Episode 5.4 2:05 July 28, 2022
What Traits Should You Look for in Your First CS Team Members?

In this Episode

Your first few hires should be Renaissance CSMs: multi-skilled, hustling, gritty, thinking outside the box, and not feeling stuck in processes (or the lack of it).

Transcription

PRITHWI DASGUPTA:
CS team members, you mentioned, you know, hiring and scaling. So, there are team members who are fit for larger organizations, very structured processes, you know, uh, very defined way of working. Less creativity, but you know, very, very well-oiled engine. And then there are, uh, you know, more of these smaller organizations, the startups, the mid-sized organizations, where there is a lot more activity, lot more innovation and creativity, and you have more leeway and less on the process side. What are the traits of the first few CS team members you hire? What, what are some few traits you will look at?

JENNIFER CHIANG:
I mean what a great question, because this is actually one of, one of my mistakes, uh, early on in my CS career was hiring, um, you know, for, you know, what I think would be the best person, but as actually for, you know, when we were huge, not for when I, when I needed her right now.

Um, and. And I think Andreessen Horowitz actually has this, like, um, the, this, I mean idea, um, called like the Renaissance and they, these are for sales, but I think it’s very applicable here, um, for CS as well as like the Renaissance salesperson. So, you can see like a Renaissance, um, CSM. And I think that is exactly what you need for early stage. Your first, you know, four or five CSMs should all be what we call Renaissance. Then what does that mean? Kinda, to break it down. It’s like you want someone who’s a little bit more Jack of all trades, but really hustling, really gritty, really trying to think outside the box and not doesn’t feel stuck in processes.

And if anything, they’re excited by a lack of process. They like looking to the best being like, wow, there’s nothing here, let’s go, like that energizes them.

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Prithwi Dasgupta

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