Dear SaaStr: I’m Bootstrapped. How Can I Afford to Hire Any VPs?

Q:  When ought to a bootstrapped startup rent a (CFO, COO, CMO)? How can a CEO rent these C-level positions for the primary time as a CEO and entrepreneur? What expertise ought to she or he search for?

Here are some tough guidelines:

  • You desire a VP of Everything (Sales, Marketing, Product, Eng) by about $1m-$2m ARR. Not , however you’ll be able to profit from all of them by then. A bit extra here.
  • You need to begin including CXOs round $15m-$20m ARR. The CFO is commonly the final, the CMO usually the primary “C” stage officer.

Now how does bootstrapping change this? Not that a lot. Certainly, it slows down what number of VPs you’ll be able to rent after $1m-$2m ARR. You in all probability have to rent them separately, a bit slowly.

But by $10m ARR, bootstrapped SaaS corporations mint sufficient money to fund all these hires. $10m ARR bootstrapped corporations begin to converge and look rather a lot like $10m ARR venutre-backed SaaS corporations.  This is the important thing perception.  If you might be bootstrapped in SaaS, you received’t have sufficient capital to construct your administration group as quick you want to for fairly some time.  But as you strategy $8m-$10m ARR, there will likely be sufficient income.  And no excuses not to have a totally constructed administration group by then.

And thus the following stage C-level hiring course of finally ends up being about the identical, bootstrapped or not.

Published on August 19, 2021


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