SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Many companies believe excellent product design comes from hiring the best engineers and signing up for the latest software instead of building from the users’ perspectives. Stripe’s CTO, David Singleton, shares how they use a system of feedback, iteration, and fast shipping to create products that meet users’ expectations.

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CTO Hire CTO Payment Methods Payment Solutions 234

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2024

Public valuations are still at a fraction of their 2021 peaks, but seed rounds are more expensive than ever. Lessons from the Best & Worst Deals (00:05:03) To succeed in today’s rapidly changing business landscape, startups need an ultra-committed binary team, especially two co-founders with an insane level of commitment.

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CTO Hire Development Team Review Software Review Technical Review 207

Valerian Tech

MAY 4, 2023

Introduction: Digital transformation can be challenging for any business, but it can be especially daunting for legacy businesses with entrenched cultures and systems. However, embracing digital transformations is essential for staying competitive in today's fast-paced business environment.

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CTO Hire New CTO CTO Business 52

Panintelligence

JUNE 7, 2024

In this blog, we asked Panintelligence CEO Zandra Moore and CTO Ken Miller what they think are some of the most frequent mistakes in SaaS development and offer actionable insights to help you steer clear of them. It’s hard to measure the things that deliver the right value to your business. Ken: measuring the wrong thing.

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CTO Hire SaaS Business Underperforming Technical Team 98

SaaStr

OCTOBER 24, 2022

Developers act, think, and behave differently than your average customer. As an API-first company, WorkOS focuses on selling primarily to developers. Doing Business with Developers. Developers haven’t typically been the buyers in enterprise software, so why should you build for developers?

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Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development Development Part-Time VPE 179

TurnKey Labs

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) play a critical role in steering technology-driven businesses and tech startups towards success. From keeping pace with ever-evolving technologies to leading development teams effectively, the responsibilities of a CTO are multifaceted.

CTO Coach 57

CTO Coach CTO CTO Hire Technology 57

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? Positions Needed: Developers (Front-End and Back-End), Client Applications, Core Services/Platform, Analytics, and DevOps. CTO (40 Employees).

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CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 245

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2023

Hiring a reliable team is an all-encompassing issue where startups dive in head-first but fail to optimize it for success. . Hiring an expert produces 1000x better results than someone with interests elsewhere. . “A Hiring in a streamlined manner with a rigorous selection process initially builds momentum for long-term goals.

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Scale CTO Hire Cloud Scaling 200

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. That it’s time to bring in someone that knows. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. I Need a VP of Sales.

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Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 355

Outseta

APRIL 11, 2019

Why most SaaS companies are blind to some of the best talent on the market By Geoff Roberts 9 min read I believe that most SaaS companies are missing out of a major opportunity when hiring—the opportunity to hire more part-time help, where the employee acts as a fully integrated (albeit part-time) member of the team on an ongoing basis.

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CTO Hire Sales Hiring B2B New CTO 52

Valerian Tech

MAY 30, 2023

Introduction In the competitive landscape of e-commerce, leveraging data analytics has become crucial for businesses seeking sustainable growth. Efficient data analytics allows e-commerce companies to gain valuable insights into customer behavior, optimize their operations, and make informed business decisions.

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CTO Hire Data Business CTO 52

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. I’m focusing on engineering in these examples, but the experience applies to other areas of the business. To get the team started we hired several junior developers.

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CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 64

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. Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. What is a SaaS business model? Average salary: $191,286/yr. Average salary: $156,062/yr.

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Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

Crafty CTO

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

So once I made the decision to move ahead on the launch of Crafty CTO , I wanted to get on with it. Even for the impatient, though, there’s a minimum quality bar to hit if you want a credible business footprint. Time will tell. ” Or perhaps it’s not ironic, but rather based on weakness. With words!

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CTO Hire Artificial Intelligence AI ChatGPT 40

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.

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Underperforming Technical Team CTO Hire CTO Coach Technical Review 121

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 4, 2023

Most growth-stage CEOs I work with know how to tell if they’re efficiently allocating capital in every part of their budget with one glaring exception: research and development (R&D). They would have focused primarily on building a better DVD rental business and likely gone the way of Blockbuster Video.

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Underperforming Technical Team Benchmarks CTO Hire New CTO 122

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Here’s what SaaS businesses need to know about simplifying sales tax. Software as a Service is currently taxable in about one-third of US states, and that number is only growing as outdated state sales tax laws slowly catch up with the way we’re doing business today. . hiring in-house talent). Identify and mitigate risks.

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Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 172

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 22, 2022

As a SaaS business, Intercom is a data processor: our customers entrust us with their data, which we store and process on their behalf. Hiring and cultivating incredible talent on our Information Security team. Shipping quickly and securely. Continuous risk management. Investing significantly in safeguarding our customers’ trust.

Data 118

Data CTO Hire Technical Review compliance 118

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

This series attempts to give practical advice to SaaS CEOs and Founders on how to organize and automate their financial backend , giving them freedom to spend time with more value-adding parts of their business like financial planning. Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0

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Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

OPEXEngine

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

A Couple SaaS Generations Ago… Traditional software companies managed sales, product development, finance and HR in siloed organizations by function. But today, SaaS management is evolving to bring functions together across the business lifecycle in a high-performance SaaS model. Chief Performance Officer. Chief People Officer.

