Mire CRO Zhenya Loginov: Hiring Tips for Sales; Why Dropbox Lost Enterprise | 20VC #900

1. 0:00 – 1:23

   Zhenya's background

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:00

      Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination. Zhenya, this is such a pleasure to do. I've wanted to do this one for a while. I heard so many great things from Peter and from Olga. So thank you so much for joining me today.

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov0:17

      Harry, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:19

      Not at all, but I wanna unpack a little bit of the background, 'cause there's some incredible history here. So talk to me, how did you make your way into the world of tech, and then how did you come to lead some of the most powerful revenue and sales orgs, most recently with, you know, where we are today?

   4. ZLZhenya Loginov0:35

      Yeah. I think my kind of upbringing and education, uh, probably, uh, kind of prepared me for the world of tech. So in high school and college, I did a bunch of, like, computer programming competitions, all Russian competitions, and so on. Um, but then eventually went, instead of, kind of becoming an engineer, which was the, the path that I think I was prepared for, I went into the business side, um, and spent, you know, five years doing consulting and finance. And then eventually made it to tech, uh, by starting a company. So I saw friends of mine, uh, start their own companies. I thought that it's exciting. Wanted to see, you know, what it's like and started a company in e-commerce space. Um, and then found that I loved it. Uh, and so eventually, you know, when I closed that company, made it to larger companies like eBay and then Dropbox and then Segment and Miro.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings1:20

      Uh, I mean, I, I love the way you just kind of glossed over some

2. 1:23 – 2:20

   Biggest learnings from Segment and Dropbox

   1. HSHarry Stebbings1:23

      of those companies 'cause I wanna unpack a couple of learnings. If we look at, say, um, Segment and Dropbox. If we were to isolate one to two learnings from your time there, what would you say are the one or two biggest takeaways from each? Can you unpack them for me?

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov1:37

      Sure. I think the biggest one for me from Dropbox was that you have to win the enterprise market. If your market kind of includes the enterprise, you, you have to figure out as a company how to be in the enterprise market. Um, I think at Dropbox when I left, uh, my biggest learning was that, y- you know, we had an opportunity to be Dropbox for the enterprise and we sort of lost this opportunity to other companies, and I never wanted to be in this position again at, uh, others. So when I was joining Segment after Dropbox, uh, one of my biggest things that I wanted to accomplish was take the company into the enterprise and make it a major enterprise player in that space.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings2:14

      Now, I, I just wa- I just wanna pause there.

   4. ZLZhenya Loginov2:17

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings2:17

      I'm too interested 'cause I most often see founders

3. 2:20 – 3:27

   When to move to enterprise

   1. HSHarry Stebbings2:20

      and they say, "We need to move into enterprise." And I always say to them, "Listen, SMB is deeper than you think it is, and you can build a bigger business than you think you can staying there. Don't move there too soon." How do you think about that, given the need to also win enterprise?

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov2:36

      Yeah, I think the market's the difference, uh, right, so i- it really depends on where you are, how much competition you have, and where, how do you see your market developing over the years. So if you have significant competition, uh, or, you know, if you see other people potentially jumping into the enterprise market field, you have to try to win it, um, and not miss the boat. If you have the time, if you are, you know, alone in your market, like, there, there are a few companies that are in this lucky position, uh, then yes, figuring out first the PLG motion, the SMB motion, mid-market motion, uh, is a great thing to do. It's just one thing to know that enterprise takes multiple years to build. So even if you start today, it's not gonna be until, you know, maybe three years, four years from now that you really figure out how to be a PLG plus enterprise company. Uh, so it's just you kind of need to plan for way ahead of time.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings3:25

      Yeah. No, I, I totally agree.

4. 3:27 – 5:40

   Can you do PLG and enterprise at the same time?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings3:27

      Do you think you can do them both at the same time at an early stage? Given it's expensive to do enterprise, and actually PLG is expensive too, it's a big investment in product teams. Do you think it's possible for early stage companies to do PLG and enterprise alongside each other in the early days?

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov3:45

      Yeah. I, I think in the long run, I think the best, uh, business model that you can have is PLG plus enterprise. Um, but in the early days, I agree with you that if your resources are scarce, you need to f- you need to focus on one, and if you have any opportunity to build a PLG business in your market, I would advise you, like, first figure out PLG. Uh, I think that's a lot bigger add to your valuation, a lot bigger add to your, you know, future success if you figure out PLG. Uh, go-to-market, you will also, you will always have the time for it, um, if your PLG motion is figured out, but, um, but the PLG, if you miss it, and if you build the sales teams too early, then it's very hard to build later.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings4:24

      I often have conversations with founders, um, where they say, like, "You know, this big enterprise is desperate to, to sign a contract with us. It's free money, we should take it."

   4. ZLZhenya Loginov4:34

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings4:34

      How do you advise those ones who are kind of getting pulled into enterprise by a large customer, but I always think there's a lot more to it than free money? (laughs)

   6. ZLZhenya Loginov4:43

      Yeah. Uh, I mean, we've seen it, right, at every company. Um, so it's a double-edged sword, I suppose. Uh, on the one hand, some of those early adopters will become your marquee customers who you will show to all of your other prospects for the next, like, two to three years. And, you know, at every company, you know, Dropbox and Segment and Miro, we had those first few adopters that adopted the product very, very early and became, um, you know, large users. Um, it really helped us go into the enterprise and, like, figure out how to build the product there and figure out what are the requirements for the enterprise customers. On the other hand, uh, y- you know, if you don't have enough... If you know that you're gonna need to build a lot for this particular customer that is outside of your normal product roadmap and that would detract your engineering product resources from building the core product, I, I wouldn't do it. Um, it's very hard to say no to, you know, a lot of money and a logo that you like, um, but I think if you really, if you know that it's gonna detract your resources, don't

5. 5:40 – 6:50

   Why didn't Dropbox win enterprise?

   1. ZLZhenya Loginov5:40

      do it.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings5:40

      If you analyze Dropbox, you said there about not winning it, why do you think you didn't win it?

   3. ZLZhenya Loginov5:46

      (sighs) I think it's, um... I think what I learned, I guess, from Dropbox is that, uh, going into the enterprise is a commitment for the entire company that starts with the CEO and, um, that needs to take the entire... not just the go-to-market teams and sales teams, but the entire, like, marketing and engineering and product and the entire, like, culture of the company needs to change a bit. Um, and the whole company needs to believe that.... you know, that enterprise is good fundamentally, that it's not, uh, you know, an evil, and that salespeople are not evil. But that, uh, that it's great for your customers, it's great for build- bringing your product into the market. And I think this lack of that level of commitment, uh, early on, I think that Dropbox was what, uh, plagued us. You know, we had m- wonderful, fantastic go-to-market leaders, uh, at the company, but we just had them... Like, each one came for, you know, a couple of years and then left. And, you know, we never had the full, full commitment to go full on and win the enterprise, no matter what.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings6:46

      I totally get you in terms of the commitment top down. What, what would you say was a big

6. 6:50 – 9:00

   Biggest takeaway from Segment

   1. HSHarry Stebbings6:50

      takeaway for you from Segment? It was an incredible journey there. What would you say is a big takeaway that impacted you from Segment?

