salesboi22

Head of Growth

No CRO?

I work at a pretty quickly growing startup, about 10M in revenue at this point. Our CRO recently left on good terms and there aren't any immediate plans to replace him. Our CEO is filling in for him some but most of the work has been dumped on our VP of Sales who is great but this is his first software rodeo.

My question is, any of y'all been through something similar? Is it a huge red flag the we don't have a CRO?

P.S. This has created more leadership opportunity for me and I'm moving into a manager role next quarter, so that part is cool, but I still wish I had a CRO to learn from.

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12 comments

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

A VP of Sales is all you should need. Maybe you’ve exposed a weakness in the VP that needs to be addressed. Hire a RevOps team to support that VP and they should be good to move about the cabin.

RealPatrickBateman

Politicker

🔪Amateur Butcher🔪

Yeah, but is the seatbelt sign off yet??

salesboi22

Politicker

Head of Growth

Our revops team is really bad, so that doesn’t help

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Doesn't sound like any alarms are going off to me 🤷‍♀️

hocktony

Big Shot

smileNdial

Been through this…

It would have been a major issue if we didn’t have an incredibly talented vp of sales, and a fantastic senior director.

If it’s just you reporting to the ceo (unless you have clearly defined quota & goals, and a good grip on the product) I would be very worried.

CROs know how to hire & build sales talent, manage expectations to the board and make sure the sales team is happy & producing. They build processes, outbound strategy, funnels etc etc. CEOs don’t

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

A CRO is a rather recent phenomenon. In smaller orgs, I view it as the giving of a c-level title to someone you want on your team but you’re not quite sure where to put them (not 100%, but often).

In a larger org that person would be more strategic than operational.

To answer your question, no I don’t view it as a red flag. In fact too many c-level titles is more of a red flag to me than anything.

SADNESSLieutenant

Politicker

Officer of ♥️

CRO's are a nice-to-have but not a must have.

ABCvs

Valued Contributor

VP of Growth

A CRO at a startup seems like overkill. VP of sales should be more than enough

salesboi22

Politicker

Head of Growth

Appreciate the insight from everyone. Very helpful. I think the reason it might feel painful is that our VP is our only sales manager. I’ll be promoted under him soon, but I think our CRO was acting more as a VP and our VP was a normal manager.

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

It sounds like it's an opp for you to fill the void. Can you keep a dialogue going with CRO who left and selectively ask for insights/help?

salesboi22

Politicker

Head of Growth

Yeah absolutely, lots of opportunity

GDO

Politicker

BDM

Meh don’t think it’s necessary as long as the VP can handle it. However, no CRO could been they do not think sales has a place at the table. Or sales gets more focus because your CEO is involved now.

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