When to Start with Revenue Operations? Top 5 Recommendations for Your Startup

Revenue Operations (RevOps) has become a cornerstone of modern business operations: no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have. More and more founders and business leaders recognize the value of this approach and are actively restructuring their organizations to implement it.

But what does it actually mean to build Revenue Operations inside your company?

Michael J. Jäger, Founder & Managing Director at Cremanski & Company, hears one question more than any other in client conversations:

“At what stage of my B2B SaaS startup should I start with Revenue Operations?”

In this article, Michael answers that question and shares his Top 5 recommendations for how to implement RevOps the right way, to set up structured, scalable, and sustainable growth.

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Why Revenue Operations?

So why all the buzz around RevOps?

In our article What Is Revenue Operations?, we explained why it’s worth rethinking your company’s structure from the ground up.

In short: a Revenue Operations team connects what used to be separate, departments, data, and processes. It eliminates silos and creates alignment across goals, priorities, and strategies company-wide.

As a strategic function, RevOps drives sustainable, structural growth by focusing on your company’s revenue architecture ensuring your:

• Marketing,
  
  
• Sales, and
  
  
• Customer Success teams
  
  

work together seamlessly throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

The Impact of Revenue Operations

The result? Measurable improvement in growth, collaboration, and efficiency.

Here’s what your business gains from implementing Revenue Operations:

• Closed gaps across the customer lifecycle
  
  
• Increased productivity in every go-to-market team
  
  
• Smoother, more efficient handovers between departments
  
  
• Elimination of data silos
  
  
• Consistency, transparency, and predictability in growth
  
  

5 Signs It’s Time to Consider Revenue Operations

Most founders and leadership teams feel when something needs to change. Pain points appear, coordination gets harder, and growth starts to slow.

If any of the following sound familiar, it’s time to consider implementing RevOps:

• You lack data-driven decision-making
  
  
• You can’t actively steer the business based on real insights
  
  
• There’s no full transparency across teams
  
  
• You need a single source of truth for data and SOPs
  
  
• You want consistent, efficient, and predictable growth
  
  
• You want to improve the customer experience end-to-end
  
  

Michael Jäger’s Top 5 Recommendations for Starting with Revenue Operations

Theory is one thing, execution is another.
Here are Michael’s five practical recommendations to get started with RevOps the right way.

1. Define Your Go-to-Market Model and Strategy

Start with clarity. Define your Go-to-Market model (GTM) and strategy with clear financial goals, KPIs, and structures that reflect your company’s current stage.

Your GTM model is the foundation on which all RevOps structures will be built.

2. Establish a Dedicated RevOps Role

Create a strategic and tactical RevOps role inside your organization and make sure it has a seat at the table.

Your VP of Revenue Operations should operate on the same level as the VP of Marketing, VP of Sales, and VP of Customer Success. That’s the only way RevOps can effectively connect and influence all commercial functions.

3. Define the End-to-End Customer Journey

Map your full customer journey from first touch to renewal and expansion. Build a unified data model that spans all commercial teams, and integrate it into your systems and processes.

This is the backbone of operational alignment across the business.

4. Ensure the Four Core Functions of Revenue Operations

Make sure these four RevOps functions are actively implemented and running:

• Business Operations Management
  
  
• Revenue Enablement
  
  
• Data Insights & Reporting
  
  
• Tool Management & Adoption
  
  

Together, they form the operating system of your revenue engine.

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5. Empower RevOps to Act

RevOps only creates value when it has authority to act. Give your RevOps team the access and influence it needs to connect systems, teams, and processes.

That’s how you create true transparency, avoid data silos, and build a culture of process-driven, efficient collaboration.

Why Start Early?

Most B2B companies depend on recurring revenue which means growth doesn’t stop at the first deal.

In fact, real profit often comes at the back end of the customer lifecycle: in retention, expansion, and advocacy.

That’s why investing in Revenue Operations early isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a competitive advantage.

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