Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

Overview

You own the entire revenue org at Path Robotics—a company selling AI-powered robotic welding cells to manufacturers. You manage sales, customer success, and partnerships, and you're responsible for building repeatable go-to-market processes. You report directly to the CEO and are measured on bookings, expansion revenue, and pipeline predictability.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series B/C stage (185 employees, building out GTM infrastructure)

Size: 185 employees

Growth: Running SKOs, VP of Commercial Ops posting about team culture, actively hiring across GTM roles

Market Position: Category creator in autonomous welding robotics—selling into a traditional manufacturing market that's skeptical of automation but desperate for welding labor

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 70% Outbound - Direct outreach to manufacturers in defense, infrastructure, energy, heavy industry
• 20% Inbound - Word-of-mouth referrals, some conference leads, limited marketing-generated demand
• 10% Partnerships - Integration partners, manufacturing consultants, industry associations

SDR/AE Structure: Small team, likely 3-8 AEs at this stage, possibly adding SDRs or still having AEs self-source

SE Support: Sales Engineers handle technical demos and ROI modeling—critical for this technical sale

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Traditional manual welding shops, cobots from Universal Robots/ABB/FANUC with manual programming, other robotic welding cell providers

How They Differentiate: AI model (Obsidian) that adapts in real-time to part variations vs. programmed robots that break when parts don't match specs. RaaS model (no capex) vs. $150K+ upfront purchase.

Common Objections: "Our welders won't accept robots," "What happens when parts vary," "We can't afford downtime during implementation," "Our shop floor isn't set up for this"

Win Themes: Labor shortage crisis (can't find welders), 4x productivity vs. manual, consistent quality, 24/7 operation, no capex commitment

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Strategic Planning (25%) | Team Development (25%) | Deal Execution (25%) | CEO/Board (15%) | Customer/Market (10%)

Key Activities

• Building the Revenue Playbook: You define ICP, messaging, sales process, pricing strategy. This is still being figured out—what works in defense doesn't work in commercial manufacturing.
• Hiring and Developing Leaders: You need to hire a VP of Sales, maybe a VP of Customer Success. You spend time recruiting, onboarding, and coaching them through early deals.
• Strategic Deal Involvement: You join calls with Fortune 500 manufacturers or large defense contractors. You're the closer when deals get stuck or need executive presence.
• CEO/Board Reporting: You build the pipeline model, forecast bookings, present quarterly business reviews. You're defending why deals slipped or pipeline coverage isn't where it needs to be.
• Cross-functional Alignment: You work with Product on customer feedback and roadmap priorities. You work with Operations on deployment capacity and customer onboarding timelines.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Manufacturing is conservative and slow-moving. Deals take 9-12 months and involve convincing multiple stakeholders who've never bought robotics before.
• You're selling a new category. Most buyers don't have budget allocated for "AI welding robots." You're competing with manual labor and fighting skepticism about whether automation really works.
• The sales team is small and might not be fully ramped. You're player-coaching a lot—jumping into deals, writing proposals, doing your own ROI models when needed.
• Implementation is complex. Even after you close a deal, getting the cell installed and running takes months. Customer success issues (slow ramps, production hiccups) reflect back on your org.
• You report to a CEO who's probably technical/product-focused. You need to educate them on why sales cycles are long and why pipeline doesn't convert at 25%.

What Success Looks Like

• You hit $8-12M in bookings your first year and build toward $20M+ run rate
• You hire 2-3 strong sales leaders who can run their teams without you in every deal
• Pipeline becomes predictable—you can forecast within 15% accuracy
• Customer expansion motion starts working (existing customers add more cells)
• The board stops asking "why is sales taking so long" because you've educated them on the buying process

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• VP of Operations or Plant Managers at mid-to-large manufacturers ($50M-$1B+ revenue)
• Head of Engineering or Manufacturing Engineering Directors
• CFOs or procurement leaders (for RaaS contract approvals)

What They Care About:

• Labor availability: Can't find skilled welders, losing institutional knowledge as boomers retire
• Production throughput: Bottlenecks in welding are slowing entire production lines
• Quality consistency: Manual welding quality varies by person and fatigue
• Cost predictability: Fixed monthly cost vs. unpredictable labor + benefits + turnover
• Downtime risk: Will implementation disrupt existing production schedules?

Requirements

• 10+ years in B2B sales leadership, with at least 5 years at VP+ level
• Experience selling complex hardware, capital equipment, or industrial automation—you need to understand long sales cycles and multi-stakeholder buying committees
• Track record building and scaling revenue teams from $5M to $30M+ ARR
• Comfortable with technical products—you don't need to be an engineer, but you need to explain AI/robotics to skeptical manufacturers
• Experience with Robotics-as-a-Service, SaaS, or subscription business models strongly preferred
• Willingness to travel 40%+ to customer sites, tradeshows, and team offsites
• Manufacturing industry experience is a major plus (understand shop floor culture, procurement cycles, implementation complexity)