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov6:56

      So, like, Segment for me, Segment was really the first place where I ran the sales teams, right? So I started about six years ago, and, um, I started as a head of customer success team at Segment. And then about a month in, Peter, the CEO, um, asked me to run sales. And I told him, "Hey, you know, there's so many people who know how to do this way better than I do. You can go and hire them and, you know, do you really want to do it?" He said, "Well, yeah, like, you seem to be... to understand how the go-to-market thing may work, and go and try to run the sales team, and if you fail, we'll hire somebody." And so I've been, um, at Segment (laughs) ever since. Like, every six months increment is like, "Okay, let's trust another six months to Jenya, and let's trust another six months, um, to see how he can run sales team." So, I think the biggest learning from Segment for me was this kind of pass of an outsider into the sales team in learning about the sales world and, like, um, you know, I'm a k- kind of a mathematics nerd and an operations geek, um, and I think that I saw, initially, sales as maybe nothing other than building relationships and maybe knowing your product well. And over three years with Segment, I came to realize how, um, fantastic and how deep the world of sales is, how much it has to, you know, to master and to learn, um, and that it's sort of a separate, um, field of knowledge, even like sev- uh, several different fields of knowledge. So, before Segment, I think I respected salespeople because I saw that they can do kind of seemingly effortlessly what I couldn't see myself doing. But then, after Segment, um, I respected them even more, knowing how much they have to learn and how much they need to do and excel in to be, to be able to do things they do so easily.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings8:42

      I, I, I totally agree with you in terms of the complexity in many ways of the sales role, especially today with the multiple different personas and the product knowledge required. It's... I think people consistently underestimate it. I wanna start on something there that people often talk about, but, um, I think there's a little bit of a lost clarity around it,

7. 9:00 – 12:30

   What is a Sales Playbook?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings9:00

      which is the sales playbook. Love the term. How do you think about the definition of what a sales playbook actually is?

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov9:08

      So, I feel like I think about sales playbook on three different levels. Uh, the customer level, team level, and market level. So, customer level for me is all about the problem and the solution. So, the questions like, what problem are you solving, who are you solving it for, um, and how are you solving this problem with your product? And the timeframe for this is somewhere between one single meeting and one deal cycle. Uh, the team level, for me, is about organizing the team to solve how many, as many those customer level problems as possible in a period of time effectively, right? So, it's about hiding profiles, it's about how do you ramp and train salespeople, it's about the leaders that you hire into the team, what is the coverage model and who does what in the sales team and customer success team. Um, and the timeframe here is maybe six to 12 months. And then the last level is the market level, uh, which I think is all about your plan to be in the larger market in the long run. So, it can be about moving from SMB to enterprise, which we talked about. Um, it can be, uh, sort of moving from mid-level decision makers as buyers to CAO as a buyer or C-level decision maker as a buyer, um, moving from selling into one country to a global sales team and covering the global market from sort of one set of competitors that are maybe small pure plays to entire different, another set that may include the likes of, like, Microsoft and Google and so on. So, and from a regional product to the long-term product vision. And the timeframe for this is maybe five years or more.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings10:32

      So, when we think about those three... I love that breakdown on the three different stages. And when we think about those three different stages, who needs to own what part of the stage? Often founders are told, "You need to create and execute the sales playbook before you hire your first reps." When you look at those three stages, what does the founder need to do, and then what needs to be brought on at what stage there?

   4. ZLZhenya Loginov10:53

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I listened to some of your interviews, uh, with sales leaders before on the question of whether the founders should create their own first sales playbook, um, and, and I feel like we have a consensus here, and I think that, no, the founder shouldn't. Um, and it's better that, that they're not. Um, so of course, the founder is the most, most often the first seller, um, and most often, um... You know, and they need to link this sales playbook, um, to the vision of the product and the company they wanna build, right? Um, so it's very helpful for them to be deeply involved in creating this first sales playbook, but it's also very, very helpful if s- if a sales professional is actually running the process. Um, so coming back to my point about sales being like a very deep area of expertise, I think that some first-time founders just don't realize it and don't realize how much they may not know about sales and about what's important for, uh, for the sales rep and how to create a playbook that will resonate with them and they, they... that would f- would feel like it's their own. Um, and I think one more important thing that I want to emphasize is I'm a big believer in enablement and empowerment, and I think if the founder, uh, sort of hires salespeople who he gives the playbook to, that the founder developed, um, it's gonna be less effective and less efficient than if, you know, a founder brings in the person and lets them create something that they would feel, uh, ownership over and, you know, would feel empowered to go and execute.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings12:15

      Okay. So I am clearly, um, naive or dumb here, bluntly, 'cause I- I disagree and I think the founder should create the sales playbook. And my thinking around that also then leads me to my next question which is, if you don't think

8. 12:30 – 14:17

   When to hire a Head of Sales

   1. HSHarry Stebbings12:30

      the founder should create the sales playbook, then you have to hire a head of sales first, not reps, 'cause you can't bring in, bluntly, low-level sales reps and expect them to manage, like create and execute on a new sales playbook. That would be a lot to expect a young sales rep. Do you agree then that it's head of sales next? And if so, do any heads of sales want to join as the first salesperson in an org, and if they do, are they any good?

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov12:57

      Uh, yeah. I think I agree that the head of sales is the best role to hire for instead of, uh, just reps. I think that if you- if you can at all afford it, then I think go and hire your first head of sales. I think this stage is important, right? So if you don't know where your initial product market fit is, you shouldn't hire any salespeople, either reps or head of sales. They are not gonna figure it out for you. Like the founder is a lot more likely to figure out the initial product market fit. Um, and but after, you know, you closed either several deals or maybe you are up to maybe 1 million in revenue, um, it is time to hire your first head of sales. I think that the junior rep will consume bandwidth from the founder and will... You know, the founder will need to spend time on those first few reps and to enable them, to support them, to, you know, show them what to do. And the head of sales will instead create bandwidth that the founder can use to go solve other problems, to go like build a product, to go hire, you know, a finance person, to go, uh, do something else. So I'm a big believer in, uh, you know, scaling yourself through hiring people who can do things independently of you.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings13:57

      I- I totally agree with that. You know, and when we think about scaling yourself, PLG itself as a motion is a way to scale your sales motion very efficiently. We just had J- Oliver Jay from formerly Asana on the show, and, uh, they got to 20 million in ARR without having a sales rep, I think it was, because of the PLG motion. Um,

9. 14:17 – 17:22

   Most common things that go wrong with PLG

   1. HSHarry Stebbings14:17

      and I spoke to Paul, um, who obviously you know very well before the show, and he told me that you know everything that goes wrong and everything that goes right in PLG, and you've applied it to Miro. So what are the most common things to go wrong in PLG? And then we'll do what goes right.

