Webflow’s CPO
Archetype
Vlad picks 3 or 4 key priorities to guide candidate identification and focus areas. For CPO, they wanted someone with:
- Technical background with deep domain expertise in web design and development
- Track record of leading, hiring, and retaining teams that skew technical and craft oriented
- Significant experience (or leading as a GM) in commercial growth teams of at least $300M ARR scale
- Experience with expanding from a single to multi-product company; M&A track record is a big plus
Initial Meetings
Vlad met with 25-30 candidates in the process. Vlad had 1 or 2 initial meetings before passing candidates to meet the broader team and to invest in a working session. During these initial meetings, Vlad goes deep into their background and tries to align on whether they fit the 3 or 4 key priorities that they outlined. This amounted to the following for Vlad:
- 1 hour with all 25 to 30 candidates to calibrate and see who he wanted go deeper with
- +2-3 hours with 5 to 10 candidates to go deeper on the 3-4 key priorities with Vlad
Interview Loop & Take-Home
For finalist candidates, they set up a series of onsite interviews to test for the criteria that Vlad outlined. Each of the interviewers posted their questions in a shared Google Doc and uploaded feedback directly to Greenhouse so that Vlad could review it. Vlad chose to do this instead of a group discussion, so he could get unbiased feedback.
Onsite #1
- 45 minute Meeting with Vlad on product strategy
- 45 minute Meeting with COO on operational excellence
- 45 minute Meeting with CTO on engineering excellence
Onsite #2
- 45 minute Meeting with CMO on customer and community
- 45 minute Meeting with Director of Product on coaching and development
- 45 minute Meeting with Director of Sales on enterprise sales
- 45 minute Meeting with People leader on leadership and DEI
- 45 minute Meeting with Chief of Staff on alignment and partnership
Onsite #3
- 45 minute Meeting with Vlad on core principles and relationship building
- 45 minute Meeting with co-founder on new product philosophy
- 45 minute Meeting with Head of Product Design on product design
- 45 minute Meeting with co-founder on design philosophy
Take home / Working Session
Vlad provided an open-ended prompt on expansion from single product to multi-product company. They asked the candidate to prepare their feedback on this topic and to present during a 60 minute working session with the relevant team. Candidates are encouraged to ask for more information. Internal team members are encouraged to treat it like a normal working meeting. The best candidates go above and beyond and prepare detailed presentations or memos on the topic to lead the discussion.
Final Onsite #4
- 60 minute Meeting with Product leadership as a debrief/continued discussion from working session
- 30 minute Meeting with Board Member #1 as close meeting
- 30 minute Meeting with Board Member #2 as a close meeting
References
Vlad spoke with ~10 people. During these interviews, his goal is to understand whether what the candidate says is reflected in their actual work. After collecting all feedback, Vlad makes the offer contingent on going through the feedback and identifying areas for development together. Below is his rough interview script.
- Background on working relationship
- [Manager and Peers] What advice would you give me to make this person successful?
- [All] In what areas and skills have you seen [X] grow most significantly when you worked together?
[All] In your experience, what top words would people use to describe [X’s] management and leadership?
- Dig into words they use to understand details behind each term
- [All] Do you have any examples of when you disagreed on something? How was it handled?
- [Directs] What was it about X that made them a great manager? What is one thing they were better at than anyone else?
- [Technical] Can you think of any examples where [X] demonstrated deep technical or domain expertise?
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