How to Hire a Head of Growth for Your SaaS Company
Growth decides whether a good SaaS product becomes a great business.
At first, the founder drives it. But at some point, you want someone who’s done it before to take it over. That’s when founders come to us for a head of growth.
It’s a tough hire. Working as head of growth at a solid SaaS is one of the most attractive jobs in marketing. So there will be plenty of people who want the role.
But you’re competing for the same talent pool as some of the best-funded companies in the world, including the biggest AI companies.
This guide covers what we’ve learned hunting them for SaaS companies in the eCommerce space. If you’re in a different space, there may be nuances we won’t cover, but overall the advice should hold up.
In short, hire a senior head of growth from about $10M a year in revenue, poach from SaaS companies that grew with your playbook, and be realistic about what your budget buys.
At a glance
| When to hire | A senior head of growth: from about $10M a year in revenue |
| US base salary | Growth lead: $150-200k. VP of marketing or CMO: $200-300k+ |
| Europe base salary | Growth lead: $70-120k. VP of marketing or CMO: $120-200k |
| Bonus | Tied to net new MRR as a good default |
| Equity | On top of the base and bonus |
| Where to find them | SaaS companies with your playbook, niche, growth model, and customer size |
| Response rate to expect | About 30% in the US; ~50% in Europe. Often higher for SaaS |
| Time to find the hire | 3 weeks or less (our target) |
| Best test | A paid audit and a 90-day plan for each channel, presented to the founder |
What does a SaaS head of growth do?
Everything a consumer head of growth does, and more.
Day-to-day, they:
- Drive traffic and convert it
- Work on retention
- Work with the sales team
- Work with customer success, and often with the product team on which features are needed
So the scope is even broader than at a consumer brand.
Some heads of growth focus on new customers and leads, and only work alongside the other teams.
Others work across the entire company. If that’s what you want, ask yourself: if this person is doing everything, what is the CEO doing?
Don’t make the classic mistake of a scope that’s too wide. Define what you really want them to do.
The titles work the same way as at a consumer brand. A growth lead is the most junior: more hands-on, reporting to a founder or an executive. A CMO is the most senior: less hands-on, more managerial, with more autonomy. A head of growth or VP of marketing sits in between.
When should you hire a head of growth?
As a rule of thumb, hire a senior head of growth at about $10M a year in revenue.
By then, you have enough traction and proof of concept. An experienced person sees a reasonably low-risk bet. They can stake their career on growing your company.
You can hire earlier. But that person will likely be more junior, reporting to you at the growth lead level.
Before $10M, growth is more of a founder job. A senior hire either doesn’t know what they’re signing up for, or you won’t get what you need from them.
How much does a SaaS head of growth cost?
| Role | US | Europe |
|---|---|---|
| Growth Lead | $150-200k base | $70-120k base |
| VP of Marketing or CMO | $200-300k+ base | $120-200k base |
In really competitive locations or industries, such as AI, a VP of marketing or CMO can go above $300k.
Net new MRR is a really good metric to tie the bonus to, especially for profitable, self-funded companies. Your growth strategy might call for something else. But it’s a good basic assumption.
Equity comes on top of the base and bonus.
Where to hire: US or Europe?
It matters where your team is. Where your customers are matters too, but a bit less than for consumer brands.
SaaS is more competitive for talent, so don’t rule out Europe. But if you want the strongest talent pool, the US takes the cake.
Step 1: Find SaaS companies to poach from
Look at other SaaS companies, bigger or at your own scale, and see how they’ve grown.
If their playbook is similar to yours, with the same channels and the same approaches, there’s a good chance their people’s experience will transfer easily.
Match on:
- Niche. If you sell to eCommerce brands, it helps if they’ve worked in eCommerce too.
- Growth model. It matters a lot whether the company is product-led or sales-led.
- Customer size. Selling to prosumers and small businesses is quite different from selling to the enterprise.
They don’t need to hit every box. But the more they hit, the easier the transfer.
What about hiring from a consumer brand? It’s possible. Some marketers are great at quickly understanding a new business and its metrics, and we’ve placed one like that.
But as a rule of thumb, expect your hire to come from SaaS. They’ve gathered years of knowledge there, and you’d rather get that knowledge than pay for them to learn it.
To build the list, use LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Apollo. They make it easy to find SaaS companies, see who they target, and gauge their size.
