# Scaling Startup Revenue From Seed to Exit

> A NachoTuesday interview — the C-Suite Insights series from NachoNacho, the B2B SaaS and AI
> marketplace. In conversation with Laura Zwahlen, CRO, Coderpad.

- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday/video/Scaling-Startup-Revenue-From-Seed-to-Exit
- **Guest:** Laura Zwahlen, CRO, Coderpad
- **Guest on LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-zwahlen-2613514/
- **Recorded:** 2023-11-17
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHLtjFPKXmM

## Summary

In this NachoTuesday Andy Karuza interviews Banu Akgul, CRO of Coderpad. In this interview, they covered how to establish early product-market fit and develop your business model, acquire your first customers, and then scale your operations, and finally, how to manage your growth through various stages of your company, from the seed stage all the way up to a proper exit.

## Product discussed

- **Name:** CoderPad
- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/product/coderpad
- **What it is:** We are the technical hiring platform that empowers teams to quickly and fairly assess a candidate’s technical skills.
- **NachoNacho deal:** 15% CASHBACK Annual Team Plan. 1st Year.
- **Estimated savings:** Save up to $1,800/year

## Full transcript

Introduction and Company Overview Welcome everybody to another NachoTuesday! Today, I have Laura Zwhalen, the Chief Revenue Officer at CoderPad. I’d like to hear from her about what her company does and introduce her product to the audience. Laura begins, "Thanks for having me. CoderPad is a great company, and I joined because of what we do and the mission behind the company. We help companies bring technical talent on board in a very efficient and unbiased way. Our philosophy is to let the skills speak for themselves. Often, companies have to rely on fancy resumes or other factors that don’t necessarily show if someone can actually do the job. A resume is just a promise, but CoderPad assessments provide proof that they can actually perform the job." Vetting Process and Tools "So, how do you help with the vetting process?" I ask. Laura responds, "I agree that many people have LinkedIn profiles or resumes, but you don’t really know how they will perform in a real role. Properly vetting people is crucial. We use two main methods for this. First, we have a screening product that is used at the top of the interview funnel. For large companies like Dell, Apple, or Facebook, where you might receive thousands of resumes, it’s challenging for HR teams to sort through them effectively. Our screening tool helps narrow down that massive pile by assessing actual skills through a gamified platform where candidates demonstrate their coding abilities." Laura continues, "The second part of the process occurs further down the funnel. This is often used by technical leadership. After passing a job rec through the screening stage, you might have 15 candidates. How do you further screen these to select one or two? Our interactive tool allows prospective employees to code with someone on the other end. This collaborative environment mimics real-life teamwork, showing how candidates achieve results and demonstrating their abilities directly." Impact and Benefits Laura explains, "This approach eliminates the ability to game the system—either a candidate can code, or they cannot. It provides a real-world application of their skills. It would be great to have a similar assessment tool for sales talent, as hiring effective sellers can be challenging. Seeing a candidate’s abilities firsthand is powerful; it saves time and money and prevents costly hiring mistakes." Personal Journey and Motivation I ask Laura about her journey to CoderPad. She shares, "I was previously at a company called Pantheon Platform. I joined them when they were around $35 million in annual revenue and saw significant growth during my time there. I met Amanda, our CEO, just before leaving Pantheon. I was considering another job offer, but meeting Amanda was a game changer. She impressed me with her humility, which is rare in a CEO. She was looking for a business partner to complement her expertise and help grow the business." Laura continues, "As a female leader, I’ve experienced and witnessed biases—both intentional and unintentional—in hiring. Even with ongoing training on inclusion, I’ve encountered situations where my own biases influenced decisions. When I saw how CoderPad’s mission aligns with my values, it became compelling. Selling a product that resonates deeply with you is incredibly rewarding." Personal Connection and Family Experience Laura adds, "My connection to CoderPad is also personal. My husband and I have four children, and our oldest is exceptionally gifted technically. We noticed his talent when he was in first grade, and he even managed to hack into the school system's website, changing the background colors to rocket ships and lightning bolts. Although it was not the best way to channel his abilities, it highlighted his exceptional skills. Over the years, his technical talents have only grown. He was eventually diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. In a traditional interview setting, individuals like him might not perform well, but their skills can be extraordinary. Seeing these talents in action is inspiring and reinforces