00:00welcome to the a 16z podcast I'm Michael
00:02Copeland and I'm here in the Situation
00:04Room at github here in San Francisco
00:07with co-founder and CEO of github chris
00:10wanstrath and Peter Levine from
00:12andreessen horowitz who is also on the
00:15board of github welcome guys thank you
00:17hello yes thanks for having me
00:18we want to talk about sales and github
00:22it may have come come as some surprise
00:24actually has a sales organization so
00:26Chris I want to sort of back up and get
00:30into why you guys built a sales team
00:33because at the beginning is my
00:35understanding there was not so much love
00:38for building a sales team sure the the
00:40simple answer is our customers told us
00:43to like we re our customer focused
00:45company we believe in feedback we are a
00:47product company we build things for the
00:49people using it and for a long time we
00:51didn't have a sales team and we were
00:52resistant to the idea I think now we
00:54have a lot better understanding of what
00:56a sales team is and why you would use
00:58one anyone at a company and a lot of
01:00that came to us through our customers so
01:02let me back up then why do you think you
01:04were resistant at the beginning and
01:06because I think it's probably something
01:08that a lot of engineering lead companies
01:10face because I watch a lot of movies
01:11growing up and then I do have sales that
01:14is totally different than the reality
01:16which was what the dishonest pusher of
01:20where's who's got like a big Rolex and
01:23isn't someone that you want to work with
01:24and isn't someone that you went out
01:26representing your product especially if
01:27your product is about people and
01:30something like great so you have this
01:33product that's great you want people to
01:34fall in love with it what you don't want
01:35is anything that it sort of puts that in
01:38jeopardy and movies culture you have
01:40this salesperson who like a shark right
01:42they'll do anything it takes to make the
01:44sale and that's not at all what getup is
01:46about that's not what we want to be
01:47doing that's not how we want to treat
01:48our customers so yeah there was a lot of
01:50reluctance to not go down that path but
01:52that's not really the reality right well
01:55and Peter is your back running and give
01:58us a little bit of your background
01:58because you started your career as an
02:00engineer and you know went on to become
02:01a CEO and run some big companies but you
02:04part of that and a big part of that was
02:06sales so describe for us your background
02:09and then how you came to sales and then
02:10how you sort of if you did if this is
02:13gospel to christen and the and the
02:15github guys my my background I started
02:18as an engineer and it's a long time ago
02:22as a real coder I coded file systems and
02:25kernel stuff and so I thought you know
02:28kind of life would go happily along for
02:31me as a as a programmer and I thought
02:32that would be my my career and it was
02:36actually very interesting I remember
02:38thinking one day that I remember looking
02:41out my window and trying to think about
02:44how the product that I was building how
02:47it actually got into a customer's hands
02:49and I literally thought like that
02:50customers came to our building and they
02:52backed up a truck and we'd load the
02:54software and this is before the you know
02:55before cloud and all that stuff that
02:57they back we'd they back up a truck and
03:00the CDs or whatever went in the back of
03:02the truck and like that's was my my view
03:05of how products got in the hands of our
03:08customers and what happened with me as I
03:11had the opportunity as an engineer to
03:14actually go out and meet some customers
03:16and it became really interesting to me
03:21to see that you know when I was at
03:23customers they had a lot of questions
03:25about our product and I was there I
03:29started to help answer the questions
03:31that they had and realize that much of
03:35being a great sort of the right sales
03:37person helps to educate the customer
03:40about the product and let and for me
03:43letting the customer come to their own
03:46conclusion about whether this is needed
03:47or not was sort of the way that I
03:49rationalized moving into sales and I
03:52yeah I'm one of the few people I moved
03:54from engineering into being a bad caring
03:58salesperson and I flew around the world
04:00and I rationalized my life as being a
04:03teacher of our product as opposed to a
04:05seller of our product and that worked
04:07really well for me and I did learn
04:10through that process and like seeing
04:12both sides that there was a way to build
04:15out a sales organization that added
04:17value to the organization people didn't
04:20think I was you know trying to extract
04:22the last dollar out of them or sell them
04:25something that they didn't
04:26need but really provide the answers and
04:30getting close to customers bright
04:31answers to the customer about our
04:34product and provide a conduit back to
04:36our engineering group on the kinds of
04:38things that customers were looking for
04:41and that became part of how I always
04:44thought about sales and as I went on to
04:47build sales organization and run
04:48companies that's always how I thought
04:50about kind of the sales organization so
04:54fast forward to today I sit on many
04:57boards and most of our companies and
05:00companies that I'm involved with are all
