Dear SaaStr: From 0 to $10m ARR, At What Point Do We Start Hiring and Whom?
From $0 to $10M ARR, every hire has an outsized impact, and there’s little to no redundancy. So timing and prioritization are critical.
Here’s how I’d break it down:
$0 to $1M ARR: Founder-Led Everything
- Sales: Founders should lead sales. You need to close the first 10-20 customers yourself to refine the pitch and understand objections. Maybe hire 1-2 scrappy AEs or SDRs to assist with lead gen, but you’re the closer.
- Marketing: Often no VP of Marketing / Growth yet — but if you can find someone great that is “hands on keyboard” and will do the work themsleves, hire them!. If you’re seeing steady leads, consider a growth hacker or someone scrappy to help with demand gen. A great VP of Demand Gen can be accretive even at $10K-$20K MRR if there’s demand to build on.
- Customer Success: Hire 1-2 individual contributors to handle onboarding and support. If you land 2 big customers, hire someone full-time to make them successful. Neglecting them will hurt.
$1M to $3M ARR: Build the Foundation
- Sales: Once you have 2 reps consistently hitting quota, hire your first VP of Sales (usually around $1M-$2M ARR). They’ll scale the team from 2 reps to 10+ and build a repeatable process.
- Marketing: Around $1M ARR, you’re ready for a VP of Marketing or Demand Gen. If they can increase qualified leads by even 20%, they’ll pay for themselves.
- Customer Success: If churn or renewals are a challenge, or you have larger customers, hire a VP of Customer Success around $2M-$3M ARR. They’ll focus on retention and building a scalable CS function.
$3M to $10M ARR: Scale the Team
- Sales: Your VP of Sales should now be hiring aggressively. You’ll likely need 10-20 AEs to hit $10M ARR, depending on deal size and quotas. Start layering in Sales Ops and Enablement as the team grows.
- Marketing: Your VP of Marketing should build out a team, including content marketing (some with AI, but still), paid acquisition, and events. If targeting SMBs, consider a growth hacker to optimize funnels.
- Customer Success: By $10M ARR, you’ll need a full CS team to handle onboarding, renewals, retention, and upsells. A dedicated Head of Support is likely necessary if ticket volume is high.
- Engineering/Product: As complexity grows, hire a VP of Engineering to manage technical debt and integrations. A hands-on VP of Product is also critical by this stage to handle the increasing product demands.
The key is to hire just ahead of the curve. At least try. You’ll get burnt out if you hire strong leaders too late. And growth will stall.
And … don’t settle. Take risks, hire stretch VPs and stretch hires. But don’t hire anyone you aren’t 90%+ sure can do the job well.
If you wait until you’re drowning in leads, churn, or bugs, you’ve waited too long. Every hire should be accretive within a few months, so don’t hesitate to invest when you see the need.
A related great deep dive here:
