Kyle Parrish, Figma’s first sales hire, built the company’s zero-to-one sales engine from scratch. Figma now has more than 3 million monthly users. Prior to Figma, Kyle spent 5 years at Dropbox in various sales roles. At Dropbox, Kyle successfully launched and scaled the Austin office to 100+ people, and then led the enterprise sales function in San Francisco and New York.
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In today’s episode, we discuss:
- The right time to build a sales function
- Hiring and scaling a successful sales org
- Building a unique sales culture
- Career advice for ambitious salespeople
- Figma’s early sales motion
- How to integrate your first sales hire
- Navigating the founder/Head of Sales relationship
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Referenced:
- Amanda Kleha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-kleha-015599/
- Asana: https://asana.com/
- Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/
- Claire Butler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairetbutler/
- Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/
- Dylan Field: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield/
- FigJam: https://www.figma.com/figjam/
- Figma: https://www.figma.com/
- Kevin Egan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-egan-59719/
- Oliver Jay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliverjayleadership/
- Praveer Melwani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveer-melwani/
- Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
- Slack: https://www.slack.com/
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Where to find Kyle Parrish:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kparrish8/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/KyleHParrish
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Where to find Brett Berson:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
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Where to find First Round Capital:
- Website: https://firstround.com/
- First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
- This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(02:10) What founders need to figure out before hiring salespeople
(03:48) Who to hire as your first salesperson
(05:34) Transitioning away from founder-led sales
(07:07) Tactics for hiring great salespeople
(12:50) The ideal experience sales candidates should have
(13:49) Common traits of successful salespeople
(18:45) What it was like being Figma’s first sales hire
(19:59) Interesting tactic to integrate the first sales hire
(21:16) How Figma executed its early sales motion
(32:27) Why Figma changed its customer narrative
(34:03) Building outbound sales strategy at Figma
(36:17) Segmented pricing and no discounts
(41:55) Kyle’s transition from Dropbox to Figma
(47:25) Creating a world-class sales culture
(51:46) How Figma does sales differently
(54:02) Building the initial sales team around a passion for the product
(57:12) Figma’s unique hiring process for salespeople
(60:40) Advice for founders hiring their first salesperson
(63:18) The secret to Dylan Field’s success
(64:33) How to scale yourself as an early hire
(66:25) Oliver Jay’s impact on Kyle