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Why Hiring Senior Leaders Early Is Worth the Investment

OpenView Labs

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.

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SaaStr Podcasts for the Week with Crossbeam and Podium – January 10, 2020

SaaStr

Before that Bob co-founded RJ Metrics, where he built a global base of online retailers leading to their acquisition by Magento Commerce in 2016. How does Bob think about when is the right time to hire a Head of Partnerships? Where do most startups go wrong both in hiring for partnerships and in the engagements themselves?

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SaaStr Podcast #403 with Loom VP of Sales Sam Taylor

SaaStr

When is the right time to hire the first sales rep? Should you hire 2 at a time? What does one look for in their first sales hire? We were hired into the same role, same start date, competed head to head. Bret was formerly the CTO at Facebook. I met Molly, who was the COO at the time, Molly Graham.

Scale 171
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Building a sales team that can go from $0-$50M (Video + Transcript)

SaaStr

I looked back at our investment memo, it was a 2K ACV when Jason invested after Y-C. So you were the first sales hire. Talk to me about the sales hires that you made back in the early days and talk to me about how it changed through the different stages. So my first sales hire was beginning of 2015.

Scale 136
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The Road Now Taken: 4 SaaS Start-ups And Their Quest For Independent Growth

Outseta

Investment funds like Indie.VC The company had for a few years prior followed a growth-first path, hiring aggressively and prioritizing projects designed to make an immediate impact on their growth rate. Wistia Funding History $650,000 from angel investors in 2008 $775,000 from angel investors in 2010 $17.3M of the $3.5M

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Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot: From Day 0 to IPO. What Went to Plan. What Most Certainly Didn’t (Video, Podcast + Transcript)

SaaStr

In 2016, Hubspot was still a scrappy player that had only recently IPO’d, with a market cap around $1B. 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 didn’t do any annual contracts. million in 2014.).

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Busting the Myths About Startup Success with BlackLine’s Founder CEO (Video + Transcript)

SaaStr

I retired from SunGard Treasury Systems as their CTO. Bootstrapped because nobody in their right mind would have actually invested in us back then and took it up until 2014 as a bootstrapped company. It is much more painful to have to fire people and contract as a company than it is to grow. Turned out it became who I am.

Startup 269