5 Key Learnings from Scaling from 3 to 75 Go-To-Market Team Members in Less Than 12 Months
The latest SaaStr CRO Confidential is out and Sam Blond did a great deep dive with Graham Mareno, VP of Worldwide Sales at Codeium. I really liked this one and wanted to write up a few more learnings.
Codeium has emerged as one of the hottest AI startups, growing from 30 to 150 employees in just one year, with a valuation already exceeding $1 billion.
What makes this growth story particularly fascinating is how quickly their go-to-market (GTM) organization scaled from just 3 people to 75 in less than a year. Let’s unpack the key strategies that drove this remarkable expansion.
What is Codeium and Windsurf?
Codeium has built a generative AI coding assistant Windsurf that integrates across any IDE and supports over 70 programming languages. Their product is generating an impressive 45% of developers’ code on average. Technical customers report that tasks that previously took weeks are now completed in hours.
Beyond their code assistant, they’ve developed Windsurf AI, an agentic IDE allowing non-technical users to build applications – accelerating productivity even further.
When Graham joined in February of last year, Codeium had approximately 200 customers generating low single-digit millions in revenue, combining self-service and enterprise annual contracts. The company already had impressive product-market fit, with the founders having sold several million dollars worth of product before hiring dedicated sales staff.
The 5 Key Elements of Codeium’s GTM Scaling Playbook
1. Hire Sales Leaders Who Bring Their Network
Graham emphasized perhaps the most crucial insight for founders: “If you’re hiring a sales leader who doesn’t have four to six people they can recruit in four to six weeks, they’re likely not ready to be a sales leader.”
This approach paid immediate dividends at Codeium:
- Over 90% of their 73 GTM hires were sourced directly by the leadership team
- Many came from the leaders’ previous networks (Grafana, Airtable, Snowflake)
- The sales world is surprisingly small – top performers know other top performers
The initial hires set the cultural tone and performance bar. When you bring in excellent operators early, it creates a snowball effect that attracts additional talent.
2. Create Compelling Economic Incentives
For sales talent, compensation is critical. Codeium made this a centerpiece of their recruiting strategy:
- Competitive comp plan openly discussed during interviews
- 7 out of 10 sellers who’ve been with Codeium 6+ months have already exceeded annual targets
- Several on track to earn $500K+ in W2 income
- One seller closed $1.6M in just four months and became a leader
As Graham noted: “Success in sales is defined by how much money you’re making. It’s a commission-driven role. You need to prioritize this and create an environment where people can make good money.”
The reputation for economic opportunity becomes self-perpetuating – top talent seeks environments where they can maximize earnings.
3. Invest Early in Enablement and RevOps
While many founders resist investing in supporting roles, Codeium recognized their critical importance:
- Enablement specialists can cost $300K+ annually
- RevOps professionals are similarly expensive
- The ROI is difficult to quantify directly…
- …but the impact on ramp time is massive
Maintaining Codeium’s 90-day ramp period for new sellers is only possible with robust enablement. Without it, longer ramp periods translate directly to lost revenue.
Codeium’s continuous enablement program includes:
- Daily trivia games
- Weekly enablement calls
- Periodic re-enablement sessions
This is especially crucial in rapidly evolving markets like AI, where products and messaging evolve constantly.
4. Implement Pipeline Ownership Culture
A standout aspect of Codeium’s sales approach is their focus on pipeline generation:
- Sales reps own their own pipeline creation
- This ownership is celebrated culturally
- It drives accountability and results
- It’s a critical growth lever that many organizations miss
This self-sufficiency in pipeline generation has been a key driver of Codeium’s growth velocity.
5. Balance Structure with Founder Knowledge
When Graham joined, he discovered the founders had “unconscious competence” in selling to certain customer segments (particularly financial services). They understood patterns of behavior that led to positive outcomes.
However, the sales process lacked structure:
- No formal discovery process
- Immediate product demos without qualification
- Limited ability to scale the “founder magic”
The key was to implement structure while preserving the founders’ insights:
- Added formal discovery processes
- Created qualification frameworks
- Maintained the founders’ industry insights
- Analyzed data to determine ideal customer profiles
What Can Other B2B and B2D Founders Learn?
- Founder-led sales provides invaluable data When founders sell the first $2-3M, they generate critical insights on customers, conversion rates, and retention that inform the GTM strategy.
- The first GTM hires are your most important Your initial sales team sets the culture and performance bar. Hire “good humans” who are exceptional operators.
- Create environment for sales success The formula is simple: Existing revenue + Product-market fit + Growth + Unmet demand = Attractive opportunity for top sales talent.
- Be explicit about success metrics Define what success looks like beyond revenue targets to align expectations.
- Invest early in supporting functions Don’t underestimate the importance of enablement and revops in driving growth.
Graham’s Top Mistakes (And What He Learned From Them)
No growth story is complete without acknowledging missteps along the way. Graham candidly shared his biggest mistakes while scaling Codeium’s sales organization:
- Underestimating the speed of change “We didn’t anticipate how quickly our target market would evolve. We initially built our sales approach around certain customer segments, but the AI landscape shifted so rapidly we had to pivot multiple times in the first few months.”
- Delayed investment in enablement “I wish we’d hired our first enablement person two months earlier. We let sellers ramp without proper resources for too long, which cost us deals and momentum. In hypergrowth, every week matters.”
- Optimizing territories too late “We’re still working through territory science challenges now, when we should have addressed this six months ago. The complexity of managing 30+ enterprise sellers without clear territory boundaries created unnecessary friction.”
- Insufficient focus on post-sale experience “We were so focused on customer acquisition that we didn’t build out our post-sale function quickly enough. In AI especially, deployment success is everything. We’ve corrected this now, but we lost some early momentum.”
- Too many hiring sources initially “We spread ourselves thin across too many recruiting channels at first. Our best hires consistently came from our leadership team’s networks. We should have doubled down on this approach from day one.”
Graham’s advice to other sales leaders: “Document your mistakes religiously and review them quarterly. The problems you solve today create tomorrow’s opportunities, but only if you’re honest about what’s not working.”
What’s Next for Windsurf and Codeium?
As Windsurf / Codeium continues its growth trajectory, they’re focusing on:
- Refining their territory science to manage their growing sales team effectively
- Moving to a partner-first revenue model (unusual for a company their size)
- Continuously improving their enablement as products and markets evolve
Graham’s philosophy on growth challenges encapsulates their approach: “If your top problems remain the same over a quarter or two, that’s not okay. Your challenges should be constantly evolving – that’s a sign of growth and progress.”
With their team, product, and approach to sales, Codeium is well-positioned to continue their remarkable growth journey. While they’re already a unicorn, this feels like just the beginning for this AI-powered coding assistant that’s becoming an essential tool for developers worldwide.