05:01run by incredibly talented technical
05:06founders or cofounders and there is
05:09absolutely a reluctance to build out a
05:13go to market organization a sales
05:15organization for fear like Chris was
05:18saying that the culture you know is
05:20going to get messed up or in the in the
05:23really rare and interesting cases I
05:27would argue that the more successful a
05:29product is the better the product market
05:32fit is early on and the more success a
05:35company has with no sales organization
05:38in the beginning the more reluctant that
05:40company is to bring on sales along the
05:43way and so github was a classic example
05:46of this like the github product is
05:49awesome and people used it and it you
05:53know took off like wildfire without any
05:55sales organization and so if a product
05:58does so well without any sales the
06:00natural tendency is to just say well
06:03like the thing is selling is is flying
06:07people are using it we don't have a
06:09sales organization why would we ruin any
06:11or anything by bringing on a sales
06:13organization will just go hire more
06:15engineers and that's a very sort of
06:18natural understandable tendency by the
06:23the great tech companies that are out
06:24there and and I want to get back to this
06:27a little bit later but but that can only
06:29in most cases take your tech company so
06:31far so Chris when you guys were kind of
06:34zooming along with that product market
06:35fit what did you customers say to you to
06:40this reluctance about sales so we
06:44initially built github just for
06:46ourselves and people who are like us and
06:48so that's what we found a lot of the
06:49product market fit was that the product
06:51sort of marketed itself it had this
06:53viral component if you will it's like a
06:55social network we call it social coding
06:57and as that grew we started to get fans
07:02and customers inside big companies so we
07:04started with small companies github was
07:06small we started with little startups
07:07and then we started meeting people at
07:08some of these larger tech companies that
07:10you would have heard about and honestly
07:12government's which was surprising to me
07:14small government's education finance
07:17companies and we would meet these
07:19developers they would say I love github
07:21I use it for open source all the time I
07:22want to use it at work
07:23help me like help me sell this inside my
07:26company to my boss what do I say to my
07:28CIO to convince him to let us roll out
07:31github internally because this is what I
07:32want to do and so there was a gap
07:33between that desire and kind of what was
07:36available to them just going online sure
07:39cuz github is marketed entirely to
07:40developers it was the hole in any sense
07:43of marketing we had was for the people
07:45who would be directly using it and now
07:47we ran into this problem where the
07:48people who directly wanted to use it
07:49were not in the authority they weren't
07:51the people that could sign the check or
07:53hit the accept button right now there's
07:55this different type of person and what
07:57do we say to them like they also want
07:59what we want right they want their
08:00developers to be happy they want to be
08:01efficient they want everybody using
08:03tools that they really enjoy and they
08:04want to build great stuff but you know
08:06when you look at github especially a
08:07couple years ago and you're not a
08:08developer you just like what is this
08:10right well it doesn't we didn't really
08:12even try to explain it or talk about the
08:14value proposition or any of those things
08:15right I think it's really interesting
08:17Chris's point on the developer who is
08:23using github wanted to be able to so
08:26want to be able to sell it internally
08:28and they need help to sell the concept
08:31of github and sell the value of github
08:33to their management and so it's almost
08:35like we're building a sales organization
08:37or github sales organization enables the
08:40developer to actually promote the
08:43product internally through the voice of
08:46you know their own their own within
08:49their own organization I mean so Peter
08:51during this period I guess it was
08:53as github is grappling with building a
08:55sales organization how did you sort of
08:56advocate for and how did you describe
08:58the benefit as it was it similar to what
09:00you had just described about I'm a
09:03teacher I'm not extracting the last
09:04dollar you know first of all I think
09:06there's a I think there's a
09:10generally and Kris pointed out on what a
09:14sales organization is first of all to
09:16most folks when you say the word sales
09:18to most tech folks who say the word
09:20sales like you know the the radar goes
09:23off and like oh no we're you know it's
09:25gonna be this idiot person who you know
09:28wears a big watch who drives a fancy car
09:30and bothers customers and I think that
09:34resetting that expectation to understand
09:37first of all there's a lot of different
09:39sales models that can come into play in
09:42technology from inside sales I mean
09:45there's a lot of sales organizations
09:46where the where the customer never meets
09:49a human that you know it might be inside
09:52sales it might go through another
09:53channel there's also of course outside
09:56sales so there's a lot of different ways
09:57to get in front of the customer and a
10:00lot of different models to go and do
10:01that so you know we we always at our
10:04board meetings early on we'd have the