the importance of tools like CoderPad to truly assess and appreciate technical abilities." Understanding Strengths and Weaknesses A few years ago, I learned that my child was on the autism spectrum. I realized that in a traditional interview setting, individuals on the autism spectrum might not always perform well, even though their skills are extraordinary. For instance, put them head-to-head with any developer, and they might outshine everyone. Their abilities could not only transform an organization but potentially change the world. When you frame it this way, it becomes compelling. I've shared this story with many prospects, including women and mothers, and it resonates deeply with them. As a mother and human, it’s incredibly fulfilling to sell something I truly believe in. Turning Weaknesses into Strengths I also believe that people should view their weaknesses as potential strengths. Personally, I have ADHD, which comes with both upsides and downsides. Despite the challenges, there are significant benefits, such as creative thinking. Everyone has unique talents; for instance, while someone with autism might not excel in front-line sales, they could build an impressive website or have other technical talents. Identifying and nurturing these strengths is crucial. Diversity is not just about varying backgrounds but also about diversity in thought and approach. This kind of diversity is incredibly valuable and helps avoid groupthink, which can be detrimental, especially in startups where it’s important to embrace breaking things and making mistakes. Go-to-Market Strategies for Startups For startups in the seed stage seeking early product-market fit, navigating from organic to proactive growth can be challenging. Initially, organic growth is driven by founder connections and hustle. However, there comes a point where these methods alone are insufficient for scaling. This transition is described in the book Predictable Revenue. At this stage, startups need to explore new strategies beyond what initially worked. Strategies and Execution At CoderPad, for example, our initial growth was fueled by a product-led approach. We relied on a self-service funnel where customers engaged with a free trial and then became paying customers. Account Executives (AEs) would then expand these small customers. However, to scale further, it's crucial to add additional growth engines. Think of it like a boat or airplane; you need multiple engines to go far. Testing and Adapting Strategies One common mistake is over-relying on one strategy. At CoderPad, we initially believed outbound strategies, like cold calling, wouldn’t work. However, upon deeper investigation, we found that our tests were not rigorous enough. Effective testing requires thoughtful, iterative efforts over months, not just weeks. It’s essential to have various growth channels, such as outbound sales motions, lead generation from marketing, and partnership channels. Developing a Holistic Approach A holistic approach involves ensuring that your sales team has the necessary support and leads. This includes developing outbound sales motions and maintaining a balance between hiring AEs and generating leads from other channels. For instance, CoderPad is experimenting with SDRs (Sales Development Representatives), which was previously considered ineffective. The results show that SDRs can provide valuable support to our sellers by generating additional leads, demonstrating that even previously dismissed strategies can be effective when executed well. Determining the Best Channels Companies should carefully assess and test various channels to determine which work best for their specific needs. This involves a methodical approach, allowing sufficient time for each strategy to prove its effectiveness. By maintaining flexibility and adapting based on what works, startups can find the most effective paths for growth and success. (14:01) "That's why they continue to test and test and test to expand other channels from there. Yeah, so I think a big part of it is really taking a step back and asking yourself the very old question of who is our ICP? What is our messaging? Who is our ICP? Who are we actually speaking to? Because I think that really is going to help shape the strategy that you put into play. Because people, different personas, they buy differently. There are certain personas—like, take CoderPad personas, for example—two very different paths: one persona, and it's very important, one is Talent Acquisition and one is kind of more on the technical side of things." (14:31) "At Pantheon, I also sold into developers. Developers do not appreciate being cold-called—not that anybody appreciates it, especially not them. They don't respond to that type of outreach. So recognizing, like, 'Oh, okay, this is my persona,' and testing to see what that persona, what does that cohort actually respond to? What resonates with them? I think that is really the most important part. It is just figuring out, 'Okay, here is my ICP, break it down by persona,' and then testing to see what actually resonates because it's not necessarily the case that one approach is going to resonate. I mean, depending on the organization, like again, we have two different personas we're selling into. Some organizations have five. Right, at LiveRamp, we literally had dozens of personas we'd