending on the company, for SaaS it makes sense). Basically have someone own: 1. The product - CTO 2. The customer - (Could be a director or VP of marketing/sales/rev) 3. The company - CEO Anything beyond those three execs at or around an A round is nuts to me. I think a lot of people underestimate just how much you can outsource at that size. There almost no reason to have a COO when you’re less than 100 people. Same with a CFO. Either of those hires don’t become strategic until you’re doing $10+m in rev. Until then, use other SaaS services for payroll, book keeping, tax savings (MainStreet), etc. These take little effort use and can be setup by one of the founders in less than a day.

paulddraper 5y ago
You're proposing a 100 person SaaS company without any sales or marketing exec? This is HN I suppose, so not entirely surprising.
- ryanSrich 5y ago
  It’s literally the second bullet point in my comment. Did you miss it?
  - paulddraper 5y ago
    Oh I misread that as Customer Success, but you meant Sales and Marketing. I still think you're going to be light with 100 people and no dedicated VP of Product or VP of Customer Success. But not absurdly so
    - ryanSrich 5y ago
      Ah, yeah when I say someone should own the customer, I mean you should have an exec dedicated to finding, closing, and keeping customers. One slight contention here is who owns the keeping part. I’ve seen that under both sales and product, and don’t have strong convictions either way. I think it mostly depends on the type of product you’re selling.