10:06discussion on you know how to think
10:09about sort of increasing revenue I do
10:11believe that revenue is a good thing and
10:14companies do feel that revenue is a very
10:18important ingredient to success yeah and
10:20what a sales organization does is it
10:22actually allows you to increase the
10:25dollar per customer because you're
10:28actually selling value into that
10:30customer and so over time as the github
10:34customer base started to ask how do we
10:36sell this internally and some of the
10:39conversations that we had around the
10:40table you know we we kind of moved
10:43through the process and and you know it
10:45took some time but github did build out
10:48a very successful sales organization so
10:51let's talk about that Chris when you
10:54guys started to build out you know this
10:56gang here started to build out the sales
10:57organization what were you very sort of
11:01cognizant of or sensitive to and and how
11:04did you do it and then I want to get to
11:07sure I think Peter definitely helped a
11:09lot in guiding our thinking of what we
11:12should be looking for so I think there's
11:14like some vocabulary that works against
11:16us as sales is selling right but when
11:18you're talking about training people or
11:20being a teacher if that's not exactly
11:22what you think of when you think of
11:23selling I think the thing that I realize
11:24is sales is heavily about relationships
11:27it's about having a human connection to
11:29someone especially if it's this big
11:30customer that's gonna be with you for
11:32years and you're rolling out this
11:33product to ten thousand of their
11:35developers like that they have a lot
11:37riding on this too right this is a
11:38mutually beneficial relationship so for
11:41us building up the sales team was was
11:43about that it's like we want to find
11:44people that value and can create
11:45relationships with our customers we want
11:47people that understand how important
11:49especially the get of community is and
11:50why it's important and special and that
11:52goes to a lot of the product market fit
11:54a lot of we build things for people that
11:56use them and so when you're talking to
11:58say let's say a cio who's not using the
12:00product like how do we retain the things
12:01that we love about github how do we
12:03share with them the things that we think
12:05is special about github and their
12:06developers think is special about github
12:07in a way that's not selling and pitching
12:10and doing all those things but maybe
12:11educating building a relationship and
12:13showing them like we think this is
12:15really great some of your developers
12:16think it's really great here's how we
12:17can work together so for us it was a lot
12:20of like let's interview a bunch of
12:22people and let's see what our
12:23relationship is like with them what is
12:24their experience what kind of products
12:26have they worked on before do they know
12:27about open source do they get
12:29communities like what are they thinking
12:31about when they're thinking about
12:31raising revenue how are they thinking
12:33about doing it is it at all cost and
12:35screw the user or is it like we can make
12:37a lot of money and get a lot of
12:39developers using github in a really
12:40really great way so that was really sort
12:43of a journey that we all went on from
12:45shark with a watch to someone that cares
12:49and wants to help us grow for the record
12:52Chris is not wearing a watch and Peter
12:55is wearing a watch but it's an Ironman
12:56watch that looks like it's been through
12:58a few Iron Man's not a Rolex it's my
13:01thirty dollar watch so this fear of a
13:05sales organization ruining the culture
13:07around here it was there anything to
13:10that and is there anything that you need
13:12to still still sort of keep very mindful
13:15of to make sure that github is the
13:17github that you you know you guys always
13:18wanted to build yeah absolutely and
13:21it's still in progress and we've just
13:23started growing on our sales team this
13:24year so I definitely can't say we've
13:26we've nailed it or we're done yet we're
13:28still very cognizant of all these things
13:30um you know the biggest thing we've done
13:32with our sales team is the hiring
13:35process and the onboarding process we
13:36have a very good onboarding process now
13:38we bring in all sorts of github herbs
13:40from all over the company they do short
13:42talks they do QA they do all sorts of
13:44things in the first couple weeks to
13:46share with the new people like what it
13:48is about github that we think is special
13:50or we care about and we're very remote
13:52so asynchronous communication is
13:54important to us we use lots of emoji we
13:56use chat very heavily so a lot of it is
13:59you know here's the tools we use and
14:00here's how we communicate but then
14:02there's also this aspect of you know
14:04here's our customers here's their
14:05reaction to things that we ship here's
14:07the super fans who have github stickers
14:09all over their laptops and trying to get
14:10them to understand like I said what it
14:13is that makes us special so I think that
14:15the fear of salespeople coming in a
14:17ruining culture is about while what
14:19we've been talking about is they're
14:20gonna come in and they're going to make
14:23us look bad and they're gonna force us
14:24to have conversations we don't want to
14:25have and that's what you don't want
14:26right it's like when we want to be
