Geoff Charles
VP of Product at Ramp
VP of Product at Ramp, the fastest growing SaaS and FinTech business in history, which reached $100M+ annual revenue in two years with about 50 people in R&D.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Geoff Charles reveals how Ramp became the fastest growing SaaS business in history by making velocity the core operating principle. With teams as small as three engineers, one designer, and one PM, they built competitors to Amex and Expensify within months and hit $100M revenue with under 50 people in R&D. The conversation covers how they operationalize velocity through planning, strategy, hiring, and decision-making, plus how they prevent burnout in an extremely fast-moving culture.
Leadership Principles
- → Velocity is everything — it's how you design product development, incentivize teams, hire, promote, and make decisions
- → Teams with high velocity de-risk decisions because the cost of each decision is very low — you can iterate to impact
- → Talent wants to join companies that ship fast — velocity creates a positive selection flywheel for hiring
Notable Quotes
"When I joined, we were about 10-ish folks. In three months, we built a competitor to Amex. Six months after that, a competitor to Expensify. We hit a hundred million in annual revenue with under 50 total in R&D."
— On the extreme efficiency and velocity at Ramp
"Velocity is everything at Ramp. It's how we design our product development process. It's how we incentivize teams, it's who we want to hire, it's who we want to promote."
— On velocity as the foundational operating principle
"Three engineers, one designer, one PM, three months — and that product is moving billions of dollars a year."
— On launching Ramp's accounts payable product with a tiny team
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