Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

We pulled from my prior marketplaces experience and dove into their business quickly to develop a point-of-view on the opportunity. Prior to founding Instacart, Apoorva was a fulfillment optimization software engineer from Amazon. It truly has been a team effort. Grocery is the largest retail category in the U.S.,

Marketplace as a Service 142

Marketplace as a Service Scale Underperforming Technical Team Construction 142

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

TL;DR SaaS, or “Software as a Service,” is a business model that delivers centrally hosted software to subscribers over the internet. Engineering Manager: In charge of planning, designing, and overseeing projects. They also manage finances and supervise one or more engineering teams.

Sales Hiring 93

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 93

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 14, 2019

Classic agencies don’t value the software enough to engender pricing power, develop fast sales cycles, or change the operations of their business to maximize the value of the ML innovation. Consequently, product market fit is weak. It’s possible to build a business, but hard to achieve lift-off.

AI 191

AI Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Machine Learning 191

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

I still remember the very first time I met Dev back in 2011 and I was this engineer turn first-time founder, CEO running the business. And we were like less than 10 million ARR and business was doing very well. You can have the great product and a great team, but the market of small or very niche.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

Stax

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

While their target audience and the breadth of their solutions are the key differences, vertical and horizontal SaaS also share many similarities, in particular cloud-based hosting and subscription business models. Similarities Between Vertical and Horizontal SaaS Horizontal and vertical SaaS businesses can overlap in certain areas.

SaaS Payments 88

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments Payment Solutions 88

FastSpring

DECEMBER 7, 2023

As the Director of Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships at WP Engine , Carl has worked on many acquisitions and partnerships, including brands like Flywheel, Perfect Dashboard, Block Lab, and recently, Delicious Brains. And, you know, Carl’s role at WP Engine focuses on this in a big part.

Software Review 136

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Branding 136

User Pilot

JANUARY 29, 2023

Developing features without validation results in bloated products and unnecessarily drives the cost of development up. Product teams should invest in validation when developing the MVP. If your users respond well to them, you can iterate on them and develop them incrementally.

Management 91

Management Underperforming Technical Team Interviewing Scale 91

OPEXEngine

AUGUST 31, 2021

And while the concept has been around for years, for most of that time, tech debt was primarily the concern of product and engineering teams. They’re also increasingly holding their teams accountable to manage it appropriately. To be clear, every company accumulates a certain amount of tech debt over time. Measuring tech debt.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Software Review Scale 52

OPEXEngine

AUGUST 31, 2021

And while the concept has been around for years, for most of that time, tech debt was primarily the concern of product and engineering teams. They’re also increasingly holding their teams accountable to manage it appropriately. To be clear, every company accumulates a certain amount of tech debt over time. Measuring tech debt.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Software Review Scale 52

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 12, 2023

In this episode, a16z partner Seema Amble talks with Dimitri Dadiomov, the co-founder and CEO of payment operations platform Modern Treasury, about the challenges of creating a new category, hiring for marketing before you hire for sales, and why developing new features is similar to birding. It was maybe like a 4 or 5 person team.

Payment Solutions 113

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payment Services Payments 113

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2019

Before Optimizely, Travis spent 6 years at Salesforce in a number of sales roles including building the first Platform Sales team. What does Travis advise founders when it comes to uniting customer facing teams? * Why does Travis believe that SaaS has upended the economic model but not the engagement model?

Underperforming Technical Team 158

Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Payments Payment Services Technical Advisors 158

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

It wasn’t the case 20 or even 10 years ago, where the business models of the internet were more focused on eCommerce, marketplaces, or even advertising. The second constituent there is the developer. Why do developers love SaaS products? The last kind of constituent here is investors and business owners.

SaaS Payments 237

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 237

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

Which is why customer feedback is a big deal to all of our teams – it’s really integral to what we do and how we build. Maria Gutierrez – Senior Director of Engineering. Maria Gutierrez: Hi, I’m Maria Gutierrez, and I’m senior director of engineering and co-site lead for our London office.