   2. ZLZhenya Loginov14:35

      Common things to go wrong. Uh, so I think I, you know, learned a few things from the companies that I've been a part of, but probably even more from companies that I haven't worked at that I just tried to learn from what sort of exists in the world and what, you know, what can go right and what can go wrong. Uh, so I think I, um, I- I'm big fan of RJ from Asana, right? But I would argue actually that companies like Asana or Dropbox were a little too late into enabling the enterprise motion on top of PLG. I think that's one of the reasons that RJ joined Asana was that Asana realized that they need to build, um, the sales-enabled motion, uh, and grow much faster, which... than they did, right? So that to me is one, um, maybe mistake. It's the question of sequencing, right? It's the question of when do you transition from a pure PLG to a combination of PLG and enterprise. Uh, so if you are too late, you may just miss the market. On the other hand, the other thing that we- we talked about is that like doing enterprise too early and having hiring a lot of salespeople without figuring out the fundamentals of your PLG motion just makes you into pure, you know, sales-led company. And there sure are markets where, you know, purely sales-led company is the right way to go, but many, many, many markets allow for a combination of PLG and enterprise. And if you are too early into enterprise, you will miss the, you know, the EBLPLG, building the PLG engine that would actually help you in the long run. Um, and then the third big kind of area of problems that I've seen is, um, structuring your team in a way that creates conflicts between the PLG side of the company and the self-service side of the company and the enterprise side of the company. So, and where people don't optimize for the company overall and for customers overall but optimize for their own thing that they own. Um, so I've seen a couple of those. So actually, a lot of-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings16:23

      What- What... So what- what do you mean optimize for the thing that they own? What does that mean? Sorry.

   4. ZLZhenya Loginov16:27

      So let's say that, you know, one bad way to organize this is to have two people. One is responsible for self-serve revenue, and another one is responsible for high-touch revenue. And they're only responsible for their own portion of revenue. And, uh, there is... You- You know, in a couple of months after that, the high-touch person will go and figure out, "Well, I can launch an SMB, um, motion here and sell to small companies through a salesperson." And a self-serve person will come to the CEO and say, "Well, you... those guys are cannibalizing my self-serve revenue and actually they are deploying people resources where we should not deploy people resources, where the customer eventually will grow." You know, maybe it will take them additional couple of months but will grow to the same level that they would grow with a salesperson with no costs, uh, spent, right? And this creates, um, room for conflict and people are starting to spend time on things that are not productive for the whole company but that would optimize for, you know, for either self-serve or high-touch. And I

10. 17:22 – 20:20

    Biggest resource conflicts at Miro today

    1. ZLZhenya Loginov17:22

       think-

    2. HSHarry Stebbings17:22

       What- What... What- What are the biggest resource conflicts you have today at Miro?

    3. ZLZhenya Loginov17:26

       Um, I don't think that there is resourcing conflict. I think the biggest conflicts that can happen are alignment conflicts, right? Sort of, you know, what are your goals and, um, what are the goals of the people around you? So for example, if you ask me, right, like, uh, how did I, um, take into account all the maybe mistakes and the ways to do things right, um-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings17:49

       Yeah.

    5. ZLZhenya Loginov17:49

       ... before... or- or when I joined Miro. And I think most of those things I took into account even before joining Miro. Um, and you asked about the resource, um, conflict. So one of the big things that, um, that I wanted to make sure happens before I joined Miro was that we don't have an internal conflict. So now I'm responsible for all revenue, right, both self-serve and high-touch. But the self-serve team doesn't report to me, which I also think is the right thing.... I, I think that the self-serve team is fundamentally a product team first and foremost, and it needs to be a product engineering team that seats- sits within the product organization to be actually able to build the experiences for the customers, um, on, uh, that enable PLG. But because they have this responsibility for all revenue, I actually don't care if the revenue is self-serve with a customer self-serve customer or high-touch customer. So I'm not, you know, I don't have any incentive to build things that are, that don't make sense for, for the end customer. And soon-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings18:44

       Do you have, do you have the high-touch sales team going, "Hey, we need these product, we need these features for these customers and it's gonna drive revenue. And the product, you know, PLG team are not doing it fast enough. Zhenya, come on, help me." Do you get that?

    7. ZLZhenya Loginov18:59

       Um, yeah, I don't think we do actually. Uh, so I think the way that, that we build calibration between the two teams, we, uh, I think the entire sort of high-touch side of the company realizes that, um, the PLG side is not about small customers, it's not about self-serve alone, it's about PLG motion for all of our customers. So within the PLG team, we actually have enterprise growth team, which is a product team that sits within our self-serve organization, self-serve product organization, and that helps mature customers to the enterprise level, and it helps expand customers in the enterprise. So, um, generally, you know, when I joined Miro, the thing that I saw as maybe mission or thing that I wanted to do most is kinda build the next iteration of the best in breed combination of PLG and enterprise, and how the more they are connected everywhere, the better I think the overall motion is.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings19:52

       Yeah. No, I, I, I love that actually, in terms of putting, like the enterprise product within, like the PLG motion. And I, I didn't actually know that, so that's awesome to hear. Uh, I, I do wanna dive into the hiring process itself, 'cause now we've identified, as you said, actually, let's hire the head of sales first. Okay, I've never done this before, Zhenya. You are an angel in my hypothetical company and my most trusted advisor. Tell me, if we think about before, like how to structure the process, like what we're actually looking

11. 20:20 – 23:16

    What traits to look for in a Sales Leader

    1. HSHarry Stebbings20:20

       for in the people, what are the non-obvious characteristics, traits, qualities that these incredible sales leaders, 'cause we're going for the head of sales first according to your advice, what am I looking for in terms of characteristics and traits that's non-obvious?

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov20:35

       Um, yeah, hiring is definitely n- my favorite part of the job. Um, and mostly I'm gonna talk about general leadership hiring, and, uh, maybe the first sales leader hiring. But also, you can apply the same for, you know, anywhere from your head of engineering to head of marketing to anywhere else. I think first and foremost, I'm looking for people who have not done the job before. So, um, I usually, instead of sort of hiring people who have the experience, who have done exactly the same role before, which sometimes is appropriate, but for most roles, especially in high growth companies, I'm actually striving to look for somebody who knows 70% of the job, um, but is really, really passionate about getting the other 30%. And the only motivation I care about them having is to grow personally and professionally by succeeding in this next step in their career. So, I give them the opportunity to take this next step, and I see the most amazing results when they have the passion and the skills to run it. I think the big trick here is to know exactly, uh, like what are the key non-negotiable experiences that fall into this 70%, what can you not miss? Um, and frankly there is... You asked about non-obvious characteristics of those people, uh, I, my feeling is that there is no simple formulaic answer to this. And that your job as a hiring manager is to like, make those non-obvious things obvious to you by trying to deeply understand the role that you are filling before you are starting to interview the first people for the role. So, if you're hiring your first head of sales and if you, you know, have no idea how to hire a head of sales, like, and what they should be doing, go and talk to 10, um, heads of sales who you may possibly maybe not be able to hire, much larger companies, right, who are not looking for anything, and just talk to them for an hour or two and understand, like what are they doing? Um, and second-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings22:20

       Do you know, Zhenya, so sorry, on, on that point, that's why I started these shows. 'Cause I wanted founders to be able to listen to you, to OJ, to Danny Herzberg, and go, "Wow, these are the best sales leaders. This is what great looks like." And it allows them to build a benchmark. And then they can take this conversation to their conversation, and it democratizes access to you in a way that they may not have otherwise.

    4. ZLZhenya Loginov22:43

       Yeah, it makes total sense. Um, and I think it's, um, I think what founders m- m- you know, should learn from this and not necessarily only, you know, here's what the salespeople look like, right? Uh, but more, uh, like you can use the same approach for, and should use the same approach for any role. Um, if you're hiring your first, I don't know, CSO or CMO or your head of engineering or anybody else, uh, like go and figure out what the job is before, um, you start talking to people about joining you for that role.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings23:10

       Just one question. When you don't know, like what... So say, I, I, you know, I'm not technical

12. 23:16 – 24:56

    Hiring for roles in fields in which you're not an expert

    1. HSHarry Stebbings23:16

       in terms of engineering managers or engineers, how do you advise people on hiring for roles where they really have no idea? Other than speaking to 10 people in the space, is there anything else they can do? And also, are there any dangers or red flags with hiring someone who hasn't done the role before?

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov23:33

       I think if you, you know, if you don't have the background in this, uh, role, I think that's gonna be the most difficult situation, right? As a founder, you're hiring a lot of people who are gonna be professionals in their fields where you're not a professional in their field. You may be a professional one or two, but not, you know, 10 other. Um, so it's always gonna be the case, and, uh, you have to learn it. Like, it's very hard to say, "Hey, as a founder I have, you know, I don't wanna deal with legal and finance and I'm gonna just find somebody and they're gonna, you know, take care of this and I'm never gonna be, need to be involved." Well, you are, you are gonna have to be involved, right? Like, you're gonna have a bunch of things, um, leading at least up to the IPO that you'll need to learn even about that field, not talk- even talking about engineering or sales or marketing. So, I think to some extent you need to always be sort of a scholar of-... different dis- disciplines. Um, the best way that I've found that you can learn is really talk to people who have done that before. Uh, but, you know, you could read a bunch of books. There is like, you know, uh, I read maybe 10 different sales books, uh, when I was starting to run sales at Segment to figure out, you know, what people wrote about this. Um, so that's, that, I guess, like knowing what, what your people do is, uh, is the best recipe and then you learn from them and you continue learning from them and their peers that, that you're talking to.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings24:47

       How do you structure the actual process itself? I often see people have one meeting and offer a role or others who have 20 and still haven't made a decision.

13. 24:56 – 33:00

    How do you structure hiring process?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings24:56

       How do you think about structuring-

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov24:58

       Mm-hmm.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings24:58

       ... the right and efficient hiring process for sales and revenue teams?

    4. ZLZhenya Loginov25:03

       Yeah, I think that the good hiring process is frankly similar most places, right? So you have your hiring manager screen your, um, interview panel. Then you have some final interviews and then you, you close the candidate. Um, I will share with you kind of unorthodox design choices that, uh, worked very well for me. Uh, we started with the first one that I ma- try to make sure always happens, which is you need to, if I don't understand what role that I'm hiring for, I don't open the role until I do. Um, and I will go research the role before, um, I want to fill it. The second step is as a hiring manager, I try to have very clear must-have criterias, three to five must-have criterias for the role and I ruthlessly decline candidates who don't meet at least one of those criterias on the resume stage. I don't talk to them. I look at the resume. There are five criterias I have, if one is not met, it's out. I don't have-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings25:53

       Mm.

    6. ZLZhenya Loginov25:53

       ... nice to haves-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings25:53

       Can you give me an, can you give me an example just so I understand that? So a couple of criterias would be? And then what would show they don't have them?

    8. ZLZhenya Loginov26:01

       Sure. So, uh, here on the resume stage, I focus only on the things that I can get and can read from the resume. Right? And, um, I have, I try to have a very short list and I don't have nice to haves, I only have must haves. So for example, let's say that I'm looking for, um, head of Europe for a $50 million AR company. So I'm looking for a person who, you know, I may have a criteria, you know, ran a team of at least 100 people, one. Uh, I may have a criteria was, um, uh, let's say, uh, ran, you know, was a part of a company that grew from $50 million to $200 million. Um, you know, not, not necessarily led this company but was a part of that. I may have a criteria, worked at a company that had a PLG motion or maybe I don't care about this and I have a criteria, worked at a company that had, you know, um, multiple different... so not only European, pure European company, but an international company that had, uh, you know, presence in several different places. So, I would focus on those few things, um, and, you know, the fourth thing that I would typically look for, for example, have strong experience in enterprise. So sold, you know, million dollar contracts to the enterprise market. And then those four criteria fairly simple, right? But they mean that if I see somebody who has amazing experience in the work that the company is, amazing companies, but have only sold commercial, I'm not gonna even talk to that person. I'm never gonna say, "Well, maybe they're great." But, uh, I'm, my view is I know why I need those must haves and if one of them is not met then the candidate is not right in and I'm gonna cycle through, um, until I find people who just qualify everywhere.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings27:38

       I, I'm totally with you and I, I think in terms of that criteria, I was thinking like ambitious self-starter, but it's actually very tangible and data oriented in terms of what you're looking for.

    10. ZLZhenya Loginov27:47

        Yeah. Yeah. At least in this stage, right? So all the other things I have there as well, right? But they, I only will find them, uh, when I am talking to them. And then my next step as a hiring manager is that I spend about four or five hours with the candidates in structured one-hour interviews before they go to the interview panel. Uh, and I'm striving to be maybe 70% sure that they will actually succeed going through the interview panel. Um, and I also want to be about 90% sure that the candidate will accept the offer if we are to extend an offer to them. So-

    11. HSHarry Stebbings28:19

        Let's just pause there 'cause I'm too interested here. So okay, so we ha- how many candidates do you go through this extensive a process with? Is it three to five? Is it 10?

    12. ZLZhenya Loginov28:28

        So it really depends on the role. I've had roles where I would do three to five, but I also had roles where I would do like maybe 20.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings28:35

        Wow.

    14. ZLZhenya Loginov28:35

        Um, but it doesn't mean that I spend four or five hours with every candidate. I usually start those, um, interviews with the topics that are hardest, that I think will be the hardest for the candidate to succeed in, and then if on the, after the first interview the candidate is not succeeding, I will, you know, move on to, to other ones. So, the thing for me here is that, um, I don't want them to go to the interview panel until I'm sure that they are actually good, and that I am calibrated and I, I know what I'm hiring for. I have, I, they passed my bar. Um, what I find with interview panels is several things. Like one is I will lose everybody's time if I pass candidates who I'm like half sure about, and you know, then that, that's what lead to, you know, half a year, a year, 18 months long, um, hiring cycles where, you know, all of your exec team have interviewed 25 people and are, you know, bored to death from this role. I only need t- I only want them to talk to maybe three to five people and then say, "Okay, like all of them, all three of them are good and this one is better than the two others." Uh, so that's one thing that also I find that it's only the hiring manager who really, really sets the hiring bar. Um, and your panel will not be able... your panel doesn't exactly know what you're hiring for. They may have a good feel, right? You know, you're hiring head of sales and your head of marketing interviews and head of engineering interviews them and they have their own perception of what head of sales should look like. But only you thought about this, you know, five times or 10 times as much as they did and you understand what challenges exactly this person will need to solve in the next year and the next two years and what do you need them to, to be able to do, uh, to win. So, I think by, by investing this much time, you're basically raising the hiring bar for the candidate you are hiring.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings30:18

        I feel quite naïve here, Zhenya, but when you say hiring panel, do you have an individual hiring panel for each hire? Is it, like, a hiring panel across the company? Can you just walk me through this? 'Cause I've never actually heard of, like, a, a hiring panel, so to speak.

