SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: About 70% of SaaS Public Companies Are New Versions of Existing Categories of Software (Updated) Growth Slowed Down About 33% On Average For Everyone in Q1 The Top 20 SaaStr Tips to Getting a SaaS Start-Up Going When Should You Add a Second Product?

CTO Hire 195

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 195

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

He joined StubHub as CTO, but didn’t get nearly as much equity as the other CTO — because he “wasn’t committed enough.” Jeff says he’s realized startups are either “product constrained or distribution constrained “ Make your investments accordingly.

CTO Hire 337

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Airlines 337

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

I recently asked on Twitter when folks knew their startup had something … great. What was the moment when you knew your startup was really doing something great? ” — Jason Riedel, founder/CTO of Aspireship. “When on New Year’s Eve, customers kept sending us signed contracts.”

CTO Hire 278

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Healthcare 278

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2022

All startups have issues and challenges, and all deals have some “hair” on them. While startups have ups and downs, if you tell the VCs you’re going to hit $250,000 in revenue this month … make 100 percent sure you hit that projection. This is surprisingly common in startups with more than two or three founders. Who is the CEO?

Finance 282

Finance Technical Review CTO Hire New CTO 282

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2024

Is the CTO involved in these decisions? App contraction is still happening, and AI is absorbing all of the energy in the industry. But if you want to grow fast, you want to innovate and take care of those customers and the energy that goes into these pricing games, especially for new CROs and revenue teams. It’s too early.”

AI 234

AI Pricing Artificial Intelligence Scale 234

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. You’re not building a product or getting any new customers. You can’t hire a magician Head of Product.

Scale 238

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 238

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2019

We passed a new milestone on Quora — crossing 50,000,000 total views. What makes a bad CTO? Do startups ever have one founder with substantially more equity than the other founder(s)? What are the advantages of being a startup vs being an established business? What is the cheapest thing a salesperson did to you?

CTO Hire 150

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Payment Methods 150

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

Indeed this was also my #1 mistake and the #1 I see from so many startups learning to go upmarket. As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself. Hire that person, and make sure they are someone the top customers can really trust and count on. Are we sure?

CTO Hire 274

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 274

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 What’s their new CAC Payback Time? New Gross Margins? Start by creating a new account from clicking the button New on the top-right. Use area charts for more detail. Let’s start with Payroll – Support.

Merchant Services 90

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

OpenView Labs

APRIL 12, 2019

Getting hiring right is absolutely critical. I’d like to talk about two different companies with two very different approaches to hiring post-seed raise. To get the team started we hired several junior developers. There is a binary feeling that comes from making those first few technical hires. We needed a CTO.

CTO Hire 64

CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 64

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. Customer Onboarding Specialist: Responsible for helping new customers get up and running with the company’s products. Before the hiring process, take some time to decide on your current needs and hire as your company grows.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

Which role should you hire for first? For starters, your first hire should be someone who can complement your skills, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak, but it goes much deeper than that. I am guessing it’s probably the hardest problem to solve, hiring a job, let alone at this level. And for good reason.

Sales Hiring 256

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 256

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2020

Brendon introduces his playbook to hiring the first VP of Sales from his experiences as VP of Sales at LinkedIn, EchoSign, Talkdesk and more. Learn the dos and don’ts to make the correct hire the first time and not rush into hiring the wrong VP of Sales, which can cost the company months or even years. Roughly 90%.

Sales Hiring 154

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire 154

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

In part, my shift in thinking could pertain to not being the “front man” handling the pitch. But thanks to our VP of Business Development, I realize team-based selling for an early-stage startup or company is still likely a necessity, and far outweighs specialization when your sales org is fewer than five people or so.

Underperforming Technical Team 121

Underperforming Technical Team CTO Hire CTO Coach Technical Review 121

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

They were aware of it, but startups that I work with closely or invested in, if they got all the way to 25 million with 75% NRR, I would tell them to quit today. Jason Lemkin: I think I noticed a pattern, and I wrote it up a couple of years ago and refreshed it, and then I’ll add a new anecdote. More likely than not, but barely.

Outsourcing Services 179

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 179

OpenView Labs

MARCH 17, 2020

When you ask average questions, you get average hires. If a potential senior hire has gotten so far as to talk with the CEO , she’s probably someone the company wants. Mixmax isn’t the only company that tries to talk new employees out of staying. Zappos famously pays new employees to leave after the first month.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. The best ways he found to learn leadership skills was to hire a management coach to meet him once per month, to talk through the issues facing him at Optimizely.

CTO Coach 101

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 101

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Last night I read this question on Quora : In general terms, what is the ideal size and make-up of a team for a pre-revenue SaaS startup? I think the second part of the question is more important. This can be a huge advantage, especially for a bootstrapped startup that can't afford to hire many people.

CTO Hire 106

CTO Hire Startup Sales Hiring New CTO 106

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2019

Well, we did the heavy lifting and highlighted a few here for you… “When to Hire and When to Automate” with Zapier CEO Wade Foster. After building their initial prototype, the team presented at Startup Weekend in Columbia and won. “The Cadence: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup into an Army.”

Payment Services 100

Payment Services CTO Hire Payments New CTO 100

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

Since 2010 we’ve seen more startups, funds, and capital than ever before, but with this drastic increase, investors are seeing unexpected new trends reshaping the future of the industry. The panel that we are in is called Is Seed the New Series A, and this is a question that I’ve been asking informally yesterday and today.

