My #1 Rep Closed $3.5M & Never Sold A Day In Their Life w/ Ghazi Masood, CRO @ Replit

In the AI world, the game's a little different. And you have to really, really be passionate about the mission, you know, the problem that's being solved and how you can actually go solve it. Today we have Anghazi Masood, Chief Revenue Officer at one of the hottest AI natives in Replit, former CRO at Retool and Auth0. So

Replit, right, like amazing brand, amazing global community out there. There's a lot of people that want to come work for Replit that are like super, super passionate about the product. They could talk about it literally all day, every day. but they've never done

product. They could talk about it literally all day, every day. but they've never done sales. Giving these people the opportunity to go tell the story, we're taking a bet

sales. Giving these people the opportunity to go tell the story, we're taking a bet on those people. A lot of the reason why we don't say yes to certain recruiting opportunities is because they're hiring sales too early, specifically that they don't have the demand or the pipeline to back up a rep being successful in that. Yeah. Hiring

salespeople, that's the easiest thing to go do. But you got to go do the science as to how you're going to feed them. What are some other traits that you have seen somebody who ended up becoming good at sales? I mean, a good characteristic is obviously tenure. If you've got someone who stayed at a company three, four, or five years in a sales capacity role and has kind of moved and elevated

up, that's a pretty good sign. You know, this individual has probably weathered multiple storms. What's maybe some advice when you come into an organization that they've heard that you're like, ooh, these founders are getting this advice and I don't agree with that. That

I don't agree with? Yeah. I think...

Thanks for tuning in to the Vibescaling Podcast. My name is Chris Belestris, partner at Vibescaling. We're a go-to-market advisory, recruiting, investing, and media firm, helping seed through

Vibescaling. We're a go-to-market advisory, recruiting, investing, and media firm, helping seed through Series D companies grow. Vibescaling Podcast is an intersection of go-to-market AI and startup topics where we interview the top go-to-market leaders at AI and SaaS companies. Hope you

enjoy it. Just wrapped an awesome episode with Ghazi Masood, CRO of Replit. Ghazi's built

some incredible orgs at AltZero and Retool. So he's definitely a dev tool savant inside and out. We got into some spicy stuff. Some of his top sellers at Replit

and out. We got into some spicy stuff. Some of his top sellers at Replit having zero traditional sales backgrounds. Thought it was interesting. One's a former Marine. Another one's

a school teacher. His quote on staffing demand, not inspiration philosophy that every founder definitely needs to hear and stop getting bad advice. Why he thinks distribution's the new moat, not technology. And if you're building a go-to-market org at an AI company or just

not technology. And if you're building a go-to-market org at an AI company or just trying to figure out how to layer enterprise sales onto a PLG motion, this one's for you and I hope you enjoy. You were saying this earlier, but like, so our firm's named Vibescaling and... We did that because we wanted to ride on the coattails of the vibe coding movement. I, you know, came coming in as I thought

that it was like replet that came up with the term vibe coding. No, I

think it was actually originated from Twitter and ex-Karpathy. It actually came up with the term. I personally, I hate it. Yeah. I actually hate the term, but we have

term. I personally, I hate it. Yeah. I actually hate the term, but we have to kind of ride with it and go with it because I think the industry has recognized that term and is kind of marketing and leaning towards it. So we're

leaning in. But our mantra is for Redwood specifically, we are the only credible Vibe coding solution for the enterprise. So if you look at Vibe coding in general, you can just argue and say, hey, Vibe coding is a toy and it's just a play toy out there. We wanna be credible for the enterprise. I see.

So yeah, what actually is that? Cause I think that a lot of things have been said of, yeah, you can like Vibe code like something on the front end, but it's like tough to connect things on the backend. Are you like dive into that a little bit more? Are you saying like you guys have a lot of like whether it's SSO or like things that an enterprise. Exactly. Yeah. So, so again,

there's a lot of stuff out on the market right now, but I think we are, we differentiate ourselves as the only end-to-end IDE browser-based with zero setup time at all, where you can not only prototype, you can iterate, test, and all go to production all from a single click, all within a browser enterprise. So front-end,

back-end, data connectivity, security, governance, all within Replit, right? There's

other solutions out on the market that do front end really well, but then back end, you have to connect to a bunch of third party systems. And there's other solutions out there that are really, really good at front end and prototyping, but not really production grade. We are really the only one end to end all within Replit.

You can do it with one click, It's a browser based interface. I see. We'll

definitely dive into that a little bit more with, because I want to see how people are doing this for sales. We use V0 for our website. Beautiful product, but like we use it for our website. Like I think if I had to start connecting things on the back end, one, I wouldn't really know what I was doing.

But two is like, yeah, I would want a tool maybe closer to what you guys have, it sounds like. The first one is just, I mean, you just recently started at Replit. Story career at pretty crazy runs at Auth0.

taking them 30 all the way through the acquisition. And then also Retool, which is we wrote an article on like the Retool Mafia. Yeah. Just it was clear, like the talent density that y'all were, you know, we just interviewed Eleanor and know some of the Retool folks there. I'm really curious of just, you know, we'll get into like hiring and AI sales orgs, but just like what is just different about what

you saw at Auth0 and Retool versus Replit of how you're thinking about building the sales team and just AI and sales and however you want to take it. Yeah.

I mean, I think a lot of the success at both Auth0 and Retool was the people and the team we built. What do you think made the people there different? Because I think if I was to have any sales leader, they would tell

different? Because I think if I was to have any sales leader, they would tell me like, hey, we had the best people, but like it's different for everyone. What

does that mean for you? It's culture. It's culture. It's getting people to row in the right direction. And the mantra I kind of use is kind of the work hard, play hard mentality, where you kind of look at the crew we assembled at OddZero. I mean, this is going back a few years, right? I mean, it was

OddZero. I mean, this is going back a few years, right? I mean, it was just a rock star crew. And it was, you know, like we were a crazy going startup going after the big marquee competitor, Okta, which ended up buying us. But

it was a battle. It was a battle every single day. And, you know, we were working 24 by 7, just crazy, crazy time. But people then would cut out and spend time with each other. after work, not only in the evenings, but on the weekends. And it really formed this culture of like, just work hard, play hard.

the weekends. And it really formed this culture of like, just work hard, play hard.

