Assertion certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

Cassidy: Only ~30 VPs of Sales have scaled SaaS to $50M ARR

Brendon Cassidy · How to Hire a Great VP of Sales with SaaStr + Duo Security · Sep 19, 2019 · at 2:38

Brendan Cassidy, co-founder of Cassidy Ventures and former VP of Sales at EchoSign, discusses the talent pool limitations founders face when recruiting executive sales leadership.

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“I sort of ballpark it at about 30, 30 VPs of sales or CROs have taken their SaaS companies to fifty million in ARR plus. That's an unofficial number, so you can agree or disagree with that. But that's not a lot of people, and when you talk about hiring, ah, your VP of sales or your CRO for your startup, ah, a list of 30 that have actually proven that they can do it and scale it from that sort of one to 31 to 41 to 50 range, is a small list and the odds are very, very low that you're gonna be able to get one of those 30.”

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Assertion Contradicted
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