New CTO 151

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 151

The Angel VC

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Continuing my little series using the "minimum viable" approach , here is my 2nd DO for SaaS startups: Build the right team I've written about the topic before, so if you've read this post from early this year most of what I'm going to write now won't be new for you and you may want to skip this article. What comes next?

Sales Hiring 121

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup Outsourced Development 121

SaaStr

JULY 19, 2019

250: Peter Yared is the Founder & CEO @ InCountry, the startup that allows you to operate globally with data residency as a service meaning they store your mission-critical data in it’s country of origin, without compliance. Previously, Peter was also the CTO/CIO of CBS Interactive where he brought CBS into the cloud.

VP of Engineering 137

VP of Engineering CTO Hire Technical Review Sales Hiring 137

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2019

Erica Schultz is Chief Revenue Officer @ New Relic, the company that gives you the real time insights your software driven business needs to innovate faster. Prior to their IPO, New Relic raised over $214m in funding from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, Insight Venture Partners and Blackrock, to name a few.

Scale 165

Scale Enterprise Scaling Sales Hiring 165

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

Co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah shared with us how they got there — and the top mistakes they made — just 3 quarters after their IPO. We have someone that probably 98 percent of you know virtually or socially in some sense, Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of HubSpot. But of course, it wasn’t always quite that big!

Part-Time VPE 219

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 219

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

The 90-Day Rule , which argues that new managers need to be decisive about who stays on the teams they inherit. Startup CEOs generally fall into one of two categories and the category is likely to predict how they will approach the ownership issue. Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run. The problem?

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Venture Capital Technical Advisors 59

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

In it, Co-Founder and CRO of Kronologic, Aaron Bollinger, shows us how to close enterprise level deals when you’re a startup. How to overcome no credible timing event. All right guys, welcome to the Sales Hacker’s Success Summit presentation, How To Close The Enterprise When You Are Just A Startup. What You’ll Learn.

Enterprise 69

Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 69

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

So even the freshest new SaaS startup celebrating their 50th customer may find themselves dealing with sales tax in multiple states. . hiring in-house talent). Expanding into new sales channels is a common growth play. For example, you hire a developer to move you over to an ERP like NetSuite.

Merchant Services 178

Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 178

Kellblog

JANUARY 29, 2020

The majority of startups solve a problem that is already being solved in some way today. Unless you are solving a brand-new problem (e.g., Unless you are solving a brand-new problem (e.g., If they are already solving the problem in some way, your new solution more likely represents an optimization than a breakthrough.

Startup 99

Startup Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO 99

Baremetrics

MARCH 16, 2021

QuikNode is a Miami-based startup powering blockchain applications with lightning fast Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polygon, BSC and xDai nodes. Background In 2017 and 2018, many new blockchain projects started offering their tokens for sale. A simple control panel brings it all together and makes infrastructure management easy.

Blockchain 90

Blockchain Payment Solutions Artificial Intelligence Payment Services 90

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

In this framework, you’ll learn how to design a scoring system that aligns to your growth strategy, brainstorm and select leader indicators of success, and operationalize the system across your startup. Drive new levers of growth. Through this work, it can drive new revenue opportunities. Strategically allocate CS resources.

Startup 91

Startup Scale Systems Review Technical Review 91

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Julian Lemoine, Co-Founder, and CTO of Algolia will share his lessons learned on how to stay focused and innovative as you scale while also avoiding the innovation for innovation’s sake pitfalls. Julien Lemoine | Co-founder and CTO @Algolia. So I’m Julien, Co-founder and CTO of Algolia. Want to see more content like this?

Scale 127

Scale Scaling CTO Hire Part-Time VPE 127

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

Today on the show, we’ve got Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares, a company that applies AI to your contract. Major challenges facing a new CEO [19:40]. Sam Jacobs: Today on the show, we’ve got Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares, a company that applies AI to your contract.

Scale 107

Scale CTO Hire Scaling CTO Coach 107

OpenView Labs

JULY 2, 2020

New for 2020: SaaS Pricing and COVID-19. In this brand-new report, we finally answer the question “Freemium or free trial?” Patrick Campbell deconstructs and walks through the elements of a pricing strategy that enables startups to more effectively acquire customers. Nudging Customers with Behavioral Tactics.

Pricing 135

Pricing SaaS Payments Payments SaaS 135

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Some of the things we talked about were operational overhead and cost of various data stores we were running, along with whether or not we needed to hire dedicated database administrators for various different technologies. Ciaran, our CTO , came up with this magical line. He said, “I want to run less software, not more software.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

403: Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Success @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. As for Sam, prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce following their acquisition of Quip, a startup Salesforce acquired for $750M where Sam was also the 1st sales leader.

Scale 177

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 177

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2019

Today I wanted to talk to you about something a little bit unconventional, which is around doing M&A, as a startup yourself. I used to be a CTO and operator, co-founder of a SaaS start up. And something of insight so we are New York based, global venture and equity investor. So basically start ups, acquiring other start ups.

Outsourcing Services 109

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Technical Review 109

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

. * How does one know when we need to hire generalists vs specialists? Karl has been in every interview for every new hire for the first 6 years of the business, why? * Karl has been in every interview for every new hire for the first 6 years of the business, why? How does Karl structure the hiring process today?

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach 221