Mobile 212

Mobile Scale Underperforming Technical Team Engineering 212

SaaStr

AUGUST 19, 2020

Meaning, you’re not in the business of predicting the future, but you should really in the business of doing a scenario planning to say, “Hey, what’s the worst case? ” And then we debated like how across the leadership team to say, “Hey, can we afford this or not?” What’s the base case?”

Scale 257

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Leadership 257

Baremetrics

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Scalability Other Factors That Affect the Sales Multiple How to Make Your SaaS Business More Attractive and Valuable 1. Develop a Full Marketing Strategy 2. High churn is understandable for newer startups, but it does indicate that a tool may be a poor market fit, have limited demand, or struggle to compete against similar products.

SaaS Payments 105

SaaS Payments Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review 105

Stax

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses need to constantly evolve their offerings to stay fresh and relevant. They must engineer a well-rounded solution that makes handling subscriptions a breeze (and yes, it is as hard as it sounds). In a saturated market, how do they distinguish themselves?

Payments 88

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services Merchant Services 88

SaaSOptics

MAY 19, 2022

Below, we’ll dive into how to develop a customer acquisition strategy from start to finish. . How to Develop a Customer Acquisition Strategy. Funneling time, energy, and resources into developing a stellar customer acquisition strategy is only helpful if it’s designed with your target market in mind.

Acquisition 59

Acquisition Scale Strategy Software Review 59

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

SDRs and BDRs are often young and ambitious, and their investment in these entry-level positions is formative to developing their sales style and shaping the career paths they will choose. Sales development and customer success have in common a customer-facing approach. SDRs can make excellent customer success reps.

Sales Hiring 104

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Advertising 104

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 5, 2021

Over the past decade, software has created tremendous value for investors and businesses, thanks largely to its transformative effect on the economy , its role in developing new cloud-based business models, and its ability to increase efficiency in operations. Four ways to drive value. Transform Ops to DevOps.

Software Review 52

Software Review DevOps as a Service Software Underperforming Technical Team 52

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

As software pervades every sector of the world economy, the developers building it are rapidly becoming the most important buyers of technology and infrastructure in companies of all sizes. As a company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet – Stripe’s ability to connect with developers is central to our mission.

Underperforming Technical Team 40

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Payments 40

Point Nine Land

JUNE 22, 2023

I can already hear Christoph and the rest of our software-loving P9 team telling me that they would have preferred to invest in SaaS if it had existed, and he’s probably right. Some pure hardware businesses have capex requirements that would break a typical venture fund’s model. Still, it’s clear that things are different today.

Outsourcing Services 59

Outsourcing Services Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development AI 59

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 25, 2022

The algorithms and business models behind these platforms were being weaponized to produce and disseminate propaganda and conspiracy theories. We were still the poor people of Europe. I was so bad that when I came back to the office, my boss said, “Don’t listen back to that.

Social Media 208

Social Media Scale Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 208

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2019

Scaling the company’s employee base, sales teams, marketing, and operations—all while preserving its culture—has required a laser focus on first principles, smart processes, and effective hiring. Know who is the foundation of your product and build your product for that user (in Stripe’s case, developers). Know your forever user.

Scale 152

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Scaling 152

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

If talent acquisition, development, and retention are top-of-mind for you as a sales leader, here are 40+ of the best sales training programs to check out! Only a team of superb talent can move your business ahead of the competition. The same calculus especially applies the sales team. ASLAN Training & Development.

Scale 81

Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Sales 81

Chart Mogul

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

The SaaS Business Model & Metrics: Understand the Key Drivers for Success by David Skok, Matrix Partners SaaS Metrics — 201 A slightly deeper dive into SaaS industry metrics. We trust leaders to make decisions on what tools they need to get the most out of their teams. Keep an eye out as we will be making regular updates.

