Make It Snow: From Zero to Billions

12Hiring, Retention, and Parting Ways

“We made plenty of hiring mistakes early on.”

—Denise Persson & Chris Degnan

…NOT BECAUSE THEY were bad people. It was simply the wrong place at the wrong time for them. It’s not their fault or yours. Most people eventually land in the right place.

Values are so important when you’re scaling a startup. If you mis-hire from a culture standpoint, you impact the entire team. Our values have been our North Star in terms of how we behave. There are examples of people who didn’t last on the sales side. They were phenomenal in terms of sales but just didn’t work with our culture. Our culture was the antidote. It kind of pushed these people out. When you have a strong culture, it becomes obvious when someone doesn’t fit. Of course, you can’t see all of that when you’re interviewing someone. For marketing, you must have empathy and understand the craft of sales, and really work as a team with sales. That’s the most important thing.

There’s also the ability to execute really well. You need a scrappy mindset. You have to know you have scarce resources. When you work for large organizations, it becomes very easy to just sit in meetings, brainstorm things, and push slide decks across departments.

Your Network, and Theirs

We’ve mentioned this previously. In the early days of your startup, hiring people who you have worked with before is key. You know almost everything about them—their work ethic, what they value, how they treat others, their ability ...