For one client, we looked for someone from a SaaS company of up to 50 people, adjacent to AI agents and to eCommerce. We found those companies quickly in Sales Navigator. Then we did deeper research to see whose marketing matched our client’s.
Step 2: Pitch the role
SaaS growth leaders get a lot of offers. They’re more likely to reply when you have:
- Real growth, especially while self-funded. Many people are fed up with the early-2020s culture of burning money, growing at all costs, and then laying off half the team.
- A genuine product that solves a real need. When customers have voted with their dollars, it’s probably the most attractive thing you can show.
- A clear plan. “Here’s how we’ll grow, and we need someone to execute it” is much more attractive than “We need to grow, but we don’t know how. You tell us.”
Our sample SaaS head of growth job description shows how we write these.
Step 3: Reach out in rounds
Reach out in rounds of 30-40 people and learn from each one.
Response rate shows how many people reply. Interview rate is the number to watch. It shows how many of the people you approached got on a call.
Our default is about 30% replying in the US and 50% in Europe. SaaS searches tend to run higher, because the role is so attractive.
Here’s our last SaaS head of growth search, for a self-funded marketing SaaS with 8 figures in revenue. We searched mostly outside the US, because the client was mindful of the budget.
- 37 people approached
- 21 replied, a 57% response rate
- 13 interviewed, a 35% interview rate
- 5 met the founder
- 1 hire
It was a bit atypical. The founder’s top pick was Alex Hormozi’s former marketing director at Acquisition.com, who was already on our bench. So the founder had his pick within about two weeks.
If a round comes in well under these numbers, fix the candidate list or the message before you send more.
Step 4: Check the track record on the first call
The first test is the numbers. A strong candidate is switched on about metrics.
Ask them to explain:
- The MRR they grew, and how it came from their own work, not something else
- CAC and payback
- Trial-to-paid conversion
- Churn
- Pipeline
Then go through the channels. Most companies in this space use a fairly set playbook:
- Affiliates and influencers
- Their own organic social
- Paid ads, usually Meta, to capitalize on the demand that creates
Ask what they’ve done in each channel and how well they understand it.
Finally, ask whether their company was funded or not, and how they approached growth. The more nuance they share about balancing aggressive growth with a budget, the surer you can be they’ll do the same for you.
If they made puzzling decisions that sound expensive and didn’t drive a clear return, pass on that person.
Step 5: Be realistic about what your budget buys
With this hire, you get what you pay for.
You won’t get an experienced head of growth who can compete in the very competitive world of SaaS for $100k/year. Not even if you hire internationally.
If your budget is lower, hire a growth lead. Or hire someone who knows one channel really well, like affiliate marketing. Know the limits of their experience, and be realistic about what you can expect if your budget is lower.
Either way, make sure the scope makes sense for the salary level.
Step 6: Test them on real work
Ask the finalists for two things:
- An audit of what’s happening in your growth right now
- A plan for the first 90 days, for each channel that matters to you
They should present it on a call with the founder.
Share extra data if they need it. If you want them to sign an NDA first, that’s totally fine.
To set a fair hourly rate, divide their expected yearly salary by 2,000. So a growth lead expecting $160k gets $80 an hour. Agree on the scope up front, and set a cap.
After the hire
As always, in the first 90 days they execute on the plan they created themselves.
Why hire your SaaS head of growth with Recruiter Mill
We don’t post a job ad and wait. We headhunt.
We start with the SaaS companies that grew with your playbook, in your niche, and with your kind of customers. Then we go after the people who drove that growth.
- Hormozi’s marketing director for a marketing SaaS
- 93% 12-month success rate
- 1,000+ searches for 100+ 8- and 9-figure clients
We’re also honest about budgets. We won’t take a SaaS search if the budget doesn’t match who you want to find.
If your company has something special, we’d love to help.
Not ready for a call? We’ll source 10 SaaS growth leaders for your company, free.
FAQ
What are SaaS founders most worried about with this hire?
Many are still scarred by the early 2020s. Demand for growth talent was huge, and there weren’t many hard-nosed, skilled operators. So salaries inflated fast. Many people got used to spending big budgets and hoping for a return that mostly didn’t come.
So founders are looking for someone who knows how to operate in a bootstrapped setting.
Do I need a head of growth or a CEO?
If you give your head of growth a CEO’s job description without a CEO’s autonomy, pay, and title, you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you want someone to run the whole company, you need a CEO or general manager.