    16. ZLZhenya Loginov30:33

        Yeah, I do have individual hiring panel for each role. Um, so what I'm looking for, I look for maybe three to five people who will talk to the person I'm trying to hire, who will be the most likely to, um, understand well what I'm hiring, like, what I'm trying to hire, and who will maybe work closely with this person. Uh, and if sometimes I don't have... sometimes I don't have those people inside the company, sometimes I may ask my board member to interview, or I will ask my advisor who is, you know, head of sales at much larger company to interview my first, uh, head of sales hire to understand, uh, you know, what to do with them. Uh, but I also will have people from within the company, uh, interview the hire as well. And so the panel, I think, is tailor-made, and I... Basically, I try to make the panel as hard for the candidate as possible, because if they pass that, I want them... Th- they're much more likely to succeed when they join the company. Um, and...

    17. HSHarry Stebbings31:25

        What makes a, what makes a panel hard? Is it the people being very experienced and very direct? What makes a panel hard?

    18. ZLZhenya Loginov31:32

        Uh, I think over time, um, when you interview together with other people, you're on the same interview panels, uh, you over time learn who is a harder and better interviewer and who is, um, uh, uh... you know, who almost always says yes. Um, you know, at some point at Dropbox, we had this initiative to, to try to replace our... Our final interviewer for a very long time has been the co-founder, Arash has been the co-founder. He interviewed every single person at the company until we were like 500 plus people, and at some point it didn't work, and the way that we wanted to find people who could potentially replace Arash, we analyzed who said no more often and who was right in the hiring decisions more often. Like, we took the entire database of our interviews for the company, uh, and then we found those few people. So... And what I find in my interviews is that, you know, if I did ten interviews, you know, if I had one person on an interview panel for ten different interviews and every single time they said a yes, and then half of the time I agreed with them and half of the time I didn't, that's not a very strong signal for me. I'm looking for people who will, um, well, disagree with me, first of all, and second, uh, who will be, like, hard to pass but reasonably hard to pass, right? Not, not for arbitrary reasons, but they have a good reasoning why this particular candidate may not necessarily be a fit, uh, right? So, uh, that's what I'm looking for.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings32:50

        I love that. And, uh, I really like the kind of constructing individualized hiring panels for each role. I think that's awesome. When we think about going back to, like, the actual, like, candidates themselves, you know,

14. 33:00 – 34:07

    Enterprise Sales Leaders vs. PLG Sales Leaders

    1. HSHarry Stebbings33:00

       PLG, enterprise, as we spent time on, how does what we need in each change, when we're thinking about sales leaders? If we're a PLG sales leader versus an enterprise sales leader, how are they different in terms of what we need?

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov33:13

       So frankly, I think the fundamentals are the same, and I think great enterprise seller and enterprise sales leader at a PLG company should be also a great one in a pure play enterprise company. I think to me the only difference is kind of that people... those people should have the appreciation for the importance of end user experience and, um, appreciation for teams like product or customer experience. So, um, they don't necessarily need to have PLG experience at a PLG company, but I want to see them sort of respect and, uh, value perspective of other people and ability to learn new things. And if they can learn new things, then they can easily learn the PLG motion as well. I don't think that there is a special breed of, you know, PLG salespeople. I think that's... y- y- you know, say a great salesperson is a great salesperson. Uh, they just need to be open-minded about changing their motion, their sales motion to, to benefit from the PLG.

15. 34:07 – 35:12

    Do you use case studies when hiring?

    1. ZLZhenya Loginov34:07

    2. HSHarry Stebbings34:07

       You said about, like, the many hours you spend with candidates before putting them in front of the hiring panel. Do you use case studies? Do you use data? How do you strategically test them in a more tangible way?

    3. ZLZhenya Loginov34:19

       Yeah, y- y- you know, I probably... I think that I interviewed maybe like thousands of people at this point, a- and I think early on in my career, I leaned heavily on case studies, and now I barely ever use a case study. Um, I think that what I found is that, uh, especially when I'm hiring leaders, I don't want them to solve an artificial puzzle or be a thought partner for me for a given topic. I find that, uh, uh, you know, their ability to succeed there very much depends on whether they were exposed to something like this before or not. I didn't want to talk to them about their own experiences. So all I do is all about, give me a situation when you did this and that, and then I dive into it and ask, like, ten follow-up questions to understand how they solved the problem, what did they think about, how did they work with other people, like, why did they make this decision or another decision? Um, so I, I focus primarily on experiences.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings35:10

       (laughs) Tough question and not one

16. 35:12 – 37:50

    Biggest hiring mistake Zhenya ever made

    1. HSHarry Stebbings35:12

       in the schedule. What are the biggest ways you fucked up in a hiring process? Like, what are the biggest hiring mistakes you've made?

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov35:18

       Oh yeah, I made, made quite a few. Um-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings35:21

       (laughs)

    4. ZLZhenya Loginov35:21

       ... maybe... (laughs) Right, so I had, like, people who reported to me who had to leave companies and, and s- e- every company that I've been a part of, um... Fr- frankly, the biggest ones were when I... I think that I knew that I'm not doing the right step, but I did the step anyway. Uh, where I had the criteria for myself at the beginning of the process, and either I ignored them or, um, I didn't pay enough attention to them. So, like, an example was, uh, you know, for a given role, I hired a person who had no experience working at similar companies at all, and they worked... you know, they had third-year career at... um, in technology, but have never worked, you know, at a similar company that will have an international presence, and it was just extremely hard to change the mindset. Um, and, and we had to part ways, and I knew that it would likely be extremely hard, but just for some reason, I thought that I would be able to... uh, you know, because of all the other strengths that the person had, that, um, I'd be able to, um...... you know, to, to take care of this. Uh, the other experience was, uh, when I, I looked at the candidates. Uh, I trusted the interview panel too much and I trusted the candidate's resume too much. So I looked, they had like a wonderful, fantastic resume and my interview panel was very fond of them. And I think the problem with this is, you know, if you're- on your interview panel, everybody has like 40 minutes to an hour to talk to the person. And nearly everybody who has like good experience have about 40 minute to an hour talk track that they can give you that looks impressive, right? But I didn't really dig into this candidate's, you know, approach to solving problems enough. Uh, I didn't do those five hours of interviews. I did like two hours. Um, and then when the- when the person joined, I realized, "Well, crap. I should have found those problems that we are now having in the third hour of interview." But I never did.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings37:13

       I, I mean we're gonna get into it when that happens. I do just wanna- to remain on just pre-hire still. If we're thinking about sales comp and offering them the role, uh, how do you advise founders on structuring the right sales comp, and where do you see the most common mistakes in terms of sales compensation?

    6. ZLZhenya Loginov37:30

       Um, actually, I, I marked this one as potentially a skip because I'm not sure that I have any insights, uh, on this one, on sales comp. Uh, if, if you don't mind.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings37:39

       Totally, totally fine. Um, no, I, I, I do wanna take this 'cause now we've been through the process.

