Kyle Norton (CRO at Owner.com) sits down with JD Saint-Martin, President of Lightspeed Commerce, to unpack how he went from startup founder to public-company executive. They discuss scaling Lightspeed from $75M to $1.2B in recurring revenue, and the leadership lessons behind that growth. The conversation covers building high-performance sales cultures, promotion systems, enablement investment, RTO and culture philosophies, and more.
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Chapters
00:01:51 – Startup to Acquisition
00:03:34 – Global Upbringing & VC Start
00:04:03 – Scaling to $1.2B ARR
00:05:25 – Growth Through SaaS & Payments
00:05:44 – Founder to Exec Transition
00:07:21 – Empathy From Doing Every Role
00:09:11 – Leading 3,500 Employees
00:11:07 – "Roll in the Mud" Leadership
00:13:28 – Early Lessons & Advice
00:16:37 – Building High-Performance Culture
00:18:28 – Candid Hiring & Fit
00:21:42 – Transparency in Recruiting
00:22:06 – Obsession With Metrics
00:23:55 – Inputs vs Outputs
00:24:58 – Manager Pyramid Framework
00:27:57 – Promotions & Company Values
00:29:42 – Elite Points System
00:33:29 – Systemized PIPs
00:36:20 – Retaining Top ICs
00:40:31 – Investing in Enablement
00:42:05 – COVID & Lost Osmosis
00:45:06 – Return-to-Office View
00:49:18 – GTM Owns Enablement
00:51:05 – Balancing Autonomy & Consistency
00:53:32 – Payments & Compensation
00:55:35 – No Work-Life Balance
00:59:41 – Energized by the Work
01:18:34 – Favorite Book & Takeaways
01:20:13 – Closing & Outro
