Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2022

So, did headcount at the Series A. In 11 years, the median headcount at Series A swelled from 15 to 28. [1]. Series A dollars provided the business 17 months’ of runway at constant burn assuming no revenue. 1] Thank you to the Pitchbook team for running the headcount analysis data. [2] Round sizes ballooned.

Headcount 309

Headcount Venture Capital Finance Startup 309

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2022

Sales-driven SaaS startups end up with about half their headcount in sales and marketing. 2x the sales headcount you thought you did to hit the full plan for this year, and Q1 of next year. It sounds high at first, until you realize that's just how the math works. Software itself and other departments get leverage.

Scale 348

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 348

TurnKey Labs

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Effectively managing labor costs is a critical concern for businesses aiming to maintain financial stability and competitiveness. However, the challenge lies in finding ways to reduce expenses without resorting to employee layoffs, which can have adverse effects on employee morale and productivity.

Headcount 57

Headcount Strategy Management Business 57

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

Higher than he imagined in terms of the founder quality bar and, the stage of the business, and growth and efficiency metrics. People need to be scrappy, creative, and accountable to numbers that make sense for the business. Do you have to double your headcount to make it from $10M to $20M or even $2M to $5M?

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 278

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 27, 2023

Mid-market & SMB distributions skew left with up to 10% of businesses reporting a decrease in sales cycle during the period. The antidote: greater pipeline-to-quota coverage ratios by either increasing the top of the funnel or reducing the account executive headcount. The data analysis uses the results from the 2023 GTM Survey.

Startup 320

Startup SMB Headcount Sales 320

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

There’s no wrong answer here, but it will inform the path you take for your business. But in general, urgency is always helpful, balanced with thoughtfulness for what you want your business to look like over the next 30 years. So instead of focusing on scaling headcount quickly, work toward growing revenue quickly.

Sales Hiring 240

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 240

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Therefore, don’t be discouraged if your sales team members are making significant earnings, as it correlates with the overall success and growth of the business. Unlike building a product team, there is no efficiency when building a sales org: half of your headcount will be in sales at $10m, $50m, or $100m in revenue.

Sales Hiring 268

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 268

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 22, 2023

B2B companies have reduced headcount to a greater extent than at any time since 2020. The average layoff cut 50% or more of staff & more than a quarter of these businesses folded. The current wave of layoffs, a difficult component of the innovation boom/bust cycle, differs from the previous years’ dynamics.

B2C 279

B2C B2B Headcount Innovation 279

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

While minor for Monday’s business, this is interesting for us all to see. Like many tech companies, Monday added a ton of headcount in 2021. It then added only 63 employees last quarter, and plans to continue with very slow headcount for a while. But, high NRR in bigger customers is masking a modest NRR decline overall.

Headcount 307

Headcount SMB Engineering Scaling 307

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 2, 2019

This time every year, sales and sales operations teams work with their business partners in finance, marketing and other functions to set their annual sales plan for the coming year. Headcount Planning. This decision will drive many of your other headcount decisions. What ratio do you want between AEs and other sales roles?

Headcount 41

Headcount Sales Hiring Scale Sales 41

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 17, 2023

Like the Devops movement, the Dataops movement aims to scale the use of data within companies without increasing the headcount of the data team. Business logic : the data engineering team build the ETL pipelines while the data science team researches & implements machine learning algorithms for MLDS driven data products.

Data 217

Data Government Scale Headcount 217

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 11, 2022

What’s bad for customers is bad for business: 58% of consumers will stop purchasing from a brand that does not provide personal experiences they value. With all of these competing challenges, how can support teams drive business value and keep customers happy in the modern age? Declan Ivory, VP of Customer Support at Intercom.

Headcount 237

Headcount Customer Support Strategy Branding 237

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 6, 2022

Surprisingly, PLG companies’ profitability has suffered more than sales-led businesses. PLG companies R&D spend hasn’t produced new business at the same rate as a dollar invested in sales & marketing post-Covid. PLG motions tend to focus on smaller businesses which may be more susceptible to the economic downturn.