    8. ZLZhenya Loginov37:44

       Yeah.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings37:44

       We've got this amazing candidate. (laughs) Onboarding is notoriously difficult in every company.

17. 37:50 – 41:00

    How to onboard the first Head of Sales

    1. HSHarry Stebbings37:50

       When we think about kind of the right onboarding process, how- what does that look like for this head of sales that we've just hired? Thank you, by the way, for helping me. Um, what- what does that onboarding process look like for this first head of sales?

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov38:03

       So what I try to do for every leadership hire that I make, um, I try to free up their first months as much as possible. Like I try to create a situation where they don't need to deliver anything in the first one months. Um, I want them to... I'm hiring them not for the next 6 months or 12 months. I'm hiring them for the next like 5 years plus with the company, and I want them to build the foundation of being able to succeed in the company. And for that, for me, that's understand the product, get to meet everybody in the company who you will need to work with. And ideally, you start from people who you will need to work with like a year from now, not a month from now. So if you're a head of sales, you don't go and talk to your salespeople first. You go and talk to your head of engineering or key engineering and product leaders because eventually, as a head of sales, you are gonna need to work with them for the company to be successful. And if you miss the opportunity to build this personal connection in the first months, it's gonna be very hard to do like when you're six months into the role. So the first months, I try to give them as much kind of direction to learn broadly about the company and to, you know, see them sales calls to just, you- you know, ingest, um, everything that the company has built before they joined as possible. So that's step one. And then second, I'd like them to have one low-hanging fruit in their area. I'd like them to do like one small project, and it needs to be small, that delivers value too. You know, if you're head of sales, you either go and sell or you go and solve a particular problem for the small initial sales teams that you may, may already have. Or you go and figure some, some other thing that, you know, people see that you're delivering value because as a new person, you also need to get a lot of buy-in from the rest of the company that you're actually capable. And by delivering this first low-hanging fruit, you get the credibility that allows you to then drive change on a larger scale.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings39:50

       Okay, so just pausing there. I'm the CEO. Do I say, "Zhenya, you need to go meet, you know, the head of product, the head of engineering," da da da, and I make it happen? And do I need to give you the low-hanging fruit to go get? Or do I drop you in and say, "Make it happen"? Should I expect you to do it or should I give you the guidance?

    4. ZLZhenya Loginov40:10

       I think that's, uh, you know, like expecting me to do it, expecting your first sales hire to do it, um, it only makes sense if you're trying to test them more. But you've just interviewed them. You should have tested them to, you know, to the extent that possible before they joined. I think after they join the company, it's your mutual, uh, job to make them successful. It's their job and it's your job. And if you have any ability to help them, do it. Like go introduce them to your board members, to your, you know, people who are their peers. Go like walk them through, sit down with them for like four hours, walk them through the intricacies of the product. I think, you know, investing as a hiring manager, as the CEO, as the founder, um, you need to invest a lot in your hires, especially in the first months to then see the investments, um, pay back in the next several years.

18. 41:00 – 43:22

    Biggest signs you hired the wrong person as Head of Sales

    1. ZLZhenya Loginov41:00

    2. HSHarry Stebbings41:00

       This head of sales hire, what are the biggest signs in the first three months that I've fucked up this hire?

    3. ZLZhenya Loginov41:08

       If you don't see any results delivered in the first three months, if you see the person sitting and, um, figuring out, quote-unquote, "strategy" and drawing charts and not meeting customers and, um, you know, not delivering any value for the early sales team in the first three months, um, that's a big red flag for me. So, um, uh, when we were- when we had, um, exact- new exact team or new leadership team, uh, members join Segment and they asked, "How do I- how am I successful in this company?" Like the biggest beginning of the answer was, "You need to start delivering value on your months number two or number three, and you need to ship something." Uh, and so that, you know, it's a small company. There's no time to like wait and, you know, build plans. You need to deliver fast. You, you have this maybe beginning one, months two, um, where you are invested in, but then you need to start paying back very qui- quick. Uh, so I think that's the first one. The second one for me, which I've seen a couple of times was when your initial team starts to reject, uh, the person you just hired. You know, you maybe have, you know, five salespeople and you are now hiring the head of sales or maybe you have, you know, customer success folks or somebody else. And on months two or months three, somebody from the team comes to you and says, "Hmm, I didn't know about this new guy." Uh, and...... your job as the CEO is actually to make sure that you go and proactively ask them, ask all of your team members how do they feel about the new hire, what, what is the value that the new hire is delivering already. Uh, like, how is the new hire helping them up-level and do better in their job? And if you're not getting a clear, like, "Oh, this is awesome. We get so much value. We like the person so much," you need to dig deeper and figure out, can you enable this person to be more successful or do, do you need to part ways? Um, so I've seen a lot of, like, rejection, early rejection. And oftentimes, it's not the quality of the candidate. Sometimes it's the approach that they take. Um, I had an example of one hire who got significant kind of rejection after the first three months, but then when we sat down and resolved it and when the person talked to the team, they are now very, very loved, much loved by, by their team.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings43:21

       Uh, I, I do

19. 43:22 – 44:42

    How to communicate concerns new hire that's underperforming

    1. HSHarry Stebbings43:22

       wanna ask. Say they're rejected by the organism or they're not delivering value, how do we communicate that first concern? Do we take them aside and say, "Hey, we're concerned by X, Y, and Z. You're on warning." Just help me understand the right communication pathways f- after identifying a concern.

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov43:42

       Yeah, I think my philosophy he- here is that anybody in the leadership role, their role is just too important, uh, a lot more important than, you know, a person's feelings or the process that you need to follow. And, um, I try to be as direct as possible, so like, radical candor to the extreme, right? So you care about the person, but you need to deliver that message very clearly. Uh, so the moment that you know that there is something to deliver, you take the person aside, you sit down, and you're brutally honest in what you're saying and in what consequences follow if the, those things are not fixed. And I've seen the best reaction when it's super clear, when people also need to feel that they do care about them, that you're in their camp, that you need them to succeed in the company, and you need the company to succeed together with them, right? But they need to also be clear on what are they doing right or what are they doing wrong and what do they need to fix to be successful.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings44:37

       This is assessment and monitoring on a kind of per-person level. I'm intrigued. When we think about

20. 44:42 – 47:48

    How to structure deal reviews

    1. HSHarry Stebbings44:42

       on a deal level, do you do postmortems on deals? Do you do deal reviews? And how do you structure them internally? I'm fascinated.

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov44:51

       We do, um, and we did it at, um, both Segment and Miro. The, ugh, I think the, the purpose of the deal reviews is primarily for your sales team to learn what to do well and what not to do well. I think your audience for the deal review is not the person who did the deal, but all the people around. Um, and I think the best, uh, you know, one of the worst ways to do a deal review is when one person is listening and nobody else pays attention and, you know, only the person who, who was there in the room, like, gets any input from your head of sales on how to do the deal better. Um, I think the best deal review is basically a clinic for the entire team on, you know, here are the things that we did really well, th- that's what resonated, how to do it in every deal. Or here's the thing that we didn't do well, and, you know, how to do things differently.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings45:36

       How often do you do them? How long do they last? Who's invited? Who sets the agenda?