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Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire Management 69

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Our team’s mission is to help Intercom evolve, scale and be trusted by every internet business in the world. Rich: In the world we work in today, in this business, there are some harsh realities. They include that time is short, opportunities are fleeting, competition is fierce, and engineering resources are scarce.

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Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

Casey Accidental

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Created with Fareed Mosavat (Chief Development Officer at Reforge, formerly Slack, Instacart). Created with Kevin Kwok (Formerly Greylock Partners) and Fareed Mosavat (Chief Development Officer at Reforge, formerly Slack, Instacart). Programs are 4-6 weeks in length, part-time, and held in a virtual format, guided by an executive.

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CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO Scale 52

Buffer Resources

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Plus, I knew these company leaders were busy — when would I have the opportunity to pick their brains again?    Thankfully, the conversations flowed, and I only had time for the question at the top of my list:  “Give me one piece of advice for succeeding at Buffer.

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VP of Engineering Part-Time CTO New CTO CTO 101

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 11, 2019

Pricing is an incredibly important part of any SaaS product’s go-to-market strategy. In a market that requires companies to earn their customers’ business each and every day, it can literally make or break your entire business model. With twenty-five years in the software business, I’ve seen my share of pricing exercises.

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Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Technical Review 40

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2022

Miguel Carranza, CTO at RevenueCat, shares ten learnings from firsthand experience in architecting an API & SDK that is currently on 5,000+ apps and has seen 3x growth Year-over-Year. . In this case, our users are developers, so I would say that developer experience is the main thing. Part 1: Developer Experience.

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CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 220

The Angel VC

OCTOBER 18, 2012

If your plan is to create a bloated piece of enterprise software with an ugly interface and make it up by hiring a large field sales force from the get-go you might succeed as well, but in that case please don't ask me for advice. :) Let's start with the founder team. What comes next?

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Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup Outsourced Development 121

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

Prior to Crossbeam, Bob founded Stitched, a powerful ETL service built for developers that was acquired by Talend in 2018. 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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Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 132

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

To date, they have raised over $73M from some of the best in the business including Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst and Point Nine to name a few. 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?

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 173

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

I realized we had better data in the first 2-3 years of the company when we were using improvised solutions, than with our sophisticated business intelligence platform. That didn’t help deliver a clearer picture of how the business was progressing. MRR numbers were changing all the time. Early in 2019, I had an epiphany moment.

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Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

Natalia Luneva

APRIL 30, 2021

As we continue to work remotely, often employees are losing that human touch or personal development. Your community members will become your product contributors by helping develop new features and improving the existing ones. #4 Of course, our team is involved to an extent, and we have an external part-time moderator for support.

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Marketing Social Media SaaS New CTO 98

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2023

Dan Robinson, current Advisor and former CTO at Heap , shares five essential learnings from nearly a decade of building a SaaS business. What Your Job Is (And What It Isn’t) Your Job is to Make the Company Win A CTO may imagine their primary job is to provide technical expertise, lead engineers, and help build the product.

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CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 182

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

Here is what he writes: Kieran Flanagan , VP of marketing at HubSpot, shared some interesting insights on approaching new ideas for scaling up your business. That’s the advice, Petri Hollmén picked up on the more technical side of things from the opening session on Day 2 with Cal Henderson, CTO of Slack. Work on developing your brand.

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Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2021

It’s been 10 years since co-founders Eoghan McCabe , Des Traynor , David Barrett , and Ciaran Lee sat in a small Dublin coffee shop and dreamed of making internet business personal, and we’re still every bit as excited. Zanade Mann , founder of Black Women’s Business Collective. Will Larson , CTO of Calm.

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VP of Engineering Scale Technical Review Outsourcing Services 118

OpenView Labs

JULY 16, 2020

” I explain my job to my kids by saying that we help people in businesses get really important feedback so that people know what to do. We did a song to launch our new mission, vision and values at SurveyMonkey, and I also rewrote “Shallow” for our CFO who left last year, then performed it with our President, CTO and General Counsel.

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CTO Hire New CTO CTO Underperforming Technical Team 55

Mattermark

AUGUST 23, 2017

In addition to publishing this newsletter, we crawl the public web to organize information on more than four million of the world’s fastest growing businesses. Our CTO Kevin says: “It’s like the beginning of people’s imagination with computer games, which is awesome.” Start Your Free Trial.

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CTO Hire Startup CTO Travel 40

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

That question has been on Will Larson ‘s mind for a long time. For those who don’t know him, Will has over 10 years of experience in the likes of Yahoo, Digg, Uber, and Stripe, and he’s currently the CTO of Calm , the mindfulness app that helps millions of people to lower their stress levels and sleep better.

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 31, 2019

I’ve been a business partner of Finance and the CFO in several public companies in past lives, and SaaS Finance today is a more demanding operation than Finance was in traditional software companies. Cross-functional experience – helpful to have worked in SalesOps, Business Development or Strategy but have the Finance experience as well.

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