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 186

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 186

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself. Hire that person, and make sure they are someone the top customers can really trust and count on. That you can’t have a majority of y our revenue dependent on one customer. ” — Ankit Sindhi, Founder, Spurt.

CTO Hire 283

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 283

Valerian Tech

JULY 5, 2023

From improving customer experience to streamlining operations, technology has revolutionized the way hospitality businesses operate and given companies access to extremely valuable insights. Increasing Efficiency and Streamlining Operations Efficiency is vital in managing the complex operations of a hospitality business.

Payment Services 52

Payment Services Technology Payment Solutions CTO Hire 52

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 184

Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development Development Part-Time VPE 184

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

Merchant Services 90

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

But as time went on, we shared lessons, what best practices were in customer success and revenue retention and all these things are, right. Your core models for sales, for marketing spend, for hiring and engineering and product. Because this could happen to any business here. And I don’t mean in an edgy way.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 192

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Last but not least, if your sales tax noncompliance gets too out of hand, dealing with multiple states’ sales tax laws means that 46 state departments of revenue can potentially come after you for back taxes. Here’s what SaaS businesses need to know about simplifying sales tax. hiring in-house talent). ” 4.

Merchant Services 172

Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 172

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 4, 2023

To improve the efficiency of spend on cost of goods sold (COGS), most growth-stage leaders can optimize seat-based spend or renegotiate consumption-based contracts in a quarter or 2. They would have focused primarily on building a better DVD rental business and likely gone the way of Blockbuster Video.

Underperforming Technical Team 122

Underperforming Technical Team Benchmarks CTO Hire New CTO 122

OPEXEngine

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

The siloed management structure paralleled the key components of Operating Expense, making it easy to report backward-looking Income Statement expenses and recognized revenues, but not cross-functional customer and product lifecycle metrics, critical to managing a SaaS company. Chief Customer Officer or Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).

Part-Time CTO 69

Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire Management 69

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.

Sales Hiring 40

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Technical Review 40

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

While Baremetrics was fulfilling the desire for public transparency, internally the team was using Looker almost exclusively to track and report revenue metrics. 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.

Payment Solutions 113

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 9, 2022

But promotional paths are a-changing, according to a time-series by Spencer Stuart summarized in Harvard Business Review’s “ Finding the Right CEO.” I think it’s changing, and the Spencer Stuart data in Harvard Business Review show that it’s changing too. We hire a third-party firm.

CTO Coach 52

CTO Coach Customer Success VP of Engineering CTO Hire 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

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? In just four years, Podium has raised almost $100 million, with annual recurring revenue increasing to almost $60 million.

Sales Hiring 132

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? Harry Stebbings.

Scale 174

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 174

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. Full post. . Full post.

Scale 103

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.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Scale Technical Review Outsourcing Services 118

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2020

What other elements of the contract should startups really spend a lot of time focusing on? Julian Lemoine, Co-Founder, and CTO of Algolia will share his lessons learned on how to stay focused and innovative as you scale while also avoiding the innovation for innovation’s sake pitfalls. This episode is sponsored by Brex.

CTO Hire 134

CTO Hire compliance Scale Startup 134

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

While Baremetrics was fulfilling the desire for public transparency, internally the team was using Looker almost exclusively to track and report revenue metrics. 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.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Outsourcing Services 52

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Gaetan Gachet : All right, so usually the way I start this session is I ask the crowd which revenue stage they’re in. So when I joined we’re pretty much pre-revenue. So you were the first sales hire. So my first sales hire was beginning of 2015. So over time, don’t hire resumes necessarily.

Scale 136

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 136

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.

Finance 40

Finance CTO Hire Headcount SaaS 40

Point Nine Land

APRIL 9, 2021

To add to this, B2B marketplaces tend to have various different business models (commission, SaaS, not monetizing in the beginning), which makes it very difficult to come up with one-size-fits-all metrics for each funding round. As a result, we could not collect as many data points as we do for our SaaS napkin. Team ???????????

Marketplace as a Service 59

Marketplace as a Service Payments B2B SaaS Payments 59

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 6, 2019

If we succeed, the benefits go beyond retaining revenue: successful customers spread positive word of mouth which makes it easier to attract more customers. The question is not whether a CSM is a valuable asset to a SaaS business, but rather, how valuable are they? How many CSMs should you hire? What is their ROI?