And I remember early on some of the off sites we did at OddZero, these were culture infusing things. Some of our off sites, early off sites were like in Panama City, Cabo, Cancun, and people wanted to think about that. Hey. You guys just went to the beach and go party. I go, no, I mean, that was part of it. But we actually did our annual company kickoff and our go-to-market kickoffs there.

of it. But we actually did our annual company kickoff and our go-to-market kickoffs there.

We actually rolled out a bunch of our sales training, like our sales methodology we rolled out there. We announced our Series D at those events. So there were like pivotal moments of like culture infusing. And we still now, a lot of our alums, we remember those days and we talk about those days. And I think all of those things really, really helped us. us get the results we actually wanted. And at

Retool, same thing. So when I came on board, you know, I had to go kind of rebuild the go-to-market organization. They had an organization, but we had to really, really get it built to go be a hundred million dollar plus company, right? So

the team we kind of put together, you know, the same mantra. And again, these were people I worked with in my past career and past life, most of them, not all of them. And it was kind of, you know, bring and work with people that you know, that you have trust and conviction on and what they're capable of. And we built that. And again, same mentality, work hard, play hard. And I

of. And we built that. And again, same mentality, work hard, play hard. And I

kind of go back to the, you know, it's a grind right now in the world out there. And you have to be able to go out and collaborate not only while you're in the shop, but also outside of the shop. You said something there. I figured we would talk about this later on, but I want to talk

there. I figured we would talk about this later on, but I want to talk about it now is people that you trust, you brought in people. There's a lot of people that are listening that we chat with as a recruiting firm that are looking for their shot, they don't have the home run on their resume, that their manager goes to the new company and then pulls them with you. I would assume

that, you know, while a lot of people get hired that way, there's always people that you're bringing on that maybe, you know, you're going to take a bet on.

How do you make that decision of people who there's not someone who someone needs to work with. Yeah, totally. And it doesn't, it's a timing thing, right? So ideally

you want to go do it, but timing sometimes doesn't work out because someone who you may know may have just landed a job or they're not ready to leave because of a big deal that you have to earn commissions on. So there's a lot of scenarios where hiring from your own network just doesn't work from a timing perspective. Then you got to kind of look at plan B and you know what

perspective. Then you got to kind of look at plan B and you know what plan B is, you know, it's like you want to go take a bet on a flyer that's out there. So, At Replit right now, it's interesting, like I'm doing that probably the most I've done in my career here at Replit. And the reason is I think in the AI world, the game's a little different and you have

to really, really be passionate about the mission and the problem that's being solved and how you can actually go solve it. So Replit, right, like amazing brand, amazing global community out there. And there's a lot of like Replit fans. And,

you know, even in my short time here, there's a lot of people that wanna come work for Replit that are like super, super passionate about the product. They could

talk about it literally all day, every day, but they've never done sales. They've never

done sales, not even a single day in their life. But they're so passionate about the product, and they're like an extrovert, right? And you can kind of see it in their personality. And giving these people the opportunity to go tell the story, we're taking a bet on those people. We're taking a bet on those people, and we have a lot of different examples of that within the company. How much do you

think you're able to have that take because Top of Funnel is rather solved? Because

when we talk to organizations that... need a rep to do some more outbound or they're looking for people with sales experience. But I've seen, you know, I'll give a shout out to Listen Labs, a company that we're working with. And like, same thing.

They want people who are just cerebral sellers. They're actually open to people who have never sold before for some of maybe the SMB roles. And I'm curious, I've been hearing that more and more. What is the reason why, like, why not just get somebody that knows sales and also likes Replit? So we're doing both. Well, I mean, we're definitely, it's not like we're pivoting only in the direction of non-sales, so we're

doing both. But I would say like right now, we're 10Xing our team and we

doing both. But I would say like right now, we're 10Xing our team and we have to hire so fast that I can't just go down one segment versus the other. So like half my pipeline of candidates right now are the

other. So like half my pipeline of candidates right now are the non-traditional types that have pitched me on what they've built in Replit and how they can actually parlay that into the customer. So they're pitching me as to why they wanna come work here. And in our interview process, one of the things we actually do kind of in the final step is we do a panel presentation. So we

do a panel presentation where the candidates actually come in and show you how they're actually gonna go pitch Replit to their customers and what they've actually built in Replit.

Because building in Replit and having the ability to tell the Replit story, that's like table stakes and anybody should be able to go do that. So seeing these people just being passionate on what they've done and what the art of the possible is and how to go explain that to customers, we test for that. Makes sense, especially a tool that like, so we wrote an article about a year ago of how

we were vibe coding about how we were building like sales apps and Replit and all that. And I think it's a beautiful tool. It's incredible. How are you building

all that. And I think it's a beautiful tool. It's incredible. How are you building the sales motion differently? So it sounds like you're going to hire maybe some untraditional reps that are just really passionate about Replit. Any other things that stand out? I

think like in the old SaaS world, you know, when you go build a GTM and a sales org, it's the traditional way. You go hire a rep, you pair the rep with an SE, you know, there's an SDR that gets paired with them.

It's kind of like this pod, right? Then you close the deal and you hand it over the fence to customer success. Customer success comes in, then there's support. That's

kind of the traditional model that I think all of us that are kind of in B2B SaaS have kind of come from. I think in the AI world, it's a little bit different. And the way it's different is, like, I expect my sellers, like, if you're an account executive, either for the commercial segment or enterprise segment, I expect you to be able to go pitch the product to the customer, right? Where,

you know, oftentimes you talk to an account, they want to say like, okay, hey, show me the art of the possible with Replit. I expect the seller to bring up Replit in a browser, put a prompt in and show what Replit agent can actually go do. So you don't need an SE on those first initial calls that you would typically in the B2B SaaS world. I expect my seller to kind of

take it to a point where they can kind of do it on the route, right? There will be a point, you know, once you actually get with IT where

right? There will be a point, you know, once you actually get with IT where they are starting to talk to you about like deployment options or security things where you'll need to pull in somebody there. But I would expect to go from like zero to like 50%. probably kind of on your own. So I think that is definitely different. And then I do think the pre and post sales technical motion is

definitely different. And then I do think the pre and post sales technical motion is different. So you've probably heard this term that's really, really big out in the world

different. So you've probably heard this term that's really, really big out in the world right now with go to market engineer or forward deployed engineers and things like that.

So that's the way I'm building my pre and post sales technical work. So I'm

not getting dedicated SEs or dedicated DEs. I'm actually, we used to call them sales engineers, but I changed the name. I actually renamed them to field engineers. And basically

the field engineer is a pre and post sales technical resource that is there not only with you from a pre-sales capacity, knowing like what some of the security and governance questions were from the customer, but then also when we land the deal, they actually know exactly the use case the customer is gonna go do. So it's a very seamless transition from winning the deal to getting customer value and

activation of the solution out there. So you guys have a very interesting vantage in these deals. of seeing how people are using AI, specifically Replit. A lot of people

these deals. of seeing how people are using AI, specifically Replit. A lot of people that are listening are BDRs, AEs, SDRs, sales leaders that are AI tool curious.

I'll tell you a couple that I love using. I love Whisperflow. I love Claude for my writing tasks. These are just a few. Granola obviously is incredible.

I'm always interested in knowing like, Okay, as a seller, how else can I be using? What are some of the use cases for Replit that made me like a

using? What are some of the use cases for Replit that made me like a better AI seller that you would say or that you've seen maybe? Yeah, I mean, Replit, I mean, we're a horizontal solution, right? So Replit, so a great use case is me. I am like the most non-technical person out there. I have never written

is me. I am like the most non-technical person out there. I have never written a line of code. Aren't you a computer science major though? I am. There's like

six of you in existence of a comp sci major that goes into sales. And

so it's funny for you to say that you're not an actor. I can adapt.

technical pretty easily, but I'm not a coder, right? I bet you your base is still higher than most people in sales. But my point is, like, you know, like we just pulled off our first ever go to market kickoff at Replit in two and a half weeks. In previous companies, that takes like a quarter plus to go do. So I'm designing my own slides. So I'm actually building my own slides in

do. So I'm designing my own slides. So I'm actually building my own slides in Replit, right? I would have never done that at a company before. And the way

Replit, right? I would have never done that at a company before. And the way I do it is like I have a flow for my keynote of how I want my keynote to go. And I'm literally typing it in Replit agent prompt. And

the next morning I come up and I've got a nice prototype, nine slide presentation of what it is. So that's a great use case for me specifically for Replit, like website design, presentations, content. That's great. The other one just on Replit, before I talk about some of the other tools, would be like my son. So he's getting ready for college, my older son. And he just finished an internship this past summer.

And this is pre- Replit. This is before I decided to even go to Replit.

So one of his final projects was to create a marketing analytics dashboard to go pitch to his company. And again, Replit. young kid doesn't know how to go code.

He basically Googled it, came across Replit, signed up and built a marketing analytics dashboard on Replit with zero learning curve. So long story short, I'm here now. So I'm

his biggest fan that because he was the biggest fan of Replit and now that I'm working here. So those are some of the Replit use cases. As far as like other AI tools, I like Nooks. OK, and that's the auto dialer auto dialer and more like SDR related stuff. That's good. We used a version of a different version of that at Retool, a solution called Regi AI, which is also good.

Common Room is good. for PQLs and PLG intelligence of looking at signals of which enterprise customers are in your self-service base and how to go out and monetize off of that. That's a very, very good solution as well. And then there's a whole host of these CRM tools, right? That

well. And then there's a whole host of these CRM tools, right? That

basically their claim to fame is you don't have to go make Salesforce updates, right?

You know, you can just go prompted it from an AI perspective. And for a lot of those, for me specifically, just the space we're in, we're not going to go double down on that because one of the big initiatives, I did this at Retool and I'm going to do it here because I think it's so much more powerful here is dogfooding our own solution. So dogfooding our own solution, meaning like I

can go build like a Clary, Clary, if those of you that don't know, that's a forecasting tool, that's pretty industry-stradited. I can build a Replit version of Clary probably just as good and I want to go use that right integrated to my Salesforce system so obviously you need systems of record it's not like we're going to go build like a Salesforce on Replit even though there are use cases of that

down market. So we will have core systems of record, but we want to layer

down market. So we will have core systems of record, but we want to layer on the dashboards and the visibility from a dogfooding perspective on our own technology. And

that makes sense because if you look at, I can call my baby ugly here, I guess, because I used to work at Salesforce. I remember when we came out with Lightning, I'm like, this shit still looks like it was built in 07. I'm

like, we're still 10 years behind. What I like about it is even just like the UI. So it's like, how can I grab the data that's in the system

the UI. So it's like, how can I grab the data that's in the system of record and be able to like take the components of a UI. I'm sure

it's like, yeah, like the way you want it to look aesthetically and just like structurally on a page and then be able to present it. It's the same presentation use case that you were saying. Well, and it's great for customers, right? Because like

right now, if I look at even RevOps, we built our own CPQ. We built

our own CPQ that would have taken us millions of dollars to go get, and it's fully functional. My SDR team is using like call scripts and onboarding curriculum all on Replit. We basically have a customer health dashboard all on Replit. So again, you

on Replit. We basically have a customer health dashboard all on Replit. So again, you take these prototypes and examples, and when you're talking to customers, from these teams and divisions, you can be much more relatable and explain to them like, hey, we're using this internally to manage, you know, 10,000 customers plus and, you know, it gets the job done. You said something there about nooks. So mentioning it's like a power dialer

job done. You said something there about nooks. So mentioning it's like a power dialer allows you to just like make a lot more calls within an hour because it kind of just like continuously calls and like maybe even auto sends voicemails. But something

I'm confused about, though, is you'd said like the era of the generalist SDR is is is going away for technical process. But it sounds like With Nooks, it's back to maybe we still want maybe some of our SDRs to be making those calls.

Can you just like explain a little bit more? Yeah, it depends on where you want your SDRs to go fish. Okay. So we look at like lead sources of where SDRs should go prospect. So there's one school of thought is like, hey, give SDRs a bunch, just, you know, a bunch of greenfielders and have them go pound the phone and get the, I think that's like the lowest product, you know, you're

going to get the lowest production out of the SDRs. Were you guys doing those?

Like not to push you back, like, I always thought I sold to developers at Metronome and like we didn't really do cold. I just haven't seen the cold call mode. Were you guys doing that at Opt Zero and Ray Tool a little bit?

mode. Were you guys doing that at Opt Zero and Ray Tool a little bit?

We did, but we did it in a segmented way. We had target accounts like that. We had like sanctioned and sponsored with collaboration with marketing. And we were outbounding

that. We had like sanctioned and sponsored with collaboration with marketing. And we were outbounding into those based on our ICP. based on our ICP and their propensity to buy.

We actually did a big study on like propensity to buy based on who our ICP is, who our persona is, what size company it is. So we would be outbounding specifically into those. And that's kind of what we did at Retool as well.

At RapBlet, we have such a big base, right? So we've got this big, massive PLG base. that we're trying to get some PQL

PLG base. that we're trying to get some PQL intelligence on right now. We're building that. So that in itself is an area that we're actually having our BDRs and SDRs outbound into that base. Like if you're an enterprise customer that signs up for one of our self-service versions, we want to know, like, hey, what team are you on? What are you building? What are you doing?

Because if you're a JPMC, you really shouldn't be on our self-service solution. You should

be on our enterprise plan, right? So there's a lot of those examples in our self-service base that we want to make sure that we're reaching out to and just making them aware of the art of the possible. So that's one. The other is we do a lot of events. You know, we do a lot of events globally across the world, both sponsored events where we have, you know, we're a sponsor and

we get speaking opportunities. And we do a lot of community events and there's a lot of leads that get surfaced out of that and we follow up on that that's pretty standard as well but the the notion of and kind of what i meant by that comment is the notion of just giving somebody a stack of leads and say hey here's your script good luck that's not an effective way to use

their time to go outbound and i think of like i think of it as warm outbound um i think warm outbound still works and very, very specific outbound. Like

outbound, the key in outbound is all about personalization. So if you're an SDR and you can really be relatable to who you're reaching out to and you have a reason to go do that, you'll be more successful in getting the connects and getting the conversations going. If you're just doing, and that's my big pet peeve, every single night, every single night in my bed, I go through LinkedIn at night

and I get probably close I don't know. It's like four or five dozen requests a day of people that either want to connect with me, stuff like that. If

there's just a blank connection request, I just declined those all day long. Wait, that's

so interesting because there's been studies on this that like I don't send a note in it because I don't because I yeah, like tell me more. For me, if it's not a if it's not a personal note, I don't know who you are and I don't know why you want to connect with me. So that's an auto decline. Because you're just, you know that you're going to get some sort of like

decline. Because you're just, you know that you're going to get some sort of like spam, like message. Yeah. The ones that, you know, send a personal note, come from an interesting company, I'll accept. And then I wait, right? And some of them who actually send me that second or third follow-up as a DM. In fact, I've taken a lot of inbound resumes that way, where, you know, there's going to be

a personal note. It looks interesting. I accept it. Then they'll DM me and go, hey, Gazi, oh, my God, I really want this job. And look at the app I built. On Replit. Yeah. I feel like that's a tough one to ignore. You

I built. On Replit. Yeah. I feel like that's a tough one to ignore. You

know, I look at that and that's an immediate pass through to my recruiting team.

Immediate. So, yeah. Before we move on to like hiring and AI sales, you brought something up of just like how your son was using it. This is kind of off topic, but I'm genuinely curious. And how old is your son, by the way?

He's going to be 18 here soon. 18. Perfect. This is like very real. How

are kids thinking about education and how are you thinking about that as a parent of like, go to college, but also like with everything that's happening in AI, like what's the current knowledge right now for parents in that with kids that age? It's hard. It's trying to gravitate them into going down the right sector. And,

age? It's hard. It's trying to gravitate them into going down the right sector. And,

you know, it's a conversation I have my wife all the time. It's like, you know, he's actually going to one of his majors is actually he wants to go down the computer science, data science informatics route. And part of it is like you got to be kind of selective there, right? Like, you know, like the state of data science, Four years from now, who knows? It may or may not be around.

But I think what's interesting is if you look at a lot of the curriculum in schools that's happening right now, they're augmenting and incorporating AI into a lot of their stuff. So I think the more they can teach these kids to how to

their stuff. So I think the more they can teach these kids to how to leverage and use AI to make data science and analytics even more powerful, I think that's a good skill to go out and have. It'll be interesting to see how they do that because I would think that, I saw this in business school where it's like everybody wants his AI curriculum. but the people who are gonna be teaching

that aren't equipped to be able to do that. Cause you need to be in these tools every day. Think about how fast you guys are moving, all these tools.

I'm like two X-ing Greg Eisenberg videos just to catch up on the weekends. And

it's like, it's there. That's why everybody's working so much now. I feel like it's because you have to do your job. There's a lot more market pull, especially in sales roles that we've seen at AI natives, but then you need to spend your nights and weekends being like, okay, I have to do a 30 minute video, like Replit just launch something or, you know, Claude just did X, Y, and Z. So

it's just, and that's, you learn by doing, but it's like, are those professors really equipped? And it's like, how are we going to? Yeah. I mean, I tell my

equipped? And it's like, how are we going to? Yeah. I mean, I tell my son, it was like the soft skills will never change. So how you communicate, how you both verbal and written communication, and how you can go out and present yourself in front of people. And those skills will never change. So polish those skills up and then get your knowledge and then parlay that into where you want to go

work. Sort of, you know, what's old is new sort of thing. Last thing is

work. Sort of, you know, what's old is new sort of thing. Last thing is like, are you guys thinking, I think one thing I've respected about the perplexity team, they've done like these campus ambassadors. Sounds like you guys have a very like events driven model. Have you thought about going on campus and be like, let's teach the

driven model. Have you thought about going on campus and be like, let's teach the new generation of how to use these tools? Is that like a go to market motion? We are. We actually have deals we've done with countries

motion? We are. We actually have deals we've done with countries where Replit is the solution of choice for their entire community. So this is a public story. You can Google this. We did a big deal with the Kingdom of

public story. You can Google this. We did a big deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which was basically not only that we are the single source Vibe coding solution for all of their customers through a partner, Humane, but also we're going to actually bring Replit into the community as well. And we're having those similar type of examples with other countries as well, where we can kind of come in and

we do a lot of stuff with educators and education systems out there. So a

lot of solutions out there from education. And, you know, I mean, in ReplEd, like pre our solution, we actually did have a education solution, right? So we

really marketed really well in that segment. Yeah, all makes sense. So you have a bunch of takes on like hiring an AI, sales orgs, obviously Retools Hiring Bar was super high. There's a lot of people listening that like, we hear it all the

super high. There's a lot of people listening that like, we hear it all the time as a recruiting firm, like interviewing salespeople is really tough. And I guess just first, Before we go into some of those tactics of how you interview and how you know if somebody's good at sales, this non-traditional seller piece of this. So tell

us more of like, this is changing because it's like, hey, we have a replet.

Like people can show how they're using replet. I guess, what are some other traits that you have seen somebody who maybe didn't have a sales background that ended up becoming good at sales that could have been at retools, could have been a replet?

Like, how have you seen that? Product passion is like number one. They basically

know the product and how they're using it themselves and what's possible. And they can go explain that in a really exciting way to end customers. That I think is like mission number one, right? And then someone who's like just very relationship oriented, you can kind of tell from their personality that they're social, they're an extrovert.

They like to have a lot of different conversations out there. They may not have done sales, but they just naturally have that skill. It's interesting for you to say that because you've done a lot of developer tooling and infrastructure sort of selling. And

I've heard mixed on this. I would look to hire somewhere to how you do, but there's been times where, I don't know, people say I come off a little salesy compared to a developer and they're like, hey, your energy level's a little too high. So then I had to like lower my tone a little bit. I think

high. So then I had to like lower my tone a little bit. I think

you have to balance that. And the way I kind of use that is if you can come across as a product advocate, you're much more credible in front of these people. And that was our secret sauce when you're selling to developers, because developers

these people. And that was our secret sauce when you're selling to developers, because developers hate salespeople. Totally. Right? You know, and in fact, I can't remember the term. We

hate salespeople. Totally. Right? You know, and in fact, I can't remember the term. We

actually used to call our SDR team different. They weren't labeled as SDRs. I think

it was like product advocate or like a, you know, solution advisor. Steen and the COO at, she was at Stripe and then Notion, and then now she's at Linear.

So the same thing, they call themselves customer success, you know, just to rename it.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you can kind of, you know, articulate yourself as a product advocate and you're there kind of along their side to kind of help and enable them, I think you can be successful. So I think that's like the selling example.

And, you know, Replit, we have some interesting examples, right? Like, again, pre my time when I first joined, you know, we had a very small GTM and a sales organization, but our number one seller who closed three and a half million dollars never sold a day in his life. He came from the U.S. Marine Corp and was basically in their training program in the U.S. Marine Corp. But the beauty was he

was building all of his training curriculum and training content off of Replit. So, you

know, he wanted a job at Replit so bad he came here and just absolutely killed it. I've got another example of someone who was a school teacher in our

killed it. I've got another example of someone who was a school teacher in our commercial team, you know, got our Rookie of the Year award this past sales kickoff, never sold a day in his life. But when he was in the school system, he was building all of his curriculum and content off of Replit and can go articulate and tell that story to customers out there doing exceptionally well, never sold. See,

this is why we don't have the teachers in the schools teaching is because you're poaching them for your go-to-market season. So you got to keep some of them in the ecosystem and then have them just spreading the product a little bit. I love

those stories, though. And I think more people that are just intellectually curious need to be in sales. I think like I'm a former consultant. A lot of my friends, you know, don't love their banking jobs. And I'm just like, you guys would be so great. You're hard workers and you are very structured in the way that you

so great. You're hard workers and you are very structured in the way that you communicate. Like you'd be great at sales. But whether it's the rebranding and we're seeing

communicate. Like you'd be great at sales. But whether it's the rebranding and we're seeing this and like everybody calling themselves go to market right now, sales is just like this mispriced asset as a career that I wish more people would go into, especially with folks like your best friend, which is CompSci. We need more of those for sure. You said something about like staff demand, not aspiration. This is a really interesting

sure. You said something about like staff demand, not aspiration. This is a really interesting point I want to talk about because a lot of the reason why we don't say yes to certain recruiting opportunities is because they're hiring sales too early, specifically that they don't have the demand or the pipeline to back up a rep being successful in that. But it's really hard for a sales leader. What would you tell a

in that. But it's really hard for a sales leader. What would you tell a sales leader out there that has to balance this a little bit? Yes, of course, if you're going into a company that has a ton of market pull, you have the luxury of not needing to worry about this, but a lot of sales orgs don't have that luxury. What would you say to that? You still have to do

the math. So irrespective of that, you still have to go do the math of

the math. So irrespective of that, you still have to go do the math of like, so again, hiring salespeople, and getting bodies, that's the easiest thing to go do.

Like, you know, your CEO on the board can go tell you, hey, go 10X your team. Okay, great. We'll go hire a recruiter and we'll go pump it and

your team. Okay, great. We'll go hire a recruiter and we'll go pump it and we'll go hire as many people as you actually go want. But you got to go do the science as to how you're going to feed them. And that's where the pipeline velocity actually comes in. Because at the end of the day, if you over-index on people and you can't feed them or they can't feed themselves, that's a

big problem that nobody wants to get into. So you have to kind of do the science, right? And we're 10Xing our org right now and we don't have... you

know, a robust, tight annual planning process. So we put one kind of together on the back of the napkin of saying that, hey, okay, SDRs and marketing can go produce X many ops per month. You know, a portion of those come from inbound.

This is how much we can go generate from outbound through some of the PQL there. And if we scale spend and pipeline and demand, this is how much we

there. And if we scale spend and pipeline and demand, this is how much we can increase it to. So that gives you a rough order of magnitude of how much pipeline you can generate to actually feed the people that you actually go need.

So that I mean, that's not that hard to go do, but I would advise any leader that's looking to go out and staff in a aspirational, big, aggressive way like that to go at least do the napkin math to make sure it actually adds up. I want to push you back a little bit on this because what,

adds up. I want to push you back a little bit on this because what, or maybe flip the question of what can a sales leader ask in an interview that to qualify that the founder, because a lot of times, I think a lot of sales leaders say what you're saying. Yeah. And they want that, but it's out of their control. It's either their board or their VC giving them advice of somebody

who's never operated before, or it's spreadsheet math, or it's a founder that has a lot of revenue pressure because they just raised at probably way too high of a valuation. So you have this VP of sales that's already in seat that's like, crap,

valuation. So you have this VP of sales that's already in seat that's like, crap, I really want to do what Ghazi's saying, but it's a little bit out of my control. Let's take a situation where let's say a VP of sales or a

my control. Let's take a situation where let's say a VP of sales or a head of sales is interviewing right now. What are the questions that they can be asking a founder or a board member in that interview process to test that they are going to think about it that way versus an opposite way. The good questions would be, where's your pipeline coming from? Yeah. That's the question number one. Where is

your pipeline coming from? Is it all inbound? Is it outbound generated? Is it sales generated? Is it coming from product leads? Are they just betting only on events? So

generated? Is it coming from product leads? Are they just betting only on events? So

I would say, what are your pipeline lead sources today? And where is your pipeline being generated from now? today? That would be like the first question I actually ask.

The second question would be like, hey, based on historical quota attainment of your people, how much pipeline coverage has your business had over the last year? Right? Is it

one to one? Is it three to one? Is it zero? And you're just counting on it? And then, you know, and then what is your close one percentages against

on it? And then, you know, and then what is your close one percentages against that pipeline coverage? Yeah. What if the founder was to say to you, like, hey, our first 10, we have 15 customers. The first 10 of them were VC intros.

And then the other five, I'm starting to get a little bit of inbound from some of the posts I did on LinkedIn. We just raised the seed round or and we need more revenue. Like, what is it that you're saying in an answer that's kind of that lukewarm? Is it like go hire marketing? Is it like go hire that go to market Swiss Army knife that can also sell, but create demand?

Like, do you think that salespeople should be being brought in to create it or?

the answer to that question would be is you need more, you need a predictable, consistent demand gen engine because you can't rely on founder-led sales. You're kind of transitioning from that. Let's go figure out how to go deliver that consistent pipeline into your

from that. Let's go figure out how to go deliver that consistent pipeline into your business, right? And yeah, I mean, there's, I don't think there's a one answer on

business, right? And yeah, I mean, there's, I don't think there's a one answer on whether salespeople should be prospecting. It kind of depends on the company. Like for us at Replit, don't, I don't want my salespeople prospecting because I have so much demand right now in my business that I need to go feed my reps the

opportunity so they can go close them. And you're servicing this data from common room to be like, hey, you have a thousand leads now, you gotta just be working on them. Yep. I mean, their calendar right now, they don't even have a 30

on them. Yep. I mean, their calendar right now, they don't even have a 30 minute window because they're so busy. So I don't want them prospecting. I actually want them closing, right? Retool that wasn't the case. We actually had a KPI of how many self-generated opportunities we would actually expect our AEs to go generate. At

OddZero, we did as well, just supplementing, not a whole lot of that. How did

you define that a retool though? Was it, hey, we do have a self-service motion that they're, you know, maybe we're taking a personal email and we're flipping it to, ooh, this person works at JPMorgan. then you're calling and you're trying to groundswell that.

Is that how you would do it in a PLG motion at Retool? Yeah, yeah.

So the way I kind of look at it is, there's the, we used to call it like a cookbook. This is your cookbook to be successful. You got a million and a half dollar quota to get. You're going to get X percentage of your pipeline from inbound, which is PLG. You're going to get X percentage of your pipeline through BDR's outbounding. Then you got to go get X percentage of your pipeline

kind of on your own output. And what does that actually go look like? So

it would basically like, what does that pie look like? And where's your pipeline going to go? come from. And one of those areas was self-generation of outbound.

to go? come from. And one of those areas was self-generation of outbound.

Again, it was a small portion of it, but we would actually expect that for that pie to be whole, for that rep to be successful and how much pipeline was coming into their business. Another quote you said, like this sort of whispered hiring or like, hey, if you're going to start hiring sales leadership or even just building out the A team, a lot of it's going through your own network. I want

to talk to the concept of back channeling a little bit. You and Andy talked about this on his podcast, but Back channeling is a big part of this industry and it's like, because salespeople are really good at selling themselves. I'm going to be honest though, man, like there's a lot of people that, and you see this because people just nuke stuff off their resume because they don't want to be in a

position they can't bad mouth a previous employer. I have seen it a lot of times where salespeople get hired too early and then in six months they haven't hit anything and then they have to go into a new interview process and say like, that didn't work out. Now, if you have four of those in a row, probably on the candidate to not be learning and asking the right questions, but there are

so many candidates that are out there that if you were to back channel for them or to them at those companies, 10% quoted attainment, 5% quoted attainment versus I bet you in two to three years, the cursor in Anthropic, they're gonna have great back channels and they're gonna be hitting 200% of their number. It feels unfair a little bit. And I say this as somebody who's never worked at a sales

organization that had over 20% quote attainment. That's my fault for not asking the right questions. But it gets me going a little bit with this back channeling thing,

questions. But it gets me going a little bit with this back channeling thing, because if you're going to be asking somebody who I used to work with and they're still there at a company that like has a 75, which is bad score on RepView. I don't know. I'm putting like a bad spot. Not to like say

on RepView. I don't know. I'm putting like a bad spot. Not to like say excuses. Tell me more about just how you think through the nuance of that. So

excuses. Tell me more about just how you think through the nuance of that. So

quota attainment is one aspect. what you look for but there's other things like you know how did this individual like how did this individual go out and kind of show up every single day you know were they collaborative were they kind of the lone wolf mentality or were they collaborative with their business how do they interact with their peers so i i do a lot of that stuff right i

mean quote attainment yeah for sure but that to your point quote attainment varies you could be an order taker and have amazing quota attainment, right? Versus a savvy seller that actually had to be scrappy and had to be creative and being successful there.

So there's different elements of that. And just knowing the company, I mean, there's clearly some companies out there, you look at that company and you see somebody at 180% quota attainment. Yeah, they were probably successful because they were order taking, right? So you

quota attainment. Yeah, they were probably successful because they were order taking, right? So you

have to kind of take it with a grain of salt. So I look at all the other elements of like how this person shows up, you know, how were they in front of customers when they were pitching? You know, were they an individual that was like sought out for to speak at events or, you know, go out and do community type sessions out there? What was that like? And the one thing

I never do is like, you know, usually when you, um, ask people, they'll send you, oh, you hear my three or four references. I never call those. And then

if you get a reference that doesn't even give an amazing review, that's a negative signal probably too. It's like, wait, this is supposed to be your top. Yeah, so

I kind of just go through my own network of people that are there and just getting some of those things and attributes. And like I said, quote attainment from a salesperson standpoint is one. I mean, a good characteristic is obviously tenure. So

tenure at a company, even now, I think plays a lot into the success of individuals there, especially in sales. You know, if you've got someone who stayed at a company three, four, five years in a sales capacity role and has kind of moved and elevated up, that's a pretty good sign. Like this,

you know, this individual has probably weathered multiple storms, whether it's hiring, their territory shrinking, their account book shifting, and they've navigated that and still have been successful and retained there. So there's a lot to be said about tenure in sales. I

there. So there's a lot to be said about tenure in sales. I

agree with that. It's interesting you bring this up. We floated a candidate the other day where they were almost at a company to help. This is interesting feedback. They're

at a company too long. Like why are they going? Why have they been at this company for seven years? And it's like, wait a second, which one? It's like

so there is a sweet spot, it sounds like there's like that two to four year four year would be great, right? You see a few promotions and all that.

I agree that the short stints is like something that if it's four in a row, probably on the candidate. but like maybe one or two, hopefully some more hiring.

We work with some very strict hiring managers that are like, hey, they've had a short stint. That's like, but they've never been in sales before. I'm like, this happens

short stint. That's like, but they've never been in sales before. I'm like, this happens sometimes. And that's why candidates like working with agencies like us, because we can kind

sometimes. And that's why candidates like working with agencies like us, because we can kind of tell the nuance. There's a hiring, there's a sales org right now very technical one that a lot of reps are coming inbound to us and we're able to tell that story versus them needing to say that on the first call and like not bad mouth, but it's like, there's really a lose, lose for the candidate. They

don't have an agent like us to be able to speak in the middle, but also you like, you've been in the game long enough, you know, with some orgs, where's good, where's bad. You can also say like, Hey, like, is this, what's the vibe like at this? Oh, everybody's leaving and like nobody's hitting. And then you're like, okay, like this makes a lot more sense with that. 100%. Yeah. Some of the

other thing, I guess like, you know, you've been in this for a while, you've been at some very impressive go-to-market motions. What are like one or two sales orgs?

Let's actually segment this out from like the SaaS era and then now the AI native era, not including any companies that you've worked at that you really admire. That

I admire. You know, I mean, I think just from a discipline and rigor perspective, like if you kind of look at like bigger organizations like Salesforce, you know, there's some good people coming out of Salesforce. Interesting. Can I challenge, because I worked at Salesforce from late 2016 to mid 2021, I think early Salesforce maybe, but

there's a stigma around like if you were at Salesforce the last 10 or 15 years, I did it because I was trying to break into startups and people were like, well, one, he's too big company. But two is a lot of people don't like their interaction currently. with Salesforce for just heard mixed reviews. So tell me more.

Yeah, this is, this is pre. So I'm talking like, so this is like, I was at Oracle and we competed with Salesforce. I think, I think like getting kind of your groundings around sales and business acumen, negotiation strategies, executive alignment, you learn a lot. from some of these organizations. I

learned a lot when I was at Oracle, just working that. This was Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd days, right? And those were like old school selling, but it taught me a lot. And I would say like people who were at Salesforce at that time,

a lot. And I would say like people who were at Salesforce at that time, probably in the same boat. So that's kind of what I'm referring to just from a Salesforce standpoint. And then, you know, like some of the newer companies that are there, I mean, it's, you know, there's a lot of, different companies that kind of come to mind. I mean, I think like Stripe, you know, like in

the developer tools area, like Stripe, MongoDB. What about Stripe? Anything specific that stands out?

Stripe's a big... I've written a lot of articles on them. I very much admire their go-to-market motion too, a very cerebral way of selling, and I really appreciate that.

And a lot of subs to our blog, probably the most common one being is Stripe. So what- I think it's just the way you articulate yourself and present yourself

Stripe. So what- I think it's just the way you articulate yourself and present yourself in front of the technical buyer. Completely. Right, in front of the technical buyer. I

think they did that really, really well. I think it's Lassian did that well too.

I mean, those are some of the companies that kind of come to mind from like the new world, if you will. And we recruited from a lot of those companies, even at Retool and OddZero. If you look at, you give recruiters, hey, these are the companies I want you to go get talent from, Stripe, MongoDB, those were top of the list. I love that. A couple rapid fire questions. What's something that,

you have quite a bunch of advisory roles. I think you were advising Serval and a few others. What's maybe some advice when you come into an organization that they've heard that you're like, ooh, these founders are getting this advice and I don't agree with that. And maybe that's changed, like just conventional wisdom that has either changed or

with that. And maybe that's changed, like just conventional wisdom that has either changed or has been around for a little bit that you necessarily don't agree with. That I

don't agree with? Yeah. I think hiring senior people too early.

I don't agree with that sometimes. Let's jump into that actually. So we're brought in a lot of times, whether it's our advisory business, Combi just raises a seed. They're

bringing on my partner, Kalen, who's the founding AE at Box, Dropbox, and actually founding sales advisor at Retool. And they're working with them trying to get, you know, $10 million in ARR. And then they go, oh, we just hired an exec search firm.

We're like, for what? And they're like, a VP of sales, Ciro. I'm like, you guys need to, you guys now have the pipeline. Totally. You need to like, catch all these deals and close them. So tell me more about that because I'm seeing that too. Yeah, yeah. I can't tell you how many founders that I advise that

that too. Yeah, yeah. I can't tell you how many founders that I advise that I'm actually walking off the ledge in doing just that of saying that that is not your right move at this stage of where you're at this is what I would do if I were in your shoes and building a go-to-market organization and it's like getting that consistency repeatability engine kind of fired up first and this is why

I think head of sales and CROs and some of these companies turn out because they're they've been brought in into a world it's just it's not the right time or the opportunity there. And these people aren't wizards and magicians, and you shouldn't expect them to be wizards and musicians, right? So you have to be kind of selective there. So that's a conversation I have a lot with founders, given the stage of

there. So that's a conversation I have a lot with founders, given the stage of where they're at and what they should be doing. Is there like an up and comer that you could hire? So let's say somebody who's done the enterprise motion, who maybe has been a sales manager for a year, that wants to get an AI native, said, I will come in here and sell for three to six months, and

then you bring me on. Could that be like the top limit of like what you might bring on for that founding? Yep. And it's like, can they, and do they want to do the zero to one? Do they want to do the zero to one? And can they get their hands dirty and want to get their hands

to one? And can they get their hands dirty and want to get their hands dirty, knowing that this is temporary, the flywheel gets going and the machine gets built and then you have the right to kind of move up the organization. That's like

the perfect profile. Yeah, we're seeing that. It's like, oh, no, we want to bring in the VP to help us build that out. And it's like, well, the order of operation should be like, yeah, you've already built a great product. Get it out there. Get some pipeline. Get some ICs and then bring in that leader to help

there. Get some pipeline. Get some ICs and then bring in that leader to help scale it. And that's probably the motion that doesn't happen enough. But yeah, I think

scale it. And that's probably the motion that doesn't happen enough. But yeah, I think a lot of companies, though, would say to this, it's really easy for some companies, just to say this, a lot of companies, it's hard in the trenches when it's like, but it's this balance of like, okay, well, don't raise yet, but then they get preempted. And then it's like, now we're on the VC hamster wheel. And not

get preempted. And then it's like, now we're on the VC hamster wheel. And not

only are we on this hamster wheel, which causes pressure, which brings pressure, there's also people that have advice that we almost have to listen to. Yeah, it is definitely hard. It's definitely hard. But I think it, again, goes back to, you know, you

hard. It's definitely hard. But I think it, again, goes back to, you know, you could hire a VP of sales by title, but what are they doing when they actually show up, right? You know, if they can do the zero to one work and get down to the ground level, it's not a bad thing, but you gotta make sure they can actually go do that. Anything else in these advisory things, maybe

like you can even bring up, what are some growth channels that are working in particular in 2026? Feel free to take this question however, if it's, hey, things that are working in these advisory engagements, you're like, wow, this is like a new thing that's working or other pieces of advice that you're like, ah, like, we need to fix this sort of line of thinking. Yeah, I mean, I think the advisory ones,

like it's interesting, the companies that I'm advising right now, a lot of it is around like demand generation, pipeline, repeatability and consistency of where your at-bats come from. And a lot of these organizations are kind of different. There's some like, you know, that are kind of native AI and they're going after like the service, like servos, you know, they're going after the service

now. base and they're doing exceptionally well because they've got a very very strong

now. base and they're doing exceptionally well because they've got a very very strong message around what ai can actually do in the in the it service management space and they know exactly who their icp is and they've got a very very targeted messaging and they're killing it um and going after laser focused yeah they're just killing it and they're going after a big dominant player like service now and they're getting

their wins and they're doing like exceptionally well And then there's other companies that are kind of figuring out like, hey, what channels should I be doubling down on? Should

I just go all in on events? You know, should I go hire like a bunch of SDRs and give them target accounts with an ICP and have them go do messaging there, right? Or should I go out and kind of cultivate like a big self-service engine? So a lot of those companies are still trying to figure it out. So I give a lot of advice as to depending on what product it

out. So I give a lot of advice as to depending on what product it is and what space they're in on like how to optimized for that. So pipeline

generation is big. Then the other one I get involved in quite a lot is just org design, right? Like org design. OK, I'm going to go get a founding AE what does my structure look like? You know, how many SDRs do I need?

Do I need a traditional SE to kind of come along? The thing there. So

what should my org design look like at the state that I'm in right now?

And then how does it actually grow into? So a lot of those type of conversations. Sweet. I'm sure it's tougher to advise right now. You're probably so slammed at

conversations. Sweet. I'm sure it's tougher to advise right now. You're probably so slammed at Replit where it's- It's hard. Yeah, yeah. I mainly do those on the weekends now.

Like most of my advisor stuff is like on Saturdays and Sundays where I'll speak to the founder like on a Saturday or Sunday and it works out fine. But

yeah, you have to balance it out for sure. This is awesome. We're out of time. And so if people want to get in touch with you, send a note

time. And so if people want to get in touch with you, send a note in your LinkedIn and preferably how you've built either your resume or something cool with Replit. But separate to that, if there's anything, you know, any other way that people

Replit. But separate to that, if there's anything, you know, any other way that people can stand out to get your attention if they want to join Replit, anything else that comes to mind? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Send me a note. Send me like multiple DMs and be credible and persistent about it. But persistent, I mean, persistent does carry a lot of weight. Show up to one of your events and get to know

the team. I think that's- Exactly. We do a lot of events out across the

the team. I think that's- Exactly. We do a lot of events out across the world and I'm usually there at a lot of them. So yeah, happy to chat and get in touch with as many people as we can. Yeah. Ghazi, we've been wanting to have you on for quite a bit and it was great to finally meet and to do this. I had a lot of fun. Yeah, real fun. Thanks,

Chris. Really appreciate you giving us a listen. Give us a subscribe, rating, review, follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Hope you enjoy it.