Both Sides of the Table

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Startup Sales – Why Hiring Seasoned Reps May Not Work

Both Sides of the Table

Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development. One of the biggest mistakes I see early-stage startups making is hiring “seasoned&# sales professionals or hiring people too senior, too early.

Hiring 346
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Are Business Plans Still Necessary?

Both Sides of the Table

How many people will you hire in the first 24 months and in which sequence. Don’t know the running rate for engineers? I won’t need to hire many engineers or customer support staff. Too aggressive about the rate of customer adoption? You might then slow down your burn rate or raise more money.

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How Great, Operationally-Focused CFO’s Can Transform Your Business

Both Sides of the Table

For a well-funded seed company I have controversially recommended hiring a great office manager that doubles as an administrative assistant. This happens because many CEOs are passionate, market-driven people who are constantly trying to launch new products, win contracts, get press, hire staff and woo VCs. Hire a great CFO.

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Startup Grind Turns the Tables on Mark Suster

Both Sides of the Table

And for every time I’ve felt hugely stressed that our burn rate was getting too high, and I didn’t know who else was going to fund the company, and I’m all in on this company, right?” Because I’m going to say no to you, and the guys you want to hire from Facebook are going to say no to you.

Cofounder 337
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What Makes an Entrepreneur (2/10) – Street Smarts

Both Sides of the Table

They had wasted a lot of money because they had raised a lot of money and therefore hired a large staff. I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate. A new and experiened CEO was brought in and cleared house.

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What Everyone Should Take Away from Twitter’s 8% Staff Reductions

Both Sides of the Table

But like many companies over the past five years it hired aggressively and probably had some degree of straying off of a core strategy and some amount of excess jobs relative to its current revenue forecasts and opportunities. ” It goes like this: What is your net burn rate? What is your cash balance? Others will follow.

Burn Rate 150
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The Importance of Benevolent Dictators

Both Sides of the Table

Should you increase your burn rate by adding 2 senior hires who will help you ship faster or sell more but then have less time for fund raising? This is especially true in startups where speed matters and where there is a need to constantly calibrate direction and where these decisions can have existential outcomes.

Burn Rate 413