Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 14, 2018

Looking for an example of a happy, high performing product team? Rather than suggesting a model startup, advisor and author Laura Klein is likely to point you toward her favorite heist film. I was working with a bunch of different companies and teams of all different sizes. Balancing business goals with user needs.

VP of Engineering 190

VP of Engineering Underperforming Technical Team CTO Coach New CTO 190

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

Google, Apple and HubSpot are just three examples of industry-leading companies which use mental models to aid quick decision-making. The table below shows the impact of mental models on decision-making: Decision-Making. OKRs are a useful mental model - they make it crystal clear what people and teams should be striving for.

Underperforming Technical Team 215

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service 215

Stax

MAY 5, 2025

In recent years, businesses have seen this massive shift from desktop to mobile devices which has forced them to develop apps with built-in integrated payment gateways. A bad payment experience can lose customers and damage your brand. There are many different gateways available, each with its strengths and weaknesses.

Payments 88

Payments Payment Services Merchant Services Payment Solutions 88

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 4, 2019

The fastest growing software companies in recent years all have something in common – they started with little to no sales team. Yes, Slack started off with no sales team. Yes, Dropbox started off with no traditional sales team. billion in revenue) so it’s safe to say Jeanne and her team have helped do exactly that.

Scale 162

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Payment Services 162

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 203

AI Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Artificial Intelligence 203

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

What’s the Business Model Behind Automattic and WordPress? A year later, they created Automattic as a commercial services business around WordPress. WordPress is its own ecosystem, a vibrant community of hundreds of thousands of people who create add-ons, plugins, and develop sites. It’s not meant to be a consumer brand.

Underperforming Technical Team 331

Underperforming Technical Team Social Media Government Payment Features 331

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

You can have the great product and a great team, but the market of small or very niche. The second one is the team, obviously depending on how earlier the team has a huge factor because you may be so early in your journey that there’s nothing else to point to, but the track record of the team.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 261

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

The best way to do that is to develop the right behaviors in your sales reps. There are many things that can drive revenue growth within your company, but as a sales leader, it all starts with your team. Here are five key areas to challenge your team on in order to grow both them and your company. You have to be a sales LEADER.

Underperforming Technical Team 113

Underperforming Technical Team Development Revenue Sales Hiring 113

SaaSOptics

APRIL 7, 2022

“ Freemium “—a combination of the words “free” and “premium”—describes a type of business model that offers basic features of a product or service to users at no cost and charges a premium for supplemental or advanced features. . Is Freemium a Good Business Model?

Business Model 74

Business Model Payment Features Business SaaS 74

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 4, 2019

The SaaS business model powering all of this activity is startlingly unique, still young, and inextricably tied to the power of cloud computing. What is the SaaS business model. As a result, revenue recognition is a fundamental part of the SaaS business model. Recurring payments. Early stage.

Business Model 54

Business Model SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payments 54

Stax

MAY 6, 2025

TL;DR A scalable solution adapts to higher volumes, evolving business models, and new payment methods without breaking down or holding you back. Volume caps, poor integrations, manual reconciliation, and clunky mobile checkout are all signs your current system wont scale with you. The right system simplifies growth.

Payment Solutions 88

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payment Services Payments 88

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 246

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 246

Stax

JANUARY 23, 2025

How Merchant Underwriting Works The merchant underwriting process typically follows a few steps carried out by the payment facilitators or acquiring bank to develop an underwriting risk profile. Both processors and merchants face significant challenges: Challenges for Payment Processors Underwriting teams can have their work cut out for them.

Merchant Services 68

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Methods Development Team Review 68

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

In other words, the Manufacturer’s Dilemma is that vendors are separated from their customers by layers and layers of abstraction, and closing that gap requires a fundamental shift in mentality and business model. . Our entire hiring and career development apparatus is built around defined roles. It’s all we know.

Sales Hiring 161

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Onboarding 161

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. a16z has long had an investment theory that we should invest behind strengths of a business model and opportunity, not lack of weakness. It truly has been a team effort.

Marketplace as a Service 140

Marketplace as a Service Underperforming Technical Team Scale Construction 140

Casey Accidental

OCTOBER 27, 2020

This is part three of a three part series on sequencing business models. In part two of our Sequencing Business Models series , we talked about the different types of marketplaces and what needs to be built to be effective in each of them. Incorrect incentives will lead to poor quality integrations.

Payments 56

Payments Business Model Payment Solutions SaaS Payments 56

Totango

JULY 1, 2022

Customer loyalty is a key to repeat business and referral generation for any business model. For B2B SaaS companies, customer loyalty drives subscription renewals and brand advocacy, making it a critical component of a profitable business model. First, we’ll discuss what customer loyalty is.

B2B 114

B2B B2C Underperforming Technical Team Business 114

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 26, 2018

I hosted Nir on our podcast to learn how to create healthy habits, how to avoid bad ones, what questions thoughtful product designers should be asking themselves, and much more. Here are five quick takeaways: We have good habits and bad habits , which are very different from addictions. For me, that was a bad habit.

