SaaStr 197: Partnerships: When Is The Right Time, What is The Right Partnership, How To Determine Between An Individual That Can Scale with The Company vs One That Cannot & How To Make Fast Decisions When You Don't Have Data To Lean on with Cristina Cordo
Cristina Cordova leads the Payments Partnerships and Platform Partnerships teams at Stripe, playing a pivotal role in their rapid growth. She discusses her journey from the gaming industry to SaaS, shedding light on key traits for thriving in fast-paced environments, like adaptability and humility. Cristina shares insights on determining which individuals can scale with a company and the importance of strategic partnerships in early-stage startups. She also emphasizes the need for flexibility, rapid experimentation, and user feedback when navigating partnerships.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
From Games to Payments
Cristina Cordova's first tech job was at Tapulous, making pre-App Store iPhone games.
She later joined Pulse, a mobile news reading app, before transitioning to Stripe.
insights INSIGHT
Scaling Individuals
Individuals who scale with a company focus on leverage through others, not just themselves.
They embrace change and constantly build new systems and processes.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Lessons on Scaling
Grow with the company, don't let it grow around you, and propose solutions instead of complaining.
Focus on helping others, both internally and externally, to create leverage and value.
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Cristina Cordova leads the Payments Partnerships and Platform Partnerships teams at Stripe, the new standard in online payments that handles billions of dollars of business every year for forward thinking businesses around the world. To date, Stripe has raised over $680m in funding from some of the very best in the business including Sequoia, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Thrive, CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global. As for Cristina, at Stripe she manages partnerships with some of the biggest global players including Apple Pay, Google Pay, WeChat Pay and more and has also held roles such as Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Manager of Partner Engineering. Prior to Stripe, Cristina was Head of Business Development @ Pulse (acq by LinkedIn) and was in the marketing team at Tapulous (acq by Disney).
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
How Cristina made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be Head of Partnerships at one of the fastest growing startups in the world, Stripe?
Does Cristina agree with the common notion that certain people are destined for certain stages of a company’s life? How can one determine whether some has the ability to scale or not? What are the leading indicators? What have been some of Cristina’s biggest lessons in scaling from 28 at Stripe to 1,300?
What does Cristina believe is the key to success when it comes to adapting to new roles? What worked? What did not work? Where does Cristina see many go wrong? How should employees think about title both when joining and when at a high growth company? What is the right way for them to think about and approach equity?
What does Cristina believe is so special about partnerships with early stage startups? How can partnerships be fundamentally dangerous for early stage companies? How can startups determine when is the right time to engage with partners? What are the key questions and terms startups should focus on when partnering with incumbents?
What makes Cristina lean in on a partnership for Stripe? What does Cristina believe is the right way to communicate this excitement and set expectations? For the larger player, what does the optimal agreement look like? What are the commonalities in the reasons that Cristina passes on potential partnerships?
Cristina’s 60 Second SaaStr:
What does Cristina know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?
Who is killing it in SaaS partnerships today?
When is the right time to hire a Head of Partnerships?
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