Carilu Dietrich

Don't settle on a crappy job just because you're unemployed. Each logo prepares you for the next one. A bad logo can set you back years — endure the search and wait for the right company.

In a downturn, CFOs ask: is Slack really that much better than Teams if Teams is free with our Microsoft bundle? The only way to survive that pressure is to be so much better that it's worth the extra cost. There's no shortcut.

Don't hire sales too early. Adding SDRs and AEs feels like it'll add predictable revenue — but it's a massive cost drain if your product doesn't already resonate. Sales can't paper over weak product-market fit.

"Some of my greatest career growth came in the economic downturns. Other people take their foot off the gas, and you can put your foot down."

Hypergrowth companies compress what takes others 5–10 years into months. That means you need to keep hiring leaders who've already seen the next stage of growth — because it'll arrive before you're ready.

My 10-point checklist for evaluating a hypergrowth company: Rule of 40, investor quality, NPS/customer satisfaction, net dollar retention, growth rate, burn rate, market position (Gartner/Forrester rank), and Glassdoor score.

Atlassian spent 2–3x more on R&D than comparable companies — and almost nothing on sales prospecting. They took all the money they would've spent on sales and plowed it into product. That ratio held even after IPO.

Net dollar retention of 180% means a company nearly doubles revenue from existing customers alone — without a single new customer. Snowflake hit this. That's the benchmark for a truly healthy business.

Bundling kills product-led growth. At Atlassian, every time we bundled products for the land, it slowed down conversions. Land with one product, get to value in 7 days, then expand. Bundles are for sales-led motions, not PLG.

The biggest growth levers — moving upmarket, going global, adding a partner channel — can't be owned by one department. If it's only a marketing goal or only a sales goal, it won't work. These are company strategy problems.