Scale 43

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 43

Outseta

OCTOBER 15, 2018

First it was Wistia , followed shortly thereafter by Buffer ; both buyouts a sort of declaration of independence that gave both companies back the ability to build their businesses on their own terms. They had built a highly profitable business that was generally adored by its customers. in debt to buy out their investors.

CTO Hire 65

CTO Hire CTO Coach SaaS New CTO 65

SmartKarrot

AUGUST 16, 2022

Most businesses must get this a lot- Are you implementing QBRs and EBRs regularly? Why do some experts consider QBRs to be a waste of time? The Quarterly Business Review is a quarterly business meeting where stakeholders meet to discuss KPIs and goals. QBRs aim to determine whether business goals are met or not.

Technical Review 10

Technical Review Systems Review Business CTO Hire 10

ProfitWell

JANUARY 24, 2020

Wistia , the video software platform we know and love, reminds us that businesses have focused so much on making people aware that they exist, they’ve lost sight of what matters most?: Number two: Your efforts don’t necessarily convert to revenue. getting people to actually like their brands. So here’s where we need to steer clear.

Sales Recruiting 40

Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO Sales Hiring 40

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 246

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 246

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2020

Brendon introduces his playbook to hiring the first VP of Sales from his experiences as VP of Sales at LinkedIn, EchoSign, Talkdesk and more. Learn the dos and don’ts to make the correct hire the first time and not rush into hiring the wrong VP of Sales, which can cost the company months or even years. Roughly 90%.

Sales Hiring 157

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 157

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 18, 2022

Serve as senior-level advocate for all customer issues and provide ongoing management to ensure timely resolution. Direct the hiring, orientation, and training plan for Relationship Management team members as applicable. Nurture key relationships internally – product team, BD team, COO, CTO, etc.

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO 19

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2024

The average public SaaS company is marching toward $400k in revenue per employee. Is the CTO involved in these decisions? App contraction is still happening, and AI is absorbing all of the energy in the industry. You can lose deals to feature gaps, and Jason has seen rampant loss of business due to not having feature parody.

AI 241

AI Pricing Artificial Intelligence Scale 241

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2024

Jason Warner , who was CTO of GitHub before and during my time as COO there (and a former partner at Redpoint!) Our check sizes range from the low single-digit millions up to around $20M, depending on the stage of the company, market and the capital needs of the business. What’s your most recent disclosed investment?

Management 228

Management CTO Hire New CTO AI 228

Mucker Capital

OCTOBER 22, 2018

Building a successful business is hardly as fun as a day at the pool, though for Amanda Szabo, that’s how hers got started. After all, thanks to the rise of Airbnb and similar platforms, the hospitality industry was looking for new revenue streams to boost bottom lines. Have you always been interested in starting a business?

Interviewing 40

Interviewing CTO Hire New CTO CTO 40

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2019

Vlad will highlight what defines success in each stage of the growth journey, and how to create a winning business with the right product, team, and culture. Jonathan: And you describe yourself as a technologist first, or a business person? When the founder is a technologist versus a business leader? Jonathan : Hotel business?

Scale 145

Scale Business Sales Hiring CTO Hire 145

Buffer Resources

JANUARY 30, 2023

Then he became CTO at Bezos Academy, a non-profit organization founded by Jeff Bezos. After leaving Bezos Academy, he decided to start a paid newsletter focused on career development, organization design, and hiring. I'm not trying to grow my business as much as possible, but I'm also not retired.

Social Media 18

Social Media CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO 18

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2019

Who’s here on a CEO or more on a business hat SaaS? Who started their business more than three, four years ago? Traditionally we’ve been around since 2005 and traditionally have been a software on-prem business. They wanted real-time results. The business environment and adoption. Raise your hand.

Cloud 168

Cloud Scale Trends Machine Learning 168

User Pilot

MARCH 7, 2024

This could be explained by the fact that it was women, more often than men, who had to step down and work part-time to take care of stay-at-home children during the pandemic. Then I got hired at a tech company in Lithuania before I knew what tech even was. I knew nothing about tech. That was my perception of tech.

Technical Review 105

Technical Review CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire 105

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Jessica Weimer Vice President, Global Revenue Marketing @ Podium. Christine Spang, Co-Founder and CTO @ Nylas. Dave Walters, CTO @ Hired. Christa Diaz, Senior Director, Customer Success @ Hired. Jenn Knight, Co-Founder, CTO @ AgentSync. Brian Peterson, CTO @ Dialpad. Amy Appleyard, VP Sales @ VMWare.

VP of Engineering 272

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder CTO Coach CTO Hire 272

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 226

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 226