Rob Walling

That's where you look at what's your bottleneck. Because I don't think there, I don't believe that there is a great rule of thumb. If there was, I would have tried to come up with it. But I don't believe there's a great rule of thumb around team composition with a startup. Because it really is what's your next bottleneck.

That's where you look at what's your bottleneck. Because I don't think there, I don't believe that there is a great rule of thumb. If there was, I would have tried to come up with it. But I don't believe there's a great rule of thumb around team composition with a startup. Because it really is what's your next bottleneck.

And that depends on so many factors like your pricing, your market, your competition, on and on and on. To me, it's that decision point. Every time you have enough money to hire that next person, you ask, what's the biggest bottleneck in the company? Oh, we have too many sales demos. Great, I need to hire a salesperson. Or we don't have enough leads.

And that depends on so many factors like your pricing, your market, your competition, on and on and on. To me, it's that decision point. Every time you have enough money to hire that next person, you ask, what's the biggest bottleneck in the company? Oh, we have too many sales demos. Great, I need to hire a salesperson. Or we don't have enough leads.

It's like, great, I need to either hire a marketer or I need to replace myself, hire someone to take stuff off my plate so me as a founder can approach marketing and sales. So that's where I'll leave the team composition. The answer is it kind of depends, but that's the framework of how I would build my team up.

It's like, great, I need to either hire a marketer or I need to replace myself, hire someone to take stuff off my plate so me as a founder can approach marketing and sales. So that's where I'll leave the team composition. The answer is it kind of depends, but that's the framework of how I would build my team up.

The previous question was, at what point is a head of engineering more valuable than a senior engineer? And I think, because I know James is technical, I think to me as the founder, if I don't want to be managing engineers or at least technically leading them, meaning with the technical decisions, probably by the time I'm at 30,

The previous question was, at what point is a head of engineering more valuable than a senior engineer? And I think, because I know James is technical, I think to me as the founder, if I don't want to be managing engineers or at least technically leading them, meaning with the technical decisions, probably by the time I'm at 30,

three engineers or four engineers and looking to either hire from outside or promote from within. And a head of engineering could be like Derek was at Drip, which was you're the team lead and you're technically leading them, but I was still managing all the team members at the time. But if you find a head of engineering who has management experience or you are willing to train them up,

three engineers or four engineers and looking to either hire from outside or promote from within. And a head of engineering could be like Derek was at Drip, which was you're the team lead and you're technically leading them, but I was still managing all the team members at the time. But if you find a head of engineering who has management experience or you are willing to train them up,

I mean, again, around three or four engineers, if I didn't want to be managing engineering myself, I'd be looking for someone to take that off my plate because it is work and it's one-on-one meetings and it's all the overhead of being a manager that you don't necessarily want to have for the rest of the duration of running the company.

I mean, again, around three or four engineers, if I didn't want to be managing engineering myself, I'd be looking for someone to take that off my plate because it is work and it's one-on-one meetings and it's all the overhead of being a manager that you don't necessarily want to have for the rest of the duration of running the company.

And then James' first question was, how do you balance cash flow with high salaries? And I guess my answer is the same way you do with low salaries. If I'm hiring someone for $2,000 or $3,000 a month versus $10,000 or $12,000 a month, it's similar math. It's just a different amount. I tended to run my companies at about break-even because that maximized growth.

And then James' first question was, how do you balance cash flow with high salaries? And I guess my answer is the same way you do with low salaries. If I'm hiring someone for $2,000 or $3,000 a month versus $10,000 or $12,000 a month, it's similar math. It's just a different amount. I tended to run my companies at about break-even because that maximized growth.

If I had raised funding, I would have started burning cash. I believe Estalty is self-funded, so they can't burn money. But for me, since the beauty of SaaS is that it is MRR and it's recurring and it's subscription, I kind of looked at, you know, if we grew five grand or 10 grand a month, that that was enough for that next person because it wasn't spiky.

If I had raised funding, I would have started burning cash. I believe Estalty is self-funded, so they can't burn money. But for me, since the beauty of SaaS is that it is MRR and it's recurring and it's subscription, I kind of looked at, you know, if we grew five grand or 10 grand a month, that that was enough for that next person because it wasn't spiky.

Now, if you are in a spiky business where maybe you're taking a lot of annual payments or you have a usage-based component to your pricing, you just do the best you can. I mean, you can always bring in, you could bring in like a fractional CFO to help you model stuff out. You could talk to AI about modeling stuff out. And to be honest, I'm guessing there's a tool out there

Now, if you are in a spiky business where maybe you're taking a lot of annual payments or you have a usage-based component to your pricing, you just do the best you can. I mean, you can always bring in, you could bring in like a fractional CFO to help you model stuff out. You could talk to AI about modeling stuff out. And to be honest, I'm guessing there's a tool out there

that could potentially be built for this. But usually what I see companies do, tiny seed companies say when they're growing quickly and they're trying to balance cash flow salaries, they get on a Google sheet, they project stuff out and they do the best you can. It's always scary hiring more senior level talent. This is why a lot of us resist hiring

that could potentially be built for this. But usually what I see companies do, tiny seed companies say when they're growing quickly and they're trying to balance cash flow salaries, they get on a Google sheet, they project stuff out and they do the best you can. It's always scary hiring more senior level talent. This is why a lot of us resist hiring