sell into, so we had to be very methodical with identifying early on what works with each group and then from there building the sequences, building the cadences around that to basically effectively reach out to that subset." (15:27) "I imagine, do you guys have like a developer Community Engagement Manager, somebody that kind of goes out to events and kind of builds relationships with these engineers at the startup events that they go to? Yeah, it's kind of interesting. So speaking of new to CoderPad, events are a new thing for CoderPad. So we actually, since I joined, I was pretty bullish on at least testing events because I've seen events actually for developers as well. I saw events at Pantheon work quite well. So events are very new. We just launched them this year. We don't necessarily have somebody like that as you describe in that specific role, but we definitely do have what I would describe as a community." (15:56) "So CoderPad, the entity, a couple years back, actually merged or acquired Code and Game. Code and Game is very similar to CoderPad in the sense of their growth story, their roots, and the problems they were trying to solve. They are very complementary products. We merged those together. There is a community on the Code and Game side where literally it's just bundles of developers that go to Code and Game, the community, to continually basically up-level their skills. So it's gamified. We don't actually monetize that base; that literally is just a safe community where developers go to up-level, and it literally has a cult following. So that's kind of the historical context behind Code and Game, but that is something that we want to preserve because that's a really important part of our history." (16:56) "That's a good point actually that you bring up there. So building a community kind of helps sustain the business. Community is so important for any business, really, but it's a very underutilized marketing channel, actually, in a lot of ways. A lot of people just think they can throw money at advertising and then that's the way they're going to scale. And once again, a lot of them are bad at A/B testing, so they end up just burning through cash. I guess, what are some marketing trends or channels that a lot of entrepreneurs don’t think about that they should when trying to build a marketing base for their company?" (17:19) "Yeah, I think honestly one of the most commonly disregarded ones, or oftentimes it doesn’t come up until way later in the game, is Partnerships. I think people tend to think about Partnerships in a pretty narrow fashion. The way that I think about Partnerships, and I’ve seen this play out in multiple organizations, is especially as you're working to effectively scale a sales team, which takes time—you don't go out and hire 50 reps; that's not the right way to do it. Be very, very methodical. Like, that's not going to solve your problems. But ultimately, I think, you know, kind of going down that path and just making sure that the way that you're approaching everything basically falls into line because think about Partnerships." (18:14) "Partnerships can be resellers; guess what? That's additional boots on the ground selling on your behalf. That's huge when you have a very lean sales team. So it could be resellers, it could be a platform partnership, it could be a marketplace. Right, Nacho Nacho? So there are a lot of different things where I think you’re basically just, again, going back to the engine analogy, turning on additional engines that can, especially in a very lean team—which, let's be honest, all startups basically are very lean teams—you don't have the budget to go out and blow up a sales team and make it enormous. So that basically gives you the ability to either bring leads inbound to supplement your efforts on kind of the account executive side, or it literally gives you other additional bodies, essentially in the field, that are selling on your behalf. So working those various channels, I think, is really, really important." (19:09) "It was interesting when I joined Pantheon; the channel was just getting set up. It really was a very new thing. By the time I exited, it was accounting for about 40% of our revenue. So it is material. At LiveRamp, our reseller ecosystem, there, that company scaled like nobody's business. We literally were growing over 100% year-over-year. It just, it absolutely exploded. A lot of it was partnerships. We laid the foundation early where we had a very lean sales team. I was actually the second executive of that company, so very, very lean, and it stayed very lean for a number of years. But we had a lot of 'salespeople' in the field by our resellers." (19:40) "Yeah, that's key. Partnerships are very underutilized by a lot of companies. A lot of people that do try them, they try to make it more of like a ‘I win, you lose’ kind of setup, and it doesn’t work that way. No, it’s got to be win-win, right? And, you know, we’ve really tried to build that with Nacho Nacho, like a win-win partnership, trying to promote all of our partners and all that for free, doing all these kinds of webinars. But we’re creating great content here. This content gets out there to the world, more people see it, more people hear about both of our brands. It’s a win-win for both of us." (20:05) "So, yeah, I think the more that you can