Giancarlo Lionetti

SaaStr 724: CRO Confidential: Bringing Product-Led and Sales-Led Growth Together For Go-To-Market Success with Giancarlo Lionetti, CRO of Zapier. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund In this latest episode of CRO Confidential, Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with the CRO of Zapier, Giancarlo Lionetti (GC), to chat about Product-Led Growth (PLG) and Go-To-Market (GTM). Everything from hiring on the GTM side to layering in a sales-led motion into PLG. Before joining Zapier, Giancarlo was at Atlassian as a technical sales lead before moving to DropBox as a Senior Director of Growth and Monetization, and was CMO at Confluent – so he has a wealth of knowledge from Zapier's Go-To-Market history as well as these successful SaaS companies to pull from. From a Go-To-Market perspective, Zapier uses a hybrid model that involves a combination of freemium offerings, subscription plans, and partnerships. Let's dive into what's making that hybrid model successful. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200 -------------- This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Giancarlo Lionetti

CRO

Zapier

Guest: Giancarlo “GC” Lionetti, CRO of Zapier “I live in a constant state of paranoia,” says Zapier CRO Giancarlo “GC” Lionetti, “which I guess is healthy and unhealthy.” A lifelong hard worker who shows up early and stays late, GC could have kept his job at team collaboration company Atlassian, which he joined before the company even offered stock options to employees. But his hunger for new experiences — and desire to learn things about new disciplines, like sales — took him away to unexpected new roles at Dropbox, Confluent and now Zapier. “If you asked me in every single experience what my next experience was gonna be ... I wouldn’t have guessed the one that I ended up doing,” he says. In this episode, GC and Joubin discuss in-person retreats, the problem with “hybrid” cultures, in-office perks, dyslexia and ChatGPT, Atlassian as a “mini-MBA,” re-directing energy to find happiness, self-service businesses, “fitting the mold,” the space for meetings, and dinner at home with the kids. In this episode, we cover: The Grit tip jar and being an “anti-remote” person at a fully remote company (00:47) How GC compensates for not being able to walk & talk around the office (06:13) The dying art of being early, and GC’s brand of hard work (09:03) His father’s exhausting work life, and his first summer job (16:18) Is GC a “pusher” or a “puller,” and some crucial advice from Atlassian CEO Scott Farquhar (21:15) What he thought in the early days of Atlassian’s ride to the top (27:48) What Zapier does and how it has helped GC and his wife as parents (31:29) “It was hard to take advice, because nobody understood this world” (34:25) Why did GC leave Atlassian for Dropbox? (38:04) Passing on paranoia, and is balance required for happiness? (41:16) Marketing vs. sales, and the danger of re-running the same playbook in different companies (48:46) Fitting into a box, and learning from people with different backgrounds (56:28) Why GC doesn’t like traveling very much, and  the place of meetings in Zapier’s GTM organization (01:01:09) Separating the “church and state” of work and personal life (01:07:38) Links: Connect with GCTwitter LinkedIn Connect with JoubinTwitter LinkedIn Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Giancarlo Lionetti

CRO

Zapier