Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Sanwal: Giving early employees C-level titles causes organizational friction later

Anand Sanwal · Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company · Jul 21, 2023 · at 8:06

This episode carries Anand Sanwal's own address, with nobody on the show putting questions to them. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.

CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal warns founders against early title inflation at SaaS Open.

0:00 / 0:25exact quote · 25.1s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“If somebody's gonna be a CTO when you're three people, and then you get to 30, and that person no longer is relevant in that role, then you're gonna have to top them, they're gonna look like they took a demotion, it just creates all sorts of agita and anxiety that you can avoid, By just giving people reasonable titles. Like, and when you go, if you sell to Enterprise and you show up and we're like a 10 person company and here's our C-level, like, you look like jokers.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Anand Sanwal

Insight
Sanwal: Best practices produce average results and will not build exceptional companies
“Best practices are for losers, full stop. They're for people who want to be average. Like, nobody who follows best practices builds great companies or builds exceptional companies.”
Anand Sanwal Jul 21, 2023 ▶ 23:45 Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company
Opinion
Sanwal: Odds that VC alone changes startup trajectory are close to nil
“The odds that a VC alone is going to change the trajectory of your business is close to nil.”
Anand Sanwal Jul 21, 2023 ▶ 4:33 Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company
Insight
Sanwal: Consensus-driven culture results in a 'shit brown culture'
“If you give everybody input into what the culture's gonna become, you're gonna have a shit brown culture. And so what you got to do is say, nope, this is our culture, and we're going to spike on these two colors, and that's it”
Anand Sanwal Jul 21, 2023 ▶ 21:00 Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company
Insight
Sanwal: Do not hire candidates with a track record of startup failures
“When you see somebody who's taking a lot of L's, like, you know, hey, I was at a startup, it failed, my prior startup had this problem, and you look at their resume, and it's just like a string of losses, like, don't hire that person.”
Anand Sanwal Jul 21, 2023 ▶ 22:32 Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company
Opinion
Sanwal: Focusing on personal branding as an entrepreneur is nonsense
“You know, if you care about your personal brand, and you really, if that's what, you know, like, all that shit is nonsense, so it won't be good for y'all.”
Anand Sanwal Jul 21, 2023 ▶ 2:33 Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company
Disclosure
CB Insights has reached ~$100M ARR without a PR firm
“We're kind of in that hundred million ARR category, and we don't have a PR firm still”
Anand Sanwal Jul 21, 2023 ▶ 5:26 Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 2,600 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.