{"id":291344,"date":"2024-07-16T06:30:30","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T13:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/?p=291344"},"modified":"2024-07-17T06:05:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T13:05:57","slug":"cro-confidential-principles-that-drove-wizs-0-to-100m-journey-with-wiz-cro-colin-jones-pod-665-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/cro-confidential-principles-that-drove-wizs-0-to-100m-journey-with-wiz-cro-colin-jones-pod-665-video\/","title":{"rendered":"CRO Confidential: How Wiz Went From $0 to The First $100M with Wiz ex-CRO Colin Jones (Pod 665 + Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some are reporting Google may buy SaaS security leader Wiz for over $20 Billion &#8212; just a little over 4 years after founding!\u00a0 That would be a record.\u00a0 Whatever happens, Wiz&#8217;s growth is already a record to $100m, to $350m ARR &#8230; and beyond.\u00a0 It <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiz.io\/blog\/100m-arr-in-18-months-wiz-becomes-the-fastest-growing-software-company-ever\">may just be the fastest growing software company ever<\/a>:<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiz.io\/blog\/100m-arr-in-18-months-wiz-becomes-the-fastest-growing-software-company-ever\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-301069 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz.webp?resize=1080%2C523&#038;quality=65&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1080\" height=\"523\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz-1920x930.webp 1080w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz-980x475.webp 980w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz-480x233.webp 480w\" data-sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1080px, 100vw\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1080px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1080\/523;\" \/><noscript><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-301069\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz.webp?resize=1080%2C523&#038;quality=65&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1080\" height=\"523\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz-1920x930.webp 1080w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz-980x475.webp 980w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz-480x233.webp 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1080px, 100vw\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/h3>\n<h3><strong>CRO Emeritus Colin Jones took Wiz from $0m to $100m ARR and beyond, and Sam Blond did a deep dive with him on the learnings here:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><iframe title=\"SaaStr CRO Confidential: Principles that Drove Wiz\u2019s $0 to $100M Journey | Wiz CRO Colin Jones\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yDS8xKlAeXw?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: SaaStr 665: CRO Confidential: Principles that Drove Wiz\u2019s $0 to $100M Journey with Wiz CRO Colin Jones\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" data-src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/67fdDlg5rSlTPq01cY4QYu?si=4aafbee0e85443f4&#038;utm_source=oembed\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recruit diverse leaders<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The goal of hiring a revenue leader is to put gasoline on finding product market fit success. To realize that, look for a leader who sees the world differently and has different skill sets from yours. Hire a leader who will not only agree with you but someone you can disagree with in a respectful and productive way.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you can find someone passionate about the business and the domain you are building in, has an impressive track record, and can significantly impact the business, that&#8217;s a sign of the stars aligning. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where do you find the right person? Don\u2019t be afraid to tap into your network and the VC community to facilitate some introductions. Meet with people you can learn from and share ideas, even if it doesn\u2019t convert into a hire.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Employees are the brand<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every employee at your organization is the brand. How they conduct themselves, engage, market the brand, and set a tone, reflect on the brand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the security domain, like at Wiz, so much of the brand is built on trust. Each employee hired at Wiz is individually a personal brand. The team has great visionary, product, and execution capabilities and a solid go-to-market strategy. Accordingly, customers trust in the employe\u2019s brand transfers to the business and the team, that they would deliver on their promises.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAll of the success attributed to my career or Wiz is not me. It\u2019s because I surround myself with these incredibly talented, selfless, hardworking people who execute every single day, all day.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Playbooks are prisons\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are the first things you should focus on? How should you allocate your time? There are so many questions and, unfortunately, no easy answers. We often see leaders or executives join organizations and bring playbooks implemented elsewhere, assuming they will be effective in a new environment. It doesn&#8217;t work. Every business will have its own set of challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever your unique business situation and challenges are, you&#8217;ll have to create your own playbook by solving for the bottlenecks on day 1, day 60, or day 1000. Whether in customer acquisition, the revenue growth spectrum, or elsewhere, know that you&#8217;ll need to find the bottleneck and apply enough pressure and attention to alleviate it and move it elsewhere.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Colin, the solution was to go on a listening tour and observe what was happening in the team. For a team of dozen people, mostly concentrated on product and engineering, they all had their hands full with customer calls. So the playbook for Colin during that time was tuned to one goal: hire and scale a sales team that could listen to those customers and put together a value proposition with a complimentary tone that customers were reacting to.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prioritize demand discovery<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Demand is a strong indicator of product market fit. There are two types of it: realized demand and unrealized demand. CROs should focus on capturing that unrealized demand which is not a sales-led effort. It\u2019s an organizational effort of adjusting roadmaps, product direction and marketing approach alike.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of the initial demand can be misunderstood. The direction of a product and company changes dramatically as the product evolves in response to customer feedback. Use those interactions to clarify your messaging for capturing relevant demand moving onward. For example, Wiz is now transitioning from a hybrid of direct and channel model to a 100% channel model. Customers made that decision for them because that\u2019s how their customers want to buy.