14:28discussing or arguing or debating we
14:30want it to be about something that we
14:31both ultimately are like trying to get
14:33to together and not having these
14:35fundamental philosophical disagreements
14:37that we're just constantly grinding
14:38everything to a halt so how do you get
14:40people that want the same thing as you
14:41maybe have a different perspective on it
14:42and at the same time you trust to go out
14:45and talk to a customer and feel good
14:46about that person saying hey I'm from
14:48github nice to meet you
14:49so that's it's definitely hard but I
14:51again I think it's about hiring and
14:53onboarding it's like we were looking for
14:54people that share some of the same ideas
14:55and beliefs that we share and then when
14:57they're in here we're trying to talk to
14:58them about what those are
14:59then Peter given your sales experience
15:02but also your engineering experience how
15:04have you found that those two cultures
15:06sort of best get along or what are the
15:09sort of friction points to look out for
15:11the place where I find most of the
15:14friction is when organizations
15:16specifically engineering and sales have
15:19an us-versus-them mentality and I think
15:23that this is where leadership comes in
15:24and github has done best you know from
15:28from the early days here just a
15:30phenomenally great job in making it a
15:35one team one objective one customer
15:38right and if you take that attitude and
15:41you lead with that attitude it's not us
15:43versus them internally it's us as a team
15:46and the kinds of things of integrating
15:49like having engineers talk with the
15:52salespeople and sales folks talk with
15:54the engineers to integrate the
15:57communications it's simply as Chris
15:58pointed out it's a relationship and to
16:01the extent that the BRIT you know once
16:03people start talking together the the
16:07engineers will realize that's that the
16:09salespeople are not you know don't have
16:11three heads and the sales folks will
16:14realize that the engineers don't have
16:15five heads you know whatever so to me
16:18it's about it's about the common
16:21objective of building a great business
16:22and building a great company and having
16:25the leadership to go and do that with
16:28integration and all of that now from
16:30from the culture side look every time
16:33you bring on a new person and you add a
16:35new function whether it's marketing or
16:37HR or CFO or a sales group the culture
16:42does change but it's not to say my
16:45opinion on that that's not such a bad
16:48thing I mean when you have two people in
16:50a company and ten people and a hundred
16:53people and then 200 people the culture
16:55does change because you're adding new
16:57people and new experiences into the pot
17:00right and so I think that things will
17:03change as the company grows but it's not
17:05such a bad thing as long as it's one
17:07objective and everyone coming together
17:09and I think it goes off the rails when
17:12leadership doesn't pay enough attention
17:15to integrating the functions together
17:18and getting everyone working together
17:19and just sort of takes a hands-off
17:21attitude to say oh I'll let them go do
17:23whatever they're gonna do the other guys
17:25do whatever they're gonna do and that's
17:26when you get finger-pointing and a lot
17:28of you know sort of arguments internally
17:30and you're a tools company to so we
17:32place a lot of value in tools right get
17:34them as a developer tool at some level
17:36so actually so Peter's point there's
17:38that we have a github repository
17:39internally called github sales and the
17:42sales people do talk a lot in issues
17:43there but it's the same exact place
17:45where engineers are talking it's the
17:46same exact place where really everyone
17:48in the company is talk
17:48so right we have engineers designers
17:50write in a sales issue talking to the
17:53salespeople directly using github right
17:55so in that way if very much feels like I
17:57don't have to jump to another tool to
17:59engage with this part of the company or
18:00this part of the company when we use a
18:02bunch of tools right but like
18:03fundamentally all of us are on chat all
18:05of us are using email all of us are
18:06using github to build it that's been
18:08huge for us and then we also have
18:09something we've been doing recently an
18:11internal engineering blog and an
18:13internal sales blog and so the way you
18:15get a sales update is the same way that
18:17the engineering is giving their update
18:18to the whole company and little things
18:20like that are actually I think a really
18:21big deal toward making it feel like we
18:23are one team we do have a lot of common
18:25fundamental goals and grounds even
18:27though what I'm doing is I'm going
18:29on-site and talking to a customer and
18:31you're at the office writing code we're
18:32still on the same team have you seen and
18:34can you describe for us a situation
18:36where sort of in that internal tool
18:39situation a problem was sorted out with
18:42with sales and engineer and kind of
18:44pitching in together to make it work
18:45sure I mean what we're focusing on right
18:48now is one of the things we're focusing
18:50on it as we're growing how do we get
18:51better at feedback you know when you're
18:53small it's easy you go out to a meet-up
18:55there's three of you all three of you go
18:57you talk to a customer BAM you just got
18:59feedback right but as the company gets a
