Chris Merritt, Chief Revenue Officer of Cloudflare joined Cloudflare nearly a decade ago when annual revenue was around $1M with one sales person — and has since been scaling the sales organization and helping grow Cloudflare into the multi-billion dollar business it is today. When building a sales team and business at scale, organizations go through various stages of growth with key milestones along the way—from 1-10 million in revenue, to 50-100 million, to 100 million, and onward. While no two businesses are the same, we’ll dive into a few areas that are most likely to change, with Chris sharing some findings along the way to help others effectively scale their organizations.

1. Lessons Learned in Scaling
Your Team & Revenue
from $1M ARR to $1B+
Chris Merritt
Chief Revenue Officer & President of Field Operations
Cloudflare

2. Sharing some of my lessons learned…
From: $1M ARR
To: $1B+ ARR

3. Internet security, performance, and reliability
We’re helping build a better Internet

4. Cloudflare’s network powers
millions of Internet properties and
20% of the web today

5. Some of Cloudflare’s customers

6. Early Days

8. Time
ARR
Phase 1
(<$50M)
Phase 2
($50M → $250M)
Phase 3
($250M → $1B)

9. Phase 1
(<$50M ARR)
● Builders Wanted
● Prepare to be embarrassed
● Celebrate the (W)ins
● Under vs. Over Capacity
● What have you learned lately?

10. Phase 2
($50M → $250M)
● Consistency (esp. the metrics)
● Use Winches
● “Haven’t cracked the code yet”
● A little more please
● No coasting

11. Phase 3
($250M → $1B)
● Crossing the line…endurance
● Governance is cool
● Get used to being uncomfortable
● Constant measurement
● Board dynamics

12. Always ● “Experiments”
● Do things that don’t scale (inventory)
● Show up and care
● “I’m sorry”...for reals.
● Be honest
● Share credit & take the blame

13. THANK YOU!

14. Q&A
Legends Stage B 12:45pm-1:15pm PT
Chris Merritt
Chief Revenue Officer & President of Field Operations
Cloudflare