Dear SaaStr: When Will VCs Push You To Bring On an Outside / Professional CEO?
I think 99% of successful VCs, especially “traditional”, experience Silicon Valley-type VCs have now seen you want to back the founder-CEO forever if you can.
You sometimes get a short-term boost from a Professional CEO, especially as they often are very good at recruiting, a skill it takes many first time founders a while to truly learn and embrace. But ..it’s often all they do plus “strategy”. Outside CEOs often never truly understand the product. Never. And so ultimately, you fall behind as the market changes.
If a founder CEO is toxic, or spends all the money, etc. that’s different. But I don’t know any VCs that don’t want to back a founder CEO if there’s any growth there and the founder remains all-in.
Personally, if the CEO doesn’t want to go the distance, I’m out.
And as you can see here, almost 90% of SaaS companies that do IPO … IPO with a founder-CEO:
