New episode on the Crew Podcast - Rich Liu, former CRO @ Navan (IPO) and had great runs @ Mulesoft (IPO), Meta (IPO), as well as executive roles @ Lattice + Everlaw.
Also, shoutout to our sponsors for this episode, Metaview & Attention. Been awesome working with both of these teams for recruiting, and now infusing as part of our media arm.
Both incredible products used by a bunch of the AI-natives we work with.
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Some of our previous guests:
GTM Roundtable: The State of AI-Native Sales w/ Clay, Parallel, Avoca & Profound, see here
Eleanor Dorfman, Head of Commercial Sales @ Anthropic, see here
Pat Forquer, CRO @ Legora, see here
Graham Moreno, VP of GTM @ Parallel
Tomer Chernia, VP of GTM @ Cursor
Liam Mulcahy, Head of Sales @ Parallel (former GTM Operating Partner @ Kleiner Perkins)
Becca Lindquist, Head of Sales @ Clay
Nick Bogaty, CRO @ Vercel
Kyle Parrish, former VP of Sales @ Figma
Ghazi Masood, CRO @ Replit
Evan Cassidy, VP of Sales @ Decagon
James White, VP of Sales @ Rogo
Mark Ebert, SVP of Revenue @ Profound
Rob Saliterman, VP of Sales @ Harvey
Bardia Shahali, VP of Sales @ Granola
And many more in the pipeline - if you know any good leaders who fit this, shoot me a DM/reply/email [email protected]. We’ll keep openings rolling and be super open to suggestions for similar guests.
We film in-person in SF & NYC at legit podcast studios and have retained a stellar post-production agency, so the quality will be high.
Rich’s Background
Rich Liu is a go-to-market advisor to AI-native companies and the former CRO at Navan (formerly TripActions), where he helped rebuild the business through COVID and on to an IPO.
Before Navan he ran enterprise sales at MuleSoft, leading a team of a couple hundred people across six offices as the company went from roughly $800M in valuation to a 10x in three years. He joined Meta when it had around 2,000 employees and ran sales and account management teams as it scaled to 20,000.
A Yale engineer by training, he got his start in a sales boiler room cold-calling for Fisher Investments after 9/11.
Discussed In This Episode
Why Rich left an engineering path for a cold-calling sales job after 9/11
Taking a step down to run inside sales at MuleSoft for a seat on the leadership team
How MuleSoft’s pivot to an application network changed the sale and the reps it needed
Hiring as religion, and the exec who reviewed every hiring packet for 1,000+ employees
Hiring 2.0: the same questions and the same bar in every office from Singapore to London
Why you can’t go back and raise the hiring bar later
How a Vans store job got a new grad into a full-cycle closing role
The risk factors for sales candidates, including the outbound “cold plunge”
Selling travel software during COVID, and why SMBs started traveling first
Why a top-down enterprise motion can’t chase Anthropic-level growth
Which sales orgs produce reps that fit which motions
Key Timestamps
(03:12) From Yale engineer to a sales boiler room
(08:24) Leaving Meta for a company named after a farm animal
(16:49) When hiring became religion
(22:38) Why you can’t raise the bar later
(27:45) The Vans store BDR
(37:39) Selling travel during a pandemic
(45:57) Chasing Anthropic-level growth
(49:45) Which sales orgs produce the best reps
Thanks for tuning in!
If you enjoy it, please give us a rating, review, or follow on Spotify/YouTube/Apple Podcasts - it really helps us grow this.
For those who are new, my name is Chris Balestras, co-founder & head of talent, media, & brand @ Crew - a GTM recruiting, media, and investing firm, working with seed through series D AI-natives to help them grow.
Where to find Crew:
We work with many of the hottest AI-native startups in various capacities, and for those who are interested, shoot me an email at [email protected] or a DM on LinkedIn.
🫡 cheers,
Chris