set up a win-win partnership, the better. I think one of the biggest challenges I’ve seen in organizations around partnerships is that when you’re setting up these partnerships, sometimes you’re doing it very quickly, maybe too quickly. So, kind of the concept of slowing down to speed up. I think one of the things that for me is front of mind as I’m working with Gail—obviously, Gail is setting up partnerships on the CoderPad side for us—is really making sure that we are not creating a situation with these wonderful sales reps that we just hired. Many of them I’ve worked with in my career; they’re top-notch. We want to keep them." (20:55) "So basically not creating an environment where we are introducing channel conflict, where it’s like, 'Okay, either they go through a reseller or they go through an AE, but not both.' Yeah, I have lived through that nightmare. That was my world at LiveRamp, and it was really, really hard because oftentimes you looked at who did LiveRamp lose to? We actually lost to ourselves through a channel partner. You have to be very careful how you set up those partnerships. So the way that we’re approaching the setup, and I think this is really important for any organization that’s looking to scale if they have sales reps and they’re exploring a partner play, it really is to make sure that everything is going in the same direction." (21:20) "So, if a lead were to come in from a platform partner, an AE can still partner and be compensated. Otherwise, it just creates this constant tension, and in terms of morale, it just doesn’t work. So I think when you get all those pieces in harmony, it can be really effective." (21:47) Even change their pricing or business model, have you been through situations like that? Yeah, I kind of use that point, I refer to it as task saturation. It's oftentimes this point where, again, what worked to get you where you are today suddenly isn’t working right—we're not set up for scale. I kind of think of those foundational elements as like the plumbing in everything. If you don't have your foundation set up right, you're going to be in a world of hurt down the road when the plumbing starts to break apart or isn’t functioning. And so I think that's something that is really relevant for nearly every organization—just making sure that those operational efficiencies are in place. You have to start thinking about operations pretty early on in your journey as a startup. I've seen a lot of companies where the mistake they made was not that they didn’t value operations, I think they did, but they got so big without realizing, "Shoot, we don’t have the plumbing in place; we're burning too much cash each month." (22:40) Exactly, yeah. And so you kind of reach this world of task saturation where, like, a great example would be in many organizations I've seen CSMs, success folks who are supporting all of these customers, managing renewals, managing expansions—they get so bogged down in just the paperwork of trying to process renewals. Suddenly they're not a CSM; they're a renewals manager and they're literally just pushing paper all day long. It's because there wasn’t kind of the forethought to be like, "Okay, we actually need an automated process; we need rigor around this," because it's just going to bog you down. So you think about how we actually allow CSMs, allow our AEs to spend time doing what we know will be ROI positive and remove those very task saturation-heavy things that weigh everybody down. That’s when you actually start to see, you know, the magic number go up, you see healthy EBITDA, and you certainly see your sales efficiency and productivity go up by removing some of this low-hanging fruit activities that need to be done but could be automated. I think that's incredibly common in most organizations, and it all boils down to operations. (23:38) Yeah, and especially with software companies too. We've all heard the tales of companies with no profit going IPO and all that. Yeah, like, "Well, it's not profitable yet, but maybe if they take over the entire world, you know, buy this stock." Do you think the times are changing, I guess, for what the expectations are for companies in the later stage to maybe possibly do an IPO or an exit? Like, there’s a lot more emphasis, I feel, on profitability these days. What are your thoughts on that? I think it's changed dramatically. I mean, and we're certainly, you know, just being in the industry that literally works to help people hire people like in a slow tech economy. It's, you know, certainly I think it's kind of forced people to really think things through. I think just given what happened with Silicon Valley Bank, there have been a lot of different things that have happened over the last 12 to 18 months that I think are probably going to put more rigor and just, I think, due diligence around that. (25:03) Yeah, ultimately, like for us, we just want to be in growth mode. We're not expecting in a tough economy to grow 300% year-over-year. We know that eventually that tech economy will come back, and we're using this current time, where maybe hiring is a little bit slower, to actually go back and make sure the plumbing is set up correctly. Make sure that when the economy comes back, we're ready to rock and roll. I think that's been, honestly, a huge blessing because I think we are uniquely situated