CRO Articulate, Jaimie Buss: A Problem Solver That Happens to be Good at Sales

Jaimie Buss, CRO of the e-learning platform Articulate, had an epiphany several years ago. While trying to simultaneously give her toddler a bath and catch up on work emails, some water splashed on her computer. After initially snapping at her son, she realized the importance of being “unapologetically present” with not only her family at home but her colleagues at work. Since this experience, she has drawn clear boundaries between the two.

In this episode, Jaimie and Joubin talk about the leadership lesson she learned from her father; her discipline in all things, including Peloton workouts; her secret weapons of hard work and preparation; what Jaimie learned from some short stints at startups after already having career success; what she learned from three years in venture capital, and everything that changed in her time away; what it means to be “unapologetically present,” at home and at work; and Jaimie’s return to startups, first at Zendesk and now at Articulate.

In this episode, we cover:

• The difference between a poorly-run coffee shop an a well-run one (03:35)
• Why you should acknowledge your team’s day-to-day accomplishments (07:26)
• Focusing on single tasks and how Jaimie manages her routine (09:52)
• The downshift from rapid growth at VMWare to rocky stints at Coverity and Meraki (20:43)
• Why she put her operating career on pause to go work for Andreessen Horowitz (28:10)
• There’s no easy, just “different kinds of hard” (38:10)
• Why Jaimie went back to startups with Zendesk, where she stayed for more than five years (44:00)
• Why she joined Articulate, making incremental improvements rather than extreme changes (51:04)
• The most important questions Jaimie and Articulate’s execs asked each other in the interview process (57:30)

Links:

• Connect with Jaimie
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm