The Science of Scaling

Aliisa Rosenthal, Head of Sales at OpenAI, discusses leading sales at OpenAI pre and post-AI world. Topics include launching a groundbreaking product, giving team product knowledge, un-doing sales, building a playbook from the product team, and saying "no" to customers.

Stop looking at playbooks, and start looking at the learnings. Because success is always about context.And with the right planning, PLG startups can set themselves up the PLG trap – where PLG companies with around 5 billion dollar valuation tend to stall, while others break out to 20 billion dollars or more.Host Mark Roberge is joined by Oliver Jay, (Founding CRO, Asana) to discuss the inappropriate cut and paste of PLG practices. In this episode learn more about: The importance of running experiments on the side (to unleash new growth opportunities before they’re needed) The power in a joint mindset with the rest of the leadership team Leverage your influencing skills The difference between an exceptionally run company vs. average run company The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

Once you hit a certain revenue line, going upstream presents an enormous opportunity for your business.Host Mark Roberge is joined by Kevin Egan (Head of Global Enterprise Sales, Atlassian) to discuss the stories behind the legendary companies he’s helped scale with actionable insight. In this episode learn more about: The importance of putting the seller in the shoes of the buyer Difference between a great mid-market salesperson vs. great strategic account executive Account based marketing for your motion process for enterprise selling How to know when it’s the right time to go upstream? Why you probably need a renaissance rep The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

Host Mark Roberge is joined by Doug Adamic (CRO at Brex) to discuss how Doug turned Brex into a strategic sales machine, with the power of his sales process playbook. In this episode learn more about: 3 Critical skills for strategic sellers How to navigate the discovery and qualification of an account The secret sauce of sales (that makes you stand out from the crowd) How to grow early career salespeople into high-performing strategic account exec The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

If you're an entrepreneur that has experienced ankle biters, congrats! You've made it to the next phase. How do you combat it? Stevie shares her story on how she's mitigated ankle biters at Vanta.Host Mark Roberge is joined by Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta) to discuss how she’s tackled ankle biters and evolved Vanta’s sales motion. In this episode learn more about: How to outsmart your competitors How to put your brand through a moat test Leaning into your competitive advantage Unraveling the “give, get” technique How Vanta uses the MEDDPICC method The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

How did an electrical engineer Lecturer at Stanford become the Head of Business & Corporate Development at Descript? And how is he empowering customers to become champions of product at Descript?Host Mark Roberge is joined by Jay LeBoeuf (Head Of Business & Corporate Development, Descript) to discuss how Jay has led his team to grow strong customer advocates and create new opportunities in the go-to-market ecosystem. In this episode learn more about: How to develop champions in your go-to-market team How to get started with talking to your community (and grow a community-led growth strategy) How to figure out customer happiness without sending an NPS How to share your learnings from the voice of the customer Why Descript’s sales team is focused on learning, not selling The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

Layering a sales organization onto your PLG is critical to your success. It’s a totally different motion from sales-led growth. And yes, you need to align your organizations differently to get it right.Host Mark Roberge is joined by Dino DiMartino (CRO, Snyk) to discuss what product-led growth tactics helped Snyk scale to a billion dollar valued company. In this episode learn more about: When product led growth is applicable to a startup Best practices for adding sales to a PLG company How freemium intersects with PLG How to specialize outbound salespeople  The three acts of acquiring customers The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

After a decade spent in marketing, Mike Weir now runs the G2 sales teams. And he has his time spent as a CMO to thank for all his CRO success.Host Mark Roberge is joined by Mike Weir (CRO, G2) to discuss how Mike went from being a marketer to a full-fledged sales leader and what we can all learn from him. In this episode learn more about: The biggest impact on sales and marketing alignment in the go-to-market motion The importance of measuring the efficiency of different channels How to be more specific and de-risk the ideal customer profile Investing in your team to reach their full potential How to hire strategic sales leaders The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

OK. You’re moving from founder selling to your first sales hire. Great work. Now, how exactly do you integrate that new hire into your existing organization?Host Mark Roberge is joined by Kyle Parrish (VP of Sales, Figma) to discuss being the first sales hire at Figma. Not only that, but Kyle was also the third sales hire at Dropbox. In this episode learn more about: Building a unique sales culture Leveraging trends to find opportunities to disrupt How to align the engineering/product team with sales Avoiding the recency effect The Dropbox sales team experiment disaster How Figma approaches AI The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.

So look, there’s reams of research that show as an ecosystem, we’re not very good at scaling revenue and sales.Each week, host Mark Roberge (Sr. Lecturer at Harvard Business School, Stage 2 Capital, fmr CRO at HubSpot) is talking with the folks who’ve scaled the most successful sales teams in tech to give us the answers.Hear from CROs and sales leaders like Aliisa Rosenthal (OpenAI), Oliver Jay (Asana), Kyle Parrish (Figma), Jay LeBoeuf (Descript), and more.The Science of Scaling is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.