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.

CTO Coach 242

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 242

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. . Part 2: Reliability. Instead, the CTO suggests that you avoid adding new pieces of infrastructure until absolutely necessary.

CTO Hire 246

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Including: CEO Snowflake CEO HubSpot CEO DropBox CEO Descript CEO Clio CEO Flock Safety CEO Own CRO ServiceTitan CMO Databricks CMO Infinite Reality CTO Rubrik CCO Canva CCO Bill CCO GitHub VP AI Wiz CEO Calendly and 100s more!! Investor Connections and Funding Opportunities — And $5m AI VC Pitch Stage!!

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

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: Enterprise AEs, Mid-Market & SMB AEs, SDRs, Sales Ops, Sales Engineer. CTO (40 Employees). CTO (114 Employees).

CTO Hire 278

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 278

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. Of Engineering.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 27, 2018

Intercom’s mission is to make internet business personal. Uptime is critical to the success of our business, and not just because our customers are paying us, but also because we heavily dogfood our own product. Back in the early days of Intercom, our CTO Ciaran was the entirety of the on call team, both in and out of the office.

Engineering 209

Engineering Software Review Technical Review Systems Review 209

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

They hire a VP of Sales who doesn’t want to sell or learn the product. You also don’t want to hire a VP of Sales who won’t carry a bag. If you joined a startup at $2M and wanted to get to $6M with reps doing $400k, that VP of Sales would need to hire ten reps. 90% of the time, sales falls when a founder steps out of it.

CTO Hire 204

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO Venture Capital 204

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 11, 2020

Intercom has responded by hiring a diversity and inclusion consultant, updating our recruitment strategy and hiring practices to reduce bias, scheduling allyship training for all employees, and amplifying Black voices in our podcast and blog. We take so much pride in the work Intercom is doing to take a stand against racial injustice.

Technical Review 289

Technical Review Software Review Systems Review CTO Hire 289

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. There are no Cloud magicians, and you can’t hire a PLG magician. Let’s jump right into the questions.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 278

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. This is Dan, CEO of WalkMe, and Wade, CEO of Zapier, and Mallun, Chief Business Officer of RPX, and Craig from Dialpad.

Sales Hiring 258

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 258

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to see: A couple of good hires brought in Improvement on some metrics A big deal or two hanging out there, brought in and closed Things taken off your plate. More time may make them better if they’re already progressing, even if it’s just 10-15% in the first sales cycle. Hiring someone too junior. That often compounds.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

In engineering, you want to move fast, ship often and solve real customer problems. It means reducing choices amongst engineering teams and standardizing technology, so our team can spend as much time as possible delivering value to customers. Rich: Today I’m the Senior Director for Foundations Engineering at Intercom.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

At the same time – there are only 1,000 Fortune1k companies, right? And hundreds of thousands of downmarket businesses that could get value out of ZoomInfo. We make sure that we can continue to maintain the new business sales motion while we’re doing that to see if we can get to a place where it’s additive.

New CTO 305

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 305

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you’re running a smaller digital business, you may find it challenging to hire great talent. If you’re facing challenges winning the best candidates for your roles, or if you have a small number of roles and every hire really matters, then don’t miss this episode of Growth Stage. Listen or watch now!

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SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 107

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

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. If you’re a senior engineer and want to further your career, what skills should you develop?

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

376: In part two, ZoomInfo founder and CEO Henry Schuck shares how he built a business from scratch and grew it into one of the most successful IPOs of the 21st century—and what it was really like…the good, the bad, and most of all, the ugly. You start this business. They’ve invested in all of these other businesses.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

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 283

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 283

SaaStr

OCTOBER 24, 2022

Doing Business with Developers. According to Gartner, 98% of companies plan to use APIs in their business, either internally or publicly. Anyone who says the developer market is not strong is behind the times. The contract size grows. Twilio, for example, built a next-generation telecom through an API.

Underperforming Technical Team 207

Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development Development Part-Time VPE 207

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.

CTO Hire 69

CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 69

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.

Merchant Services 195

Merchant Services Technical Review Scale Sales Hiring 195

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. If you don't have product and engineering knowledge that's tough.

Sales Hiring 121

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup Outsourced Development 121

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Intercom was created out of an epiphany in a small Dublin coffee shop because we realized that the impersonal, transactional way of doing business online just wasn’t cutting it for customers anymore. Ever since the beginning, our mission has been to make internet business personal, and the podcast has played a big role in that.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 18, 2025

Discussed in this Episode: When to hire your first account executives Key traits to look for in early sales hires Structuring compensation for first sales reps Should you ‘hire the buyer’ to be your sales rep? 31:55 Hiring for grit, curiosity & determination. What does Joe look like at that time?

Sales Hiring 92

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale VP of Engineering 92

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

Your core models for sales, for marketing spend, for hiring and engineering and product. Because this could happen to any business here. And the best CTO I know in the world is the CEO. Anyhow, so then he went and he was a romantic and he did a search company, great engineer, hard problem, search.

Outsourcing Services 243

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

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 130

Underperforming Technical Team CTO Hire CTO Coach Technical Review 130

Crafty CTO

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

I’ve learned so much … most importantly, I think, that I love being a fractional CTO, a role that allows me to make use of everything I’ve learned and experienced over a long technology-focused career. What’s changing, rather, is the entity I’m delivering through – a new company called Crafty CTO.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Headcount 40

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2019

Being an engineer can give you the upper hand as a CEO because you understand the product. Flexible integration with any other software, hardware or business workflow applications. Mallun Yen : So, you were an engineer by training and then you became an engineering leader, as the CTO of Webex, and then you became a CEO.

Sales Hiring 136

Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire Marketing 136

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. Pete was a Google Associate Product Manager for AdSense and launched Google App Engine. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. It’s the only way to scale the business. And you should do it right then.

CTO Coach 113

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 113

Casey Accidental

JUNE 8, 2021

I was able to hire a strong team, and we got to work, 100xing the size of our customer base over four years. As part of this process, a lot of what I tried to do was reduce distractions for the team. When I started managing teams at Grubhub over a decade ago, I was pretty obsessed with high performance.

CTO Hire 125

CTO Hire Venture Capital CTO Communication 125

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. Engineering Manager: In charge of planning, designing, and overseeing projects.

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Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 24, 2021

A thanks to [Marsh 00:00:34] for stepping in at the beginning of the month, and a great session with our own Jason Warner and Adrian, the CTO of Zendesk. Lionetti, the CMO at Confluent, and most recently, the CTO from Zendesk, Adrian. Excited to be back emceeing. That was the start of the Month of Scale. COO, what does it mean?

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CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 164

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. 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. Sam’s Corner [28:45]. Show Introduction [00:10]. What is LinkSquares?

Scale 117

Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach Scaling 117

Teamgate

JUNE 11, 2025

Integrations +1 725-254-2694 Start Free Trial Login Log in Sign up REQUEST A DEMO --> Sales Management Top Tools for Monitoring API Performance Chase Horn June 11, 2025 Explore the top API monitoring tools that enhance performance, reduce downtime, and support scalable operations for businesses of all sizes.

Scale 52

Scale Payment Solutions Payments SaaS Payments 52

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 5, 2022

There are enough stories of data breaches and cyber attacks to chill even the savviest security engineer to the core. An aerospace engineer turned entrepreneur, Adam learned early the best way to earn trust was proving you deserve it. But before universities would do business with them, they needed assurance on their security posture.

Scale 211

Scale Software Review compliance Technical Review 211

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

So one qualitative is when the customers love the product and the metrics for measure the love is phenomenal engagement, great retention, let them expand dynamics into the customers, growth led by expansion MRR more than the new business MRR, and ideally negative share. I mean, there’s successful businesses on both sides.

New CTO 174

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 174

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 31, 2019

I am the CEO of a company called Woven, which is an intelligent calendar for busy professionals, and I have spent my entire career focused on the productivity of others. I don’t believe any of that, in large part because I have to develop software for this stuff. That was actually a pretty tall order at the time.

Artificial Intelligence 169

Artificial Intelligence Scale CTO Hire Technology 169

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. This level of velocity is a delight for both our customers and engineers, but introduces the potential for risky changes.

Data 118

Data CTO Hire Technical Review Scale 118