Scale 52

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring SaaS 52

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

As the book Blue Ocean Strategy notes, blue oceans have always been a key engine of growth for companies and entire economies. The focus is on developing new demand and reconstructing market landscapes to make rivals obsolete. It pushes businesses to question long-standing industry and strategic assumptions.

Strategy 64

Strategy Technical Review Business Innovation 64

TriTuns

JANUARY 21, 2020

This is fundamentally changing your business model and your mindset. THE BROKEN SAAS BUSINESS MODEL. The next generation of this business model, led by the creation of customer success (CS), is ushering in a new growth engine. This is very bad news for SaaS vendors.

SaaS 71

SaaS Underperforming Technical Team Customer Success Business Model 71

TriTuns

JANUARY 21, 2020

This is fundamentally changing your business model and your mindset. THE BROKEN SAAS BUSINESS MODEL. The next generation of this business model, led by the creation of customer success (CS), is ushering in a new growth engine. This is very bad news for SaaS vendors.

SaaS 71

SaaS Underperforming Technical Team Customer Success Business Model 71

Kellblog

MARCH 11, 2020

Some SaaS startups develop a form of zero-sum delusion early in their evolution, characterized by following set of beliefs. If the StartFast doesn’t work, it’s not a big deal because the Customer Success team’s mission is to offer free clean-up after failed implementations. They know how to do this.

Underperforming Technical Team 99

Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Consulting Forecasting 99

Sales Hacker

MARCH 2, 2020

Sales Development and Prospecting. The Sales Development Playbook. The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. Here are the best books on selling (and related disciplines) that can help you hit your goals and develop your career. Sales Models and Fundamentals. Selling to Big Companies. The Pirate’s Guide to Sales. Top of Mind.

Scale 141

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Payment Methods 141

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 4, 2019

How can we use the data to understand our business and make decisions that help us grow? How can we build out a strategy or develop new products that will have a positive impact on our future? The good news is, you don’t need a massive team of data scientists to make visual data possible. What is working? What’s not working?

Data 64

Data Underperforming Technical Team Metrics Trends 64

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2019

Scaling the company’s employee base, sales teams, marketing, and operations—all while preserving its culture—has required a laser focus on first principles, smart processes, and effective hiring. In fact, more than 80% of Americans in the last year bought through Stripe, but obviously through a business that ran on Stripe.

Scale 117

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Sales Hiring 117

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

As the book Blue Ocean Strategy notes, blue oceans have always been a key engine of growth for companies and entire economies. The focus is on developing new demand and reconstructing market landscapes to make rivals obsolete. It pushes businesses to question long-standing industry and strategic assumptions.

Strategy 52

Strategy Technical Review Business Innovation 52

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2019

Prior to Harness, Stephen was VP of Marketing at Glassdoor, managing a team of 52 in product marketing, helping grow B2B revenue from $19m to $90m in just 2 years, leading to their $1.2Bn acquisition. Steve has previously said, “Sales and marketing must be one team.” What does this mean for the processes used by marketing teams?

DevOps as a Service 100

DevOps as a Service Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring 100

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 4, 2021

Adapting to remote work and eschewing business travel has forced a change – the events of the last year has already fundamentally changed how and where we do business. There’s opportunity in change, already this serial entrepreneur is looking at new business models born out of the current situation.

Transportation 183

Transportation Business Travel Underperforming Technical Team 183

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Some SaaS startups develop a form of zero-sum delusion early in their evolution, characterized by the following set of beliefs. First, some SaaS companies deliberately run with a low set-up product, little to no services, and a customer success team that takes care of implementation issues. They know how to do this.

Underperforming Technical Team 52

Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Consulting Forecasting 52

FastSpring

MARCH 27, 2023

Ryan Austin had VP-level experience in training when he decided to start a consulting business to help enterprise-level companies with their corporate learning and development initiatives. Ryan and his team noticed so many inefficiencies across the L&D workflows. “It That’s really when it got us thinking about that.

Payment Solutions 95

Payment Solutions Payment Services SaaS Payments VP of Engineering 95