Headcount 299

Headcount Market Research Acquisition Education 299

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 5, 2020

But starting that week, startups began reducing headcount by about 700 per day. ClassPass, one of the fitness startups to reduce headcount, reported a 95% drop in sales in 10 days. Programs like the PPP should help minimize layoffs and keep small to medium businesses running. First, let’s look at layoffs by day.

Sales Recruiting 323

Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 323

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2024

Ask it to be authentic, irreverent, or whatever else you want while giving it context on what your business does. Before you open up a headcount and add more people, think about what you can automate. “You are a phenomenal copywriter…,” They ask it to return a full-body template and not just a snippet. Automate before hiring.

AI 163

AI Engineering Sales Hiring ChatGPT 163

SaaStr

DECEMBER 18, 2023

Facing Challenges Scaling AI 86% of CXOs say they will adopt AI and need it to move forward because it’s critical to their business. Organizations want to embrace AI, but they don’t have the right skill sets to get there, with 34% of businesses lacking the knowledge for it. How to scale AI across your business.

AI 264

AI Technology Scale Startup 264

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Overcoming challenges by optimizing for success In the early stages of setting up your SaaS business, it’s always a good idea to invest time thinking about the direction you want to take. Delivering the best customer experience With the surge in inbound leads, the business was growing exponentially. Use your data to inform.

Sales Hiring 251

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 251

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 31, 2023

The winter forced many companies to evolve from open-source projects to revenue-generating businesses. We also see more ARR-based web3 businesses achieving scale. Valuations remain relatively steady except for AI businesses, which command a premium to market of about 10-25%. This innovation reinvigorates very early-stage IPOs.

AI Search 228

AI Search AI Scale Headcount 228

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

Compound that over four years, and your business doubles. By freezing headcount for a year. Mathematically, if you keep the headcount flat and continue growing 50% like Monday or 30% at $2B like Hubspot, you get wildly more efficient. You had to be a painkiller because no one stayed up at night trying to buy business software.

Sales Hiring 250

Sales Hiring Headcount Finance Technical Review 250

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2023

In theory, higher quotas should “pay” for specialization so in theory, and this wouldn’t impact headcount too much. It’s a tough business, with sharp elbows, and half promises. Move on and focus on your business. Fifth, the more specialized the sales process is, the more folks you’ll need. SDRs, BDRs, SEs, etc. Not really.

Scale 276

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 276

Tom Tunguz

JULY 21, 2022

” This sentence echoes in conference rooms across many software buyers today, irrespective of whether the business is healthy. Management teams expect to reduce operating expense by 20% predominantly through headcount reductions or hiring freezes - everyone from sardine startups to public megalodons. Software does more with less.

Sales Hiring 144

Sales Hiring Headcount Software Finance 144

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 6, 2023

That’s a big difference, especially when you layer in the growth in headcount from 2021 to 2022. Essentially companies grew headcount significantly to add less ARR. We’re obviously seeing the rightsizing of this now with headcount reductions. The second chart comes from the latest MS CIO survey (below).

Cloud 130

Cloud Headcount Subscription Payment Features 130

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 23, 2022

Customer retention has never been more critical to business success than it is today. With increasing business costs and reduced headcount, companies are feeling the squeeze as they also grapple with rising consumer expectations. 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company that offers personalized experiences.

Customer Support 211

Customer Support Retention Headcount Customer Lifetime Value 211

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

This automated future raises all kinds of questions for businesses : will artisanal emails’ response rates differ from mass-produced emails? will quotas for SDRs & BDRs increase but headcount remain the same? how will sales teams restructure as a result of the mechanization of outbound email?

Artificial Intelligence 150

Artificial Intelligence Scale Headcount Scaling 150

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

While many of these mistakes or potential issue items are likely to be more prevalent in a business with a lean (or essentially non-existent) finance team, we’ve seen large businesses deal with many of these same challenges. A Functional P&L is simply a P&L where expenses are properly broken up by different business units.