    4. ZLZhenya Loginov45:42

       Uh, we... So I think we had a really good process at, uh, Segment where we did deal reviews, I think weekly, and we have a couple of deals every week, uh, to review on every team. Uh, so it's a weekly process, um-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings45:55

       And how long are they? 60 minutes, an hour and a half, two hours?

    6. ZLZhenya Loginov45:58

       Um, 60 minutes I think is good for one deal if it's in-depth, and we don't necessarily interview a deal that is closed. We may interview a customer that is mid-flight, um, on a given deal. Or maybe there is a customer where we don't even have a deal but we are creating opportunities there, um, and we would review that. Uh, so it's about one hour. Who sets the agenda? I think the process and the format should be dictated by your sort of senior-most salesperson in the room, right? Your, say, head of sales. Um, but then you need... You create the framework, but all the meat and essence that goes into it is, um, delivered by your salesperson who is running the deal. They should own that meeting.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings46:38

       Where do you think deal reviews go wrong? How do you see leaders or sales leaders make mistakes in terms of running deal reviews? I've never run one before.

    8. ZLZhenya Loginov46:48

       I think the biggest one is, um, when salespeople feel that it's like any adversity in the deal review. When the deal review for the salesperson is like review of their personal success, then it becomes a show. They become defensive. They show you only the things that they want you to see. Um, and you don't really see what's, what's really happening in the field. You see what the salesperson wants you to see. Um, I think the best way to run deal reviews is when salespeople know that it's, it's intended to help, it's intended to help close the deal, and it's intended to help create a better motion for the sales organization. And the way that you approach, you know, asking questions or giving suggestions, um, or, uh, you know, how do you split the ownership of the deal review and who's, who's doing what I think should be targeted at how do I help this particular salesperson win this particular customer best way possible and how do I help the rest of the sales team who is in the room learn something from this to, to become better?

    9. HSHarry Stebbings47:47

       Can I ask, I think

21. 47:48 – 50:03

    The ideal relationship between CRO and Head of Sales

    1. HSHarry Stebbings47:48

       one crucial, uh, collaboration is the role of CRO and the head of sales. What's the ideal relationship between CRO and head of sales, and how do you structure a relationship to ensure that you have that level of quality between the two roles?

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov48:04

       I think actually in many, many companies that's just the same person. Um, I think CRO is, um- um, you know, can be used as a description for several different roles, and it kind of depends on what role your CRO is playing. So at Miro, I'm the CRO, but I also supervise customer success and decorations and also a couple of other teams like analytics or business technology. So, um-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings48:26

       Wait, do you not have a head of CS beneath you?

    4. ZLZhenya Loginov48:29

       Yes. Yeah.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings48:30

       Gosh.

    6. ZLZhenya Loginov48:30

       And, and-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings48:31

       So then, so then they, they own their function, then they report to you?

    8. ZLZhenya Loginov48:34

       Yeah.... yeah.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings48:34

       Yeah.

    10. ZLZhenya Loginov48:35

        So the role is similar to, you know, at Segment we had the same exact role but it was called COO, so, you know, those, those two, uh, things we used interchangeably. I think if you have a COO who has this broader purview, uh, not just sales, and you need a separate head of sales, I think it comes down to kind of skillsets and what do you expect one person to do and the other person to do. So in our case, for example, at, um, you know, Segment and then at Miro, I realized I didn't come from, um, sales background, right? And there's... I need people who are professional sales leaders, who've spent 10, 20 years, uh, in sales to be able to complement me on the things that I don't know as well, or am not just, just don't have the DNA for, right? So, uh, we have Gene Pahe, uh, head of sales at, uh, Miro, who was previously running Americas at Medallia, who's a fantastic sales leader, um, and we collaborate by basically splitting the responsibilities. And I do the things that I generally do well, like structure and processes and, uh, you know, strategy, and he does the things that he does extremely well, which is running large deals, uh, running the broader sales organization, figuring out how to hire the right sales profiles. Um, so, you know, we're trying to do what we do best, uh, and I deliberately was looking for a person who would do the things that I don't know as well how to do, um, and complement me on that.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings49:58

        I saved the hardest question till last. You said about structure and process

22. 50:03 – 53:58

    How to implement structure without losing agility

    1. HSHarry Stebbings50:03

       there. How do you think about implementing structure and process but not losing the agility that small, young companies have, and that Miro would've done in the earlier days?

    2. ZLZhenya Loginov50:16

       So, I think the agility... Like, I'm a big fan of giving as much responsibility to, um, people as possible, to the specific leaders, whether it's, you know, a geography leader or sales leader or customer success leader. Um, and I think a lot of agility comes from just delegating as much as you possibly can down in the organization on every level, right? If you have, you know, a sales leader for US West, they should feel like they're owning the franchise for your company in US West, and they should be empowered to do it. So that gives you the agility. The process, um, is... The process doesn't need to conflict with this. Uh, the process is about, um, uh... So let me rephrase it. I think the, the process and the structure are, uh, can be before the... Ah, shit. Um, I don't know how to phrase it.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings51:06

       I mean, this is the, this is the joy of pod-

    4. ZLZhenya Loginov51:08

       Yeah.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings51:08

       This is the joy of podcasting. (laughs)

    6. ZLZhenya Loginov51:11

       (laughs)

    7. HSHarry Stebbings51:11

       Can you imagine if it was live TV? "Ah, shit. Emily Chang? Sorry." (laughs)

    8. ZLZhenya Loginov51:16

       Um...

    9. HSHarry Stebbings51:16

       That would be too funny. I don't need to ask the question if it's a difficult one.

    10. ZLZhenya Loginov51:19

        It's a good question, and let me think for a minute if I have a good answer to that, um.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings51:28

        It's just, you always see it, like the bloat happen, where process and structure gets instilled, and then decision-making is slow, agility is lost, and everything that made the company so rapid no longer is.

    12. ZLZhenya Loginov51:42

        Yeah. Um, let's try to restart it again, if you can ask the question. I think that I have a, like, a nugget of the answer there.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings51:48

        Yeah, totally. I mean, my question is really like, when you said about kind of structure and process, how do you think about implementing and instilling that process and structure without losing the agility and speed that smaller companies have, and that Miro once had?

    14. ZLZhenya Loginov52:03

        Yeah. I think it's a great question. Um, I'm a big fan of agility and giving as much kind of local power and as, as having as light of a process for the team as possible. Um, I think ideally when, you know, when we are running a large team, and my team is now what, it's like 700 people, I want the team not to feel like a huge monolith that needs to move with the speed of the slowest, you know, or slowest piece of the organization here, but to feel like, you know, a dozen different villages that have the power to run as fast as they can, and have, you know, all the opportunity to do it, right? So, for example, when we are setting a new geography, like Japan or like France, I want to give as much power and authority to a local leader to be able to run their business as they see fit, so that they can be agile on that scale and they, they feel like, you know, a small and nimble team, as opposed to, like, a cog blog in a- in a huge machine, um, a cog in a huge machine. The, the process, to me, comes from... Uh, the process is, needs to be as light as possible, but should come from those teams that are actually in front of the customer, and if something helps that team, like, for example, there's a very specific, you know, sales process and process of discovery, your team and your leaders need to be on board on, with this process before they adopt it. So, I think the biggest problem that I've seen with process is when somebody once, like myself or maybe the CEO, wants your team to follow the process that the team doesn't buy into. And if the team doesn't buy into, your job as a leader is to figure out how to either have the buy-in or how to change the process so that the buy-in is there, so that the team, you know, has the rules of the game, and as light rules of the game as possible, and has the resources to, to, uh, play this game, but also has a lot of flexibility and freedom to do it where they can.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings53:51

        Zhenya, I want to move into a quick fire round. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    16. ZLZhenya Loginov53:57

        That sounds great.

