SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

The highs and lows always come, usually involving the people on your team. For Erica, the bad days are when they’re not executing or achieving growth the way they want. They also come in the form of people she cares about leaving the business or struggling to succeed because they don’t have the tools they need.

Scale 260

Scale Underperforming Technical Team SMB Finance 260

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). Focus on performance management of your product and engineering teams as early indicators for what R&D investments are working, and which aren’t.

Underperforming Technical Team 124

Underperforming Technical Team Benchmarks CTO Hire New CTO 124

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 20, 2021

The choices were simple: dive headlong into a decade’s worth of digital transformation , or go out of business. As a result, much of the evaluation, investment, and rollout of virtual training technology in 2020 was rushed, limited in scope, and poorly planned. And for 90% of customers, businesses are failing at onboarding.

Investment 94

Investment Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Scale 94

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2024

You want people to call you because you have a great business. Most often, you get a call from a function called corporate development. It’s not a bad relationship to have, but understand that they’re deal executors, not deal creators. At places like Google or Meta, they’re organized into business units. It’s happened.

Underperforming Technical Team 166

Underperforming Technical Team Data Development Team Review Technical Review 166

InsightSquared

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Running the sales development team at InsightSquared has afforded me the opportunity to create such an environment and keep our team motivated by exposing a clear path to improvement. Last week, I talked about how to use data to run your sales development team and drive results during a live webinar.

Underperforming Technical Team 92

Underperforming Technical Team Development Data Sales 92

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2020

It’s no secret there’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into balancing your business and customers. Having a functioning product team will make that balance just a tad easier. . Sometimes as business owners and teams we make assumptions. A huge problem most teams face is homogeny. What is their commute like?

Underperforming Technical Team 231

Underperforming Technical Team Interviewing Branding Investment 231

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

And for Intercom’s VP of Sales EMEA, Sanj Bhayro , scaling is just what you need to invest in to ensure growth becomes as constant and linear as it can be. 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.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

If someone is working hard but isn’t working out, invest in them and see if you can get them into the high-performing category. The underperformers who aren’t putting in the effort get a conversation, and if things don’t change, it’s not a good fit. But incentivization should be across the business. Guess what?

Sales Hiring 217

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Sales 217

Stax

JANUARY 3, 2024

In this blog, we will cover what your small business needs to consider when implementing self-checkout. Poor implementation of self-checkouts can add friction to the customer experience, so it’s important to design a tailored checkout strategy and smooth implementation. 9 Steps for Implementing Self-Checkout Step Summary 1.

Payment Solutions 88

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payment Services Payments 88

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2024

ARR, Zendesk today gets 14% of new business from startups. You don’t want conflict with the sales team. How do you leverage that offer to develop relationships with partners? This is where they started, but startups weren’t adopting the product as much with a discount, and there was a lot of conflict with the sales team.

Startup 200

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team AWS 200

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. A business is SaaS or SaaS-like if it sells anything else software-related.

Marketplace as a Service 141

Marketplace as a Service Business Model SaaS Payments Payments 141

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

More business people than engineers. Learn about your investors previous bad investments (this could determine your fate!). #2 Remember, you’re the one who gives investors power over your business. #3 Causes: Weak previous relationship. 5 Slow product development. Bad co-founder relationships.

Underperforming Technical Team 187

Underperforming