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:   / amanda-kleha-015599  
• Asana: https://asana.com/
• Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/
• Claire Butler:   / clairetbutler  
• Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/
• Dylan Field:   / dylanfield  
• FigJam: https://www.figma.com/figjam/
• Figma: https://www.figma.com/
• Kevin Egan:   / kevin-egan-59719  
• Oliver Jay:   / oliverjayleadership  
• Praveer Melwani:   / praveer-melwani  
• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
• Slack: https://www.slack.com/
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Where to find Kyle Parrish:
• LinkedIn:   / kparrish8  
• Twitter/X:   / kylehparrish  
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Where to find Brett Berson:
• LinkedIn:   / brett-berson-9986094  
• Twitter/X:   / brettberson  
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Where to find First Round Capital:
• Website: https://firstround.com/
• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
• Twitter:   / firstround  
• YouTube:    / @firstroundcapital  
• This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
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Timestamps:
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:02:10] What founders need to figure out before hiring salespeople
[00:03:48] Who to hire as your first salesperson
[00:05:34] Transitioning away from founder-led sales
[00:07:07] Tactics for hiring great salespeople
[00:12:50] The ideal experience sales candidates should have
[00:13:49] Common traits of successful salespeople
[00:18:45] What it was like being Figma’s first sales hire
[00:19:59] Interesting tactic to integrate the first sales hire
[00:21:16] How Figma executed its early sales motion
[00:32:27] Why Figma changed its customer narrative
[00:34:03] Building outbound sales strategy at Figma
[00:36:17] Segmented pricing and no discounts
[00:41:55] Kyle’s transition from Dropbox to Figma
[00:47:25] Creating a world-class sales culture
[00:51:46] How Figma does sales differently
[00:54:02] Building the initial sales team around a passion for the product
[00:57:12] Figma’s unique hiring process for salespeople
[01:00:40] Advice for founders hiring their first salesperson
[01:03:18] The secret to Dylan Field’s success
[01:04:33] How to scale yourself as an early hire
[01:06:25] Oliver Jay’s impact on Kyle