19:00lot bigger there's way more feedback
19:02coming in there's way more customers we
19:03have support there's Twitter there's
19:05sales so what actually today there's a
19:08thread where the products group some
19:09people in the product group some of the
19:11designers some of the engineers are
19:12talking to sales in a get a repository
19:14about this is all this customer feedback
19:16what are we gonna do with it like how do
19:18we what's the best way for sales to get
19:20this customer feedback to product and
19:22engineering in a way where we can make a
19:23decision on how to change the product or
19:25okay like things will put that into
19:26consideration or let's go build this or
19:28whatever how are we gonna do that
19:29especially given the sales team it's
19:31growing so yeah I mean that's the
19:32discussion happening right now on github
19:34between those two groups
19:35and that's a discussion where there's a
19:37lot of different philosophies but like
19:39that in some ways that's good right
19:40because we are on the same team and
19:41you're gonna come with a different
19:42perspective especially when you're new
19:43you're gonna say this is all I did at my
19:45old company someone is just going to say
19:46that's not how we do things here that's
19:48not how we've done it here traditionally
19:49or here's how we think about product
19:50design with that in mind how do we how
19:52can we take this philosophy how can we
19:53take this feedback and run with it so I
19:55mean step that's something we're working
19:56through right now but I think it's a
19:57definitely good example given the
19:59journey that you've been on Chris here
20:01and Peter you too but do you no longer
20:05think that that companies can do without
20:07sales organizations is it a question of
20:09when not if or are there organizations
20:12out there that really don't need sales
20:14or companies out there that don't need a
20:16sales organization I mean for us if we
20:19hadn't have heard customers saying help
20:21us if we hadn't have heard I need help
20:23talking my boss that sort of thing I
20:25don't know if we would have gone down
20:28sales as quickly as we went down it
20:29which was after six years I'm not sure I
20:33mean it depends for a while I think not
20:35having a sales team is the right
20:36decision for github and now I believe
20:37that having a sales team is the right
20:39decision so I couple years ago I would
20:41have said github is a company that
20:42doesn't need sales and we did say that
20:43now I don't think that's true
20:45so I think that's it's all gonna depend
20:47on the company on your market on what
20:48your goals are what you're trying to
20:50reach like initially we were very
20:51focused on startups and the open source
20:53community now we're more focused on just
20:55every developer in the entire world and
20:57we're did a lot of these developers
20:58spend their time it's at their job at a
21:01huge Enterprise right and so how do we
21:02get there how do we help make their
21:04lives better how do we spread the github
21:05communities all over the world and we've
21:07come to the conclusion that we need to
21:08sale seemed to help us do that sales
21:10isn't the only way we're doing that it's
21:11also something to keep in mind it's not
21:13like a dichotomy now we've moved from
21:15focusing on the product to focusing on
21:17sales we're doing all of it we're still
21:18cared very deeply about support our
21:20customer support experience we care very
21:22deeply about building our product for
21:23people using it doing user testing and
21:25getting feedback but we also care about
21:27having these conversations with these
21:28people that are managers or even
21:30developers in companies and building
21:31relationships there so for us it's like
21:33as we become more ambitious and grow and
21:36want to help spread github to more of
21:38the world we need to add different
21:39capabilities and different ways of
21:41communicating with the people using it
21:42up Peter how do you answer that question
21:44whether is it a when not an if question
21:47for sales or are there some companies
21:50I would I would echo what Chris just
21:53said that depending on who your customer
21:56is and the organization that you're
21:58going after look if you're an enterprise
22:00software company chances are at some
22:03point you're going to need a sales
22:04organization because you're selling to
22:06large organizations who quite honestly
22:08expect somebody to talk to like that's
22:11their expectation and it's not right
22:15or wrong it just is and if you want to
22:19go and become a highly successful
22:22company which is great product and great
22:25you know customer traction it will be
22:28expected on behalf of those customers
22:30for you to have some sort of customer
22:32facing organization that they can that
22:34they can talk with so you know but
22:38there's there's certainly many examples
22:40of companies that you know go after with
22:44smaller organizations or you know in the
22:46consumer space where there is not a need
22:48for a sales organization the product
22:50truly does sell itself but that's a very
22:53different go to market model than
22:55selling to enterprises overall Chris
22:59thank you so much and Peter thank you as
23:01well we go out build your sales team and
23:04if you need some more help Peter has
23:06lots to offer and Chris you do too
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