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAs you seek demand, ask what you can learn from the first 10 customers to go to a 1000.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Also, when you hire a senior sales leader, there should be the expectation that the leader has the ability to source, recruit and hire people with a low risk of failure and a high probability of success. Continue to focus on leveraging your personal networks and networks of top performers in the organization to build an incredible team of all stars that can help you tap into all the demand available.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Put the customer first, always.<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spending a ton of time customer-facing remains as much of a priority on day one as on day 1000. To break that down into actionable steps:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Earn credibility. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Build a network of potential customers through consistent and reliable actions over time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Define a set of core values. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Customers should know the values you stand for and trust that you will never deviate from them.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Understand your customer&#8217;s concerns. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Know what your customers are going through, how their world is changing, and therefore as a byproduct, what your business needs to change.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Focus on solving customer problems.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Rather than setting out to achieve ambitious revenue targets, build a world-class product that solves people&#8217;s biggest problems in a particular industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Build a currency of trust. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to build trust. You need to build trust to have a chance at success.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Be obsessed about growth<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every once in a while, sit your team down, throw existing processes out of the window, and ask them how the company could do things differently. &#8220;We continuously push ourselves and our teams to do that exercise because it&#8217;s healthy,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;It allows us to gut check what worked in the past while focusing on what will work in the future.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While many go-to-market leaders are focused on revenue milestones or targets, Colin believes that shareholder value should always be the top priority. Pull different levers at different times throughout your journey to maximize value for those who are invested in your growth. Then push the limit as far as you can every single day.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Excellence is unachievable because you&#8217;re always in pursuit of it.&#8221;<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The hardest part of scaling your startup to the first 100 million is putting your boots on and going to work every day. But remember that every day is a good day for a great day, and the only person who can control that is YOU. Treat people the right way, work as hard as possible, help people where you can, and work towards a life of significance over success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Key Takeaways<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><b>Recruit great leaders: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seek individuals with diverse perspectives and skill sets who can respectfully challenge the status quo. A great leader exhibits passion, domain expertise, and a proven track record.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Build a solid foundation: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you scale rapidly, focus on establishing a strong foundation that can withstand growth and stand the test of time. Your employees make this foundation with you and they are the brand.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Rethink your playbooks:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Rather than relying on strategies from previous experiences, adapt and customize your approaches to suit your organization&#8217;s unique needs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Stay attuned to demand: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Demand is a crucial indicator of product-market fit. Continuously refine your product roadmap, features, product direction, and marketing strategy based on customer feedback to meet the evolving demand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Invest in customer-facing efforts: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Commit time to engage with customers, and empathize with their concerns and changing needs. Focus on building credibility, establishing core values, resolving customer issues, and cultivating trust in each interaction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Foster a growth mindset: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Continuously strive for excellence and challenge existing processes. Shareholder value should be a top priority, so pull different levers at different times to maximize value.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"SaaStr CRO Confidential: Principles that Drove Wiz\u2019s $0 to $100M Journey | Wiz CRO Colin Jones\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yDS8xKlAeXw?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: SaaStr 665: CRO Confidential: Principles that Drove Wiz\u2019s $0 to $100M Journey with Wiz CRO Colin Jones\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" data-src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/67fdDlg5rSlTPq01cY4QYu?si=4aafbee0e85443f4&#038;utm_source=oembed\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some are reporting Google may buy SaaS security leader Wiz for over $20 Billion &#8212; just a little over 4 years after founding!\u00a0 That would be a record.\u00a0 Whatever happens, Wiz&#8217;s growth is already a record to $100m, to $350m ARR &#8230; and beyond.\u00a0 It may just be the fastest growing software company ever: CRO&#8230; <br \/><a class=\"more-link fade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/cro-confidential-principles-that-drove-wizs-0-to-100m-journey-with-wiz-cro-colin-jones-pod-665-video\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":291345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpscp_schedule_draft_date":"","_wpscp_schedule_republish_date":"","_wpscppro_advance_schedule":false,"_wpscppro_advance_schedule_date":"","_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[]},"categories":[31,114,24904,118,112,3522,21,38,105,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-company-culture-topics","category-cro-confidential","category-customer-success-topics","category-hiring-topics","category-leadership","category-podcasts","category-sales-role","category-sales-topics","category-videos"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/YT-Thumbnail-CRO-Confidential-Colin-Jones.png?fit=1000%2C563&quality=70&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5oib2-1dN6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/wiz-1920x930.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}