where we can do that. A lot of the spoils come down to decisions that were made previously by Amanda and the executive leadership team as it relates to how we actually grew. So, kind of using the slower economy to set the foundation up right so when it comes back, we're good to go. (25:55) Yeah, that's a great point. You make a lot of companies actually use opportunities like this in a downturn to kind of fix their plumbing, as you say, to really set themselves up for growth, whereas other companies might lag behind. So, you know, whenever there's a downturn or anything like that, it’s an opportunity—there's an upside opportunity for the companies that manage it the right way. So you guys are approaching it that way. (26:21) Nice. I guess what books could entrepreneurs read about scaling their sales? Or where did you learn all this great stuff from? Was it trial by fire or did you have any good books or, you know, mentors along the way? Yeah, there’s a lot of really good books out there and not just sales books. In fact, there are a lot of really bad sales books too—lots of repeat copy-paste that’s where AI wrote it. There are some pretty bad ones. I think, you know, my approach—and I’ve been asked this many times—a lot of people say like, "Hey, what was the moment you knew you wanted to be CRO?" That moment has yet to occur in my career. I never, it’s not like I emerged from the womb knowing that I wanted to do this. It happened organically. It wasn’t like, you know, graduating from college and it’s like, "Oh, I must do this." So, I think it was a much more kind of open journey. (26:48) I think there are a lot of books that through the years have really resonated with me, not just as a sales leader but, most importantly, really as a human. So even going back to, like, there was one that I read years ago and I have used it as kind of my guiding principle even in terms of how I run my teams. It’s actually written by a pastor; his name is Dr. Scott Warren. The name is basically escaping me right now, but it’s a book called Purpose Driven Life. It’s all about basically like, "Hey Laura, this world is not about you. It’s basically how do we, as leaders, become a servant leader and really it's about them; it's about my team." So I think that was just a very humbling book, especially coming off of a, at LiveRamp and at the company before that, I was an individual contributor that then moved into leadership. I think as an IC, if I’m being very honest with myself, because I was good at my job, I was also very arrogant. And I think that book was kind of like a splash of cold water in my face. Like, the reality is nobody is ever in a position where they’re not replaceable; it doesn’t matter how good they are. So I think that book was very humbling, which I think for any leader, you’ve got to first and foremost approach things with humility. We don’t—nobody walks on water, right? (28:13) So I love that book. I’ve reread it many, many times. Another one is The Transparency Sale. I think for me, I very much approach sales, I very much approach relationships as a transparent partnership. It’s not so often in sales that the seller—whether it’s an AE, SCP, sales, whoever it is—they don’t have equal business stature. So there’s this concept of chasing down, like we’re constantly chasing, which is why we have our reputation of being kind of annoying. It’s like, "Oh, a sales—" There are things that you can do in consultative sales where, out of the gates, you establish that equal business stature. "Yeah, I’m here to help." If I could help you, let me walk you through this thing. I’m here to consult you on your problem. So I think The Transparency Sale and then the last one would be Sandler Selling. I think it’s so effective. Sandler has put out a number of books; there’s one called You Can’t Learn to Ride a Bike at a Seminar. It’s great; it’s kind of got Sandler 101. But I think, like, if I think about one of the tools I’ve used in my career that I found tried and true to be effective, a lot of it is Sandler—upfront contracts, reverse questioning, asking questions that as sellers, they may make us a little bit uncomfortable to ask because we don’t want to know the answer. But by asking those questions, you’re also helping to identify risk in your deal. A great example would be if you’re my prospect, I’m on the phone, and you’re like, "Yeah, I think we can get that signed by the end of the month." Me, as a seller, asking you, "Yeah, hey Andy, is there anything you can think of that could possibly keep this deal from being signed by the end of the month?" The risk was already there; it’s just that we hadn’t spoken about it. A lot of people are afraid to have it brought up. You just got to get it out of the way. (30:02) Exactly, yeah. The risk is there regardless. By asking the question, now you have visibility into what are the steps we need to go through to actually get this deal signed. Also just like, "Oh, I didn’t realize you were going on vacation for two weeks." Things like that. So I think by asking sometimes questions that may be a little bit unconventional, sometimes that gets deals unstuck, which is a tough thing for a seller when deals are stuck. It’s like, how do I get this thing moving again? So I think Sandler Selling is a really important.

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