Finance 118

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 118

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 26, 2022

Just how comparable are these businesses? Their business models differ meaningfully. The difference is starkest in headcount: Coinbase employs more than 5,000 people while Uniswap counts fewer than 100. They move in synchrony with an R^2 of 0.79. Coinbase and Uniswap generate billions in revenue. Uniswap recorded $1.7b

Benchmarks 269

Benchmarks Headcount Government Business Model 269

ChurnZero

JANUARY 11, 2024

Most company budgets that earmark dollars for customer success intend for it to go towards headcount. ChurnZero refers to that portion of the budget as the “non-headcount budget.” businesses braced for a recession that some economists had forecasted but never materialized. 2023 customer success budgets Economic context: U.S.

Headcount 52

Headcount SaaS Leadership Benchmarks 52

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Peter shares his experience with managing headcount. We got a reduced ROI on initial investment on headcount. Yoram Wijngaarde Building out a team is often the next step for companies looking to scale. We built out the CS function but I’d say we kind of overshot a little. Unfortunately, we had to let some people go.

Scale 52

Scale Scaling Headcount SaaS 52

ChurnZero

JANUARY 8, 2024

At most SaaS companies, the line item for customer success budgets is dedicated to headcount. This is why on our annual survey of customer success leaders , we ask about “non-headcount budgets.” This non-headcount approach is a technique for understanding how SaaS companies are investing in the needs of their customer success teams.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Headcount Benchmarks Leadership 52

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2020

Last year, the company doubled its headcount, tripled revenue and landed on G2’s Top 100 Global Software list. . There is an increased urgency in business – more risk, more potential, more importance on onboarding and customer success,” said Benton. . It’s all about the right numbers and finding real business value. .

Scale 357

Scale Artificial Intelligence Payments Payment Services 357

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

E.g., run an even bigger business unit. If the business is merged into another business? What if the business does worse than planned after the acquisition? How will the business be staffed if it does really well? Because headcount is often fixed in BigCos. Where will that leave the acquired business?

Acquisition 205

Acquisition Headcount Business 205

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2022

This is the secret sauce to Atlassian’s business model. Atlassian plans to double its headcount over the coming few years. And come join Atlassian’s CRO LIVE at 2022 SaaStr Annual on Sep 13-15 sharing how they scale their unique business model! 8,800 employees, so an impressive ~$350,000 in revenue per employee.

Scale 250

Scale Headcount Cloud Business Model 250

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 7, 2022

Schedule meetings right from within the Business Messenger , so you never miss a chance to connect. Increase your leads without increasing your headcount. But one of the major benefits of live chat for sales is that it allows you to capture and qualify more leads without needing to increase headcount. Learn more ?.

Sales Funnel 245

Sales Funnel Sales Headcount Subscription 245

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

Sanj has plenty of experience scaling sales teams at growing businesses, and that’s precisely why, as of November of last year, he‘s overseeing EMEA sales at Intercom. They were pushing this new way of utilizing technology – business applications being as easy to use as Amazon. It was the start of the wave of the cloud.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2022

Companies selling to mid-market and enterprise see this pattern with about twice the frequency of those selling to small and very small businesses. About 20% of those polled will conduct a layoff, and on average will reduce headcount by 20%. 30% of respondents have observed longer sales cycles.

Startup 212

Startup Scale Headcount Compensation 212

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

One reason Jennifer still does this after a couple of decades in business is because she loves seeing a person achieve something they didn’t think was possible for them. We can take higher risks in a less regulated industry than a peer in an investment bank or healthcare business. Zero trust isn’t enough.

Generative AI 260

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 260

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

1: Capital As an operator, your job is to take money and add headcount and programs to drive the growth engine for your company, You might think of capital as fundraising and budget. You hire in advance, and you’re constantly looking for the right people and talent to help scale the business. What are the must haves?

Headcount 225

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 225