Building Stripe's Early Partnerships Engine

Cristina Cordova is a seasoned operator who has scaled some of the most iconic companies in tech. At Stripe, she built and led partnerships that became a foundational revenue engine, including the pivotal deal with Shopify. At Notion, she helped turn viral adoption into a durable distribution strategy powered by community. Today, Cristina is the Chief Operating Officer at Linear, where she’s applying her experience building high-velocity GTM engines to the next generation of developer-first tools.

Discussed in this episode

• Why Cristina joined Stripe without knowing what an API was
• Building Stripe’s early partnerships and salvaging the Shopify deal
• How Notion pioneered community-driven growth
• Lessons on brand, design, and investing for the long term
• What Cristina looks for in exceptional founders and operators
• How Linear is scaling GTM with AI-driven prioritization
• The difference between “keeping the lights on” and transformative leadership
• Cristina’s frameworks for evaluating product resonance and customer love

Episode Highlights

00:43 — The rare superpower behind Cristina’s career: joining breakout companies early

2:46 — Why Cristina joined Stripe without knowing what an API was

12:22 — On Cristina’s first day, Shopify walked away from Stripe’s deal — and how she won them back

16:55 — How Notion scaled by making consumer use free and fueling community-driven growth

20:52 — Why investing in brand early is a leading indicator of durable growth

25:27 — Cristina’s framework for spotting beloved products in the market

37:53 — How Cristina applied lessons from Stripe to build Linear’s GTM from scratch

47:30 — Where AI fits into GTM: prioritizing opportunities, not replacing humans

56:01 — Why Linear built high-quality swag kits for early customers

58:28 — Where to follow Cristina’s journey today

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Guest Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinajcordova
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/cjC

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.