Natasha Ratanshi-Stein shared her hard-won lessons on founder-led sales, real PMF signals, stage-fit hiring and scaling ACV.
Natasha Ratanshi-Stein has seen startups from almost every angle, as a VC, Operator, and Founder. After scaling customer service operations at Bulb, she saw firsthand how broken legacy workforce management tooling really was.
That pain became Surfboard, and in today’s Making The Grade episode, Natasha is refreshingly honest about what founders underestimate in the £1 to £10M ARR journey, and her own journey from inception to an acquisition by Dialpad, which was all sparked by an SDR’s mis-targeted outbound message.
📚 Episode Chapters:
02:00 - Building Surfboard from idea to acquisition
14:40 - Lessons from selling before a finished product
30:15 - Transitioning out of being a Founder
38:00 - Hiring the right Sales Leaders for growth
44:15 - Navigating funding challenges
🎧 Continue listening…
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