23. 53:58 – 1:00:28

    Quick Fire Round

    1. ZLZhenya Loginov53:58

    2. HSHarry Stebbings53:58

       Okay. So what sales tactics have not changed over the last five years?

    3. ZLZhenya Loginov54:04

       Discovery. Um, so understanding the customer problem and how you can solve it.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings54:08

       What sales tactics have died a painful death over the last five years?

    5. ZLZhenya Loginov54:13

       I think that the number of deals closed in a golf club is probably much smaller now than 10 or 20 years ago, um, but I did close a deal on a bike ride one time.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings54:23

       What are the biggest break points in scaling to 700 people?

    7. ZLZhenya Loginov54:29

       The biggest one actually is about 150, the Dunbar number, uh, when you as a person, as a founder, as a leader, um, start to not know every single person on your team, and start to lose the ability to...... control every single thing that happens, that happens in about 150 people. That actually is a real, real big thing that may take, like, a couple of years to overcome.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings54:51

       What were your biggest lessons from international expansion at Segment?

    9. ZLZhenya Loginov54:56

       Oof. Um, I made a couple of mistakes at Segment that I tried to fix at Miro. It's not really a fire-round, it's a huge topic, uh, that I can spend a lot of time on. Um, I think the biggest one, uh, for me was, uh ... Well, first of all, it takes an entire village to win this thing. Uh, like, you need to open local- local legal entities, and have bank accounts and insurance, and figure out local contracts, and, like, localize your product to a language, and maybe even localize the residency. It takes the entire company to open presence somewhere else, you know, in Australia or in Europe or in the US. Um, and you need to be ready for it, and as just a go-to-market leader, you cannot succeed in it without the support of your CEO and CFO and the operational organization. So, that's big. It's, that's a big learning. Um, the second one is that, kind of, as, as big of a journey as it is, uh, it's, if you can do it, uh, you should do it rather early and rather fast. I think at Dropbox we launched the first region outside of the US when we were over 100 million in ARR, and I think that, frankly, was too late. I think you can start doing this when you are at about 20, 30 million, um, because it just takes a very long time to build a reputation in the market, to build strengths in the market. And you want to give yourself plenty of time to build strong and ideally cashflow positive business, um, before you go public. I think-

    10. HSHarry Stebbings56:18

        What would you say ... Sorry. You go.

    11. ZLZhenya Loginov56:20

        Yeah. I think also the biggest learning for me is that, is actually in hiring, um, is (laughs) ... You know, hiring a person who sits across the ocean from you is kind of five times as important as the person who sits in the same office. It's just because it's hard to notice when things go wrong timely, and it's very costly to fix mistakes. Uh, so I had to replace a few heads of regions before, and it's just a very, very painful process, because you are not in the same office to support the transition, and it's very hard to find a replacement and so and so. I think I'm hiring especially cautiously for those head of the region roles, uh, now, uh, than I used to, to do before.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings57:00

        Do you agree when there's doubt, there's no doubt, when it comes to team?

    13. ZLZhenya Loginov57:06

        Generally, yes. When you are hiring, yes. When I'm in doubt, I try not to hire. No.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings57:11

        Yeah. Tell me, what's the biggest mistake that founders make when hiring sales and revenue teams?

    15. ZLZhenya Loginov57:18

        I, I think the biggest one is y- just not investing the time and not being willing to invest the time to, uh, like, learn this art of sales, uh, and kind of learn how those people think and how those people work. So, just entirely delegating this and not investing the time to learn, um, how sales works.

    16. HSHarry Stebbings57:35

        What piece of advice would you give to a sales or a revenue leader starting a new role today?

    17. ZLZhenya Loginov57:41

        Um, I'd say, uh, you know, you have your job to succeed in, but you also have, you have to grow with the company, as ... And the company may grow very, very fast. So, you need to have a plan for your learning for the next couple of years, and you need to stick to it. So, kind of figure out how to become better at what you do. What do you need to learn? Who do you learn it from? How do you get access to those people? And treat this plan as a part of your job.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings58:06

        What would you most like to change about the world of sales?

    19. ZLZhenya Loginov58:09

        I think that there are not enough people who move from other teams into sales and who move from sales to other teams. So, I think that, you know, if more people, if more salespeople jumped into non-sales roles and more non-sales people, like product and finance, jumped into sales, the world would just be better for everybody. There's just gonna be more empathy with the sales team from the rest of the organization, more empathy from sales to, to the rest of org as well. And there's, there's just a lot of magic that can happen, um, in areas like product management or operations or finance if some sales DNA is infused there.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings58:41

        What's the hardest element of your role with Miro today?

    21. ZLZhenya Loginov58:45

        For the last, um, over the last two years, I think it's been pretty hard to just be away from, um, from people, not on the same floor with salespeople or engineers and kind of everybody else in the company. So, I'm really looking forward to be in the office more often and travel to other offices a lot more often.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings59:01

        What's the biggest thing that's lost in sales teams when moving to remote? Is it speed?

    23. ZLZhenya Loginov59:06

        (coughs)

    24. HSHarry Stebbings59:06

        Is it morale? Is it collaboration? What, what's lost most with the move from in-person to remote?

    25. ZLZhenya Loginov59:15

        I think biggest one is, like, morale and camaraderie. Um, I think-

    26. HSHarry Stebbings59:19

        Yeah.

    27. ZLZhenya Loginov59:19

        ... you, you know, an experienced salesperson can operate very well in a remote setting and, you know, field salespeople do it basically all the time. But the, um, you know, having this team together and that they feel like they're a part of something bigger and they are in the same boat, uh, of the company is much harder to recreate when you're in a remote setting.

    28. HSHarry Stebbings59:39

        Final one for you. What one company sales strategy around you have you most been impressed by?

    29. ZLZhenya Loginov59:45

        So, I think that the companies that have, like, the most unorthodox approach to building the go-to-market machine, um, and sales e- from the beginning, uh, sometime get the most expen- impressive results. Um, so for me, the one shining example is Atlassian. Um, a newer example is maybe Coda, when, with their unique monetization model. And I think that companies with exceptionally strong PLG motions, such as Canva or Notion, have a great potential to develop new go-to-market and sales models for the future.

    30. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:15

        Zhenya, this has been such a joy to do. As I said, I heard so many good things. I can't thank you enough of me kind of going all over the place on the schedule here, but you've been fantastic. So, thank you so much.

Episode duration: 1:00:28