Jun 1, 2023 · 44m · saastr
SaaStr CRO Confidential: Principles that Drove Wiz’s $0 to The First $100m ARR | Wiz CRO Colin Jones
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of CRO Confidential, Wiz Chief Revenue Officer Colin Jones joins host Sam Blonde to discuss the leadership principles, operational frameworks, and go-to-market strategies that propelled Wiz from zero to over $100 million in ARR in record time.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 4.4 Guest teaching 2.7 Guest disagreement 1.1 Jason pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:23 Playbooks are prisons reframe
Colin rejects the standard executive practice of bringing established playbooks to new startups, bluntly labeling standard industry playbooks as restrictive prisons.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 11:23 Halting the flow to revisit VC intro originSam consciously backtracks and interrupts the forward momentum of the interview to interrogate the exact network origin story that led Colin to Wiz.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 27:05 Debunking shallow industry networkingColin educates the audience on relationship building in enterprise security, rejecting conference happy hours as transactional and ineffective for earning genuine buyer trust.
Jason holds their own ▶ 37:05 Dissecting target-setting psychology and growth paranoiaSam delivers an expert monologue drawing on Parker Conrad's planning exercises at Zenefits, deconstructing why elite revenue leaders must actively counter sandbagging.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evaluating the Wiz Opportunity and Founder Alignment | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Sam frames the discussion around recruiting executive leadership for early-stage companies, comparing Wiz's inflection point to standard go-to-market benchmarks. Colin explains that founder alignment and healthy debate outweighed traditional diligence metrics when making his career move. | |
| Career Domain Expertise and Passion for Cybersecurity | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Sam shares his own domain-agnostic transitions across Zenefits and Brex, providing a contrasting perspective to Colin's deep specialization. Colin articulates how his lifelong passion for security and BDR beginnings anchored his commitment to Wiz. | |
| Navigating Remote Operations in Early Startup Days | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Sam prompts Colin on the initial operational reality in February 2021. Colin details the friction of coordinating cross-continental teams across Denver and Tel Aviv during the pandemic while simultaneously handling surging customer demand. | |
| Leveraging Investor and Professional Networks for Introductions | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Sam steps back to understand the VC introduction mechanics, validating the practice with his own experience of Jason Lemkin and YC making key career introductions. Colin highlights how venture partners connected him with Wiz's leadership. | |
| The Listening Tour and Early Bottleneck Identification | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Colin challenges conventional executive playbooks by calling them 'prisons' and describing his rapid 4-day listening tour. Sam synthesizes the lesson into a broader framework of identifying and removing revenue bottlenecks. | |
| Recruiting Core Go-to-Market Talent and Managing Risk | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Colin reframes product-market fit as actively recognizing and creating unserved demand across the whole company. Sam reinforces this by drawing parallels to early talent clustering at Brex. | |
| High-Performance Standards and the Coaching Tree Philosophy | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Colin outlines his philosophy on building a high-performing coaching tree and rejecting mediocrity. Sam heartily agrees, citing multiple revenue leaders he groomed across previous tech companies. | |
| Founder-Led Customer Discovery and Organic Demand Generation | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Colin explains how Wiz's founders generated organic demand by conducting practitioner discovery calls rather than aggressive sales pitches. Sam notes that top technical founders consistently remain customer-facing through all company stages. | |
| Building Long-Term Trust and Transitioning to Channel Sales | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Colin dismisses superficial networking at industry conferences, emphasizing that real reputation in security is earned through long-term delivery. He shares Wiz's strategic pivot toward a 100% channel sales architecture dictated by customer purchasing habits. | |
| Establishing Brand Credibility and the Currency of Trust | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Colin shares lessons on personal brand equity and rectifying early pricing miscalculations openly with clients. Sam corroborates how transparency forms the cornerstone of brand equity in enterprise software. | |
| Milestone-Based Planning and Aggressive Target Adjustments | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Sam brings up Wiz's massive 5x revision of its 2022 revenue plan from $8M to $40M+. Colin explains their milestone-based planning methodology that iteratively adjusted targets rather than relying on one-off forecasts. | |
| Overcoming Growth Limits and the Growth Paranoia Mindset | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Sam gives a deep breakdown of 'growth paranoia' and recounts Parker Conrad's aggressive 2x thought exercises at Zenefits. Colin validates this mindset, reflecting on pushing past standard operational assumptions. | |
| Pursuing Operational Excellence and Creating Shareholder Value | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Colin redefines the CRO's ultimate responsibility as building long-term shareholder value rather than simply chasing arbitrary quarterly quotas. The interview concludes on shared leadership principles and daily discipline. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Blonde: Category Passion Is a Bonus Rather Than a Strict Hiring Requirement
“That if you can get someone who you believe can have an incredible impact on the business and has this track record that is Colin like where starts as a BDR just crushes it realizes a bunch of promotions over a number of years. And that person is also extremel…”
Wiz CRO: Wiz scaled to over $200M ARR in 27 months
“You know, one of the things I'm proud of is two hundred million plus in 27 months.”
Jones: Executive playbooks are 'prisons' when applied to new environments
“Playbooks are prisons, right? Like so many times we see leaders or executives join organizations and bring playbooks that they've implemented elsewhere assuming that it's going to be effective in a new environment.”
Jones: Creating and recognizing demand is an organization-wide effort, not sales-led
“How do you create more of it and how do you recognize it? And that's not a sales led effort. Like just for everybody is listening. That's an organizational effort. That means adjusting roadmaps and feature function and product direction and marketing approach.…”
Blonde: Senior sales leaders must be expected to recruit in-network talent
“When you hire a senior sales leader, there should be some expectation that that senior sales leader has the ability to source, recruit, and hire people in network that have a low risk of success and high probability of, or low risk of failure, high probability…”
Colin Jones: Celebrating High Performance Requires Not Tolerating Underperformance
“The best way to celebrate over performance is not to tolerate under performance, but like a players want to be with a players.”
Colin Jones: Go-to-Market Leaders Should Be Judged by Talent They Attract
“If you're looking to bring in a CRO or a sales leader or go to market leader, and they don't have the, like the best reflection of them is in the people they bring. And if they don't have that, then they're probably not the leader you're looking for.”
Blonde: Top Founders Spend High Percentage of Time Customer-Facing
“So many of the best founders at the best companies spend a high percentage of their time customer facing. And that happens on day one and it happens on day 1000.”
Wiz CRO: Security sales networks are earned over time, not at happy hours
“Specifically within the security domain, your network is earned. Over an extended period of time. Like I will never do anything that I don't believe is the right thing for a customer, right? And so like you have to earn that credibility and that trust and buil…”
Jones: Wiz is transitioning to a 100% channel sales model
“Like we announced earlier this year, we're transitioning from a kind of hybrid direct channel model to a hundred percent channel. That's a result of how our customers are telling us they want to buy.”