Underperforming Technical Team 223

Underperforming Technical Team Advertising Technology Social Media 223

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 3, 2019

The customer acquisition cost can help you create, measure, and improve a business model that will put your business on the path to profitability. You’re starting a new business. How about your business model ? Every team has their own slightly different way of calculating the cost of customer acquisition.

Acquisition 91

Acquisition Underperforming Technical Team Startup Customer Lifetime Value 91

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2022

And we’re about to add basically a team collaboration tier on top of the product. The second question is more about, given that we’re basically users would be self qualifying into team management offering like a project management, et cetera. And you have to allow that, in fact, you have to support that in your sales team.

Scale 273

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Enterprise 273

FastSpring

MAY 20, 2024

As the VP and General Manager of the Stardock Software division, Brad led his team through this process and has learned some valuable lessons about doing it as strategically and easily as possible. People will say, ‘I’ve been a customer for 20 years, and suddenly you’re changing your business model! Why are you doing that?

SaaS Payments 158

SaaS Payments Payments Merchant Services Payment Solutions 158

Kellblog

JULY 18, 2019

Great core/founding team. Thus, there is a good chance one or all of the founding team will be around, and in influential positions, for a long time. Bad startups are feature addicts who pile feature upon feature atop a deteriorating architecture, creating an Augean Stables of technical debt. Startups are about people.

Underperforming Technical Team 84

Underperforming Technical Team Startup Software Technical Cofounder 84

Sales Hacker

MAY 9, 2019

Once you understand how to create a fair compensation plan for your sales team, you can check out some examples: Sales Development Rep (SDR) Compensation Plan Example. The goal of variable pay is to develop a performance-driven culture in which your sales team is financially accountable for results. Step 5: Set Targets.

Compensation 110

Compensation Sales Hiring Development Team Review Sales Recruiting 110

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 160

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Scaling 160

Casey Accidental

OCTOBER 20, 2020

This is part two of a three part series on sequencing business models. Casey’s first sequencing business models essay talked about the transition from a SaaS business model to marketplace business model, and why it’s so difficult. This essay is a collaboration with Gilad Horev. We’re not sure.

Marketplace as a Service 40

Marketplace as a Service Business Model SaaS Payments Payments 40

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency. How can you capture, qualify and convert the right leads for your business while working within your means? Short on time?

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

Neil Patel

APRIL 12, 2021

They offer some of the best-known subscription boxes around, reflecting an increasingly popular (and potentially lucrative) business model. If you want to be in this niche, perhaps consider narrowing it down by choosing only to use small businesses or those from a specific region of the United States. Develop a Business Plan.

Outsourcing Services 134

Outsourcing Services Payment Methods Payment Features Subscription 134

Stax

MARCH 18, 2025

While traditional business models have a harder time estimating their future revenue, SaaS companies have access to more accurate revenue forecasts, such as their MRR and ARR. If your product is amazing, but you have a poor onboarding process, chances are high you’ll have a low activation rate.

Scale 117

Scale Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments 117

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. we’ll be answering that by chatting with the people that make it happen: the R&D team members who take your feedback and turn it into the tools that you use. Then this podcast has the answers.

Mobile 213

Mobile Scale Underperforming Technical Team Engineering 213

OpenView Labs

MARCH 24, 2021

For either one, the bottom line is that the cost of a bad hire is significant. I’ve talked a lot about the hidden costs of a bad sales hire. Develop a bulletproof hiring process that celebrates candidate experience. Spend time with your team and buyers to understand their needs and potential blindspots.

Sales Hiring 87

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Company Culture Interviewing 87

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 114

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Advertising 114

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. They also manage finances and supervise one or more engineering teams. What is a SaaS business model? Average salary: $192,383/yr. Average salary: $151,254/yr.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

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 102

Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Consulting Forecasting 102

Audacix

MAY 23, 2018

Digital transformations are a confluence of new ideas, grand plans, modern business models, high hopes and, often, very poor delivery and implementation. The fact that you are still building or continuously enhancing your application does not give you the right to treat your users and customers like a crowd-sourced testing team.

Underperforming Technical Team 40

Underperforming Technical Team Software Review Technical Review Software 40

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

Samuel Hulick: I actually started as a full stack developer. Back in those days, and this was like over 10 years ago, the developer would get a Photoshop file that had all of the different interface elements. So, growth team, in this quarter, we want you to go and try to pull the levers to increase day seven engagement.”

Onboarding 254

Onboarding Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 254

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 90

Data Underperforming Technical Team Metrics Trends 90

FastSpring

JANUARY 27, 2022

And in cases where our customers get stuck, our support team responds in a timely manner with personalized video. It’s not always a bad thing to be priced higher than your competitors — it can signal to prospects that yours is a premium service. Just make sure your monthly cost is reasonable for small teams.

Merchant Services 146

Merchant Services Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 146