Chief Revenue Officer
also referred to as: chief revenue officers · cro · cro's · cros
24 statements across 15 episodes · 4 bullish · 6 bearish · 12 people on the record · first statement May 27, 2021 by Byron Deeter · across every show →
Everything said about Chief Revenue Officer, oldest first
May 27, 2021 negative
Hiring a Big-Company CRO Too Early Disadvantages Early-Stage Startups
“And so hiring the big company CRO at that point is not only overkill, but it probably sets you up at a disadvantage because they're going to be disconnected. They're going to be layering in other execs. They're going to be working on process when really you ne…”
Feb 2, 2022
Feb 2, 2022
Herzberg: Early startups in low $10Ms ARR should hire VPs, not CROs
“So if you're an earlier stage company, let's say in the low two Tens of millions. I would hire a VP or an SVP so that they have something to grow into. We with sales DNA are very internally competitive, so it's always good if there's something to work toward.”
Oct 21, 2022 negative
Harrison: Andreessen Horowitz's executive Slack channels fail as genuine communities
“Some examples of this, even like Andreessen has some of these where they have like, you know, Slack channels where they'll take the CROs of all their companies and dump them into Slack channel. It's not a good community. It's an attempt at trying to like coale…”
Jan 25, 2023 positive
Being a CRO is ultimately about math and score optimization
“And the math behind it to win being a CRO really is not all that different. You have to adapt constantly. It's very dynamic. You're putting together all of these different elements into a strategy. And ultimately the math has to work and really just the score …”
Nov 10, 2023
Founders should hire a VP of Sales before a Chief Revenue Officer
“I think it's a mistake for a founder to hire a chief revenue officer right away, because the getting rid of a chief revenue officer is going to be more painful versus, Hey, you have a VP of sales and you can hire over them and you can make that VP of sales a H…”
Aug 2, 2024 negative
Fiechtner: New CROs fail by copy-pasting playbooks instead of adapting
“I think too often they come in with design playbooks or this worked at this company and blah, blah, blah. And I'm going to copy and paste it here instead of coming in with design principles about these are the things that I know and the frameworks that I can a…”
Aug 23, 2024
Missing sales headcount targets inevitably breaks next year's revenue forecast
“When you're hiring at scale, you have to hire. Because if you can't hire next year's forecast, not this year's, but next year's forecast is shot. Now you're going to the board saying, I got to lower the number. I know we raised off of doing 200 next year. I ge…”
Aug 23, 2024
Aug 23, 2024 positive
Aug 23, 2024
CROs who accept unrealistic forecasts will be fired in nine months
“CEO's, CRO's got a decision. You either stand up for it right there, or you accept the fact you're getting fired in nine months. Because you know you're not hitting that number, and I promise you they're gonna blame you, and this happens a lot.”
Aug 23, 2024
Aug 23, 2024 positive
Sep 11, 2024
Oct 30, 2024 negative
Saarinen: VCs push founders to hire executive roles prematurely
“VCs? Tend to push you to hire more leadership people, but then it's not always the right time, or it's also tough to find the right person to like, at least for me, I'm again, looking for a fit in that leadership role. So I think there's way too much push on l…”
Nov 22, 2024 neutral
Dec 20, 2024
At $200M revenue, CRO role shifts from closing deals to sales operations
“By the time you get to be maybe, I don't know, two hundred million or something, like your job as the CRO, it completely changes to essentially like head of sales operations. Like you have a great sales operations team, but
At some point it transitions complet…”
Nov 7, 2025 negative
Nov 7, 2025 positive
Nov 7, 2025
Product Roadmaps Built Without CRO Input Fail to Capture True Demand
“Well, who designs the product roadmap? Oh, the product organization does. You got problems, right? Because product organization is going to go build what they think the customer wants to buy. The person that knows what the customer wants to buy is the person t…”
Nov 28, 2025
May 23, 2026
May 23, 2026 negative
Peets: Founders must commit to replacing underperforming CROs to work together
“And then I'll go through their sales organization and say, look, I've gone through the sales organization, particularly your chief revenue officer. I can't work with him or her. So in order for me to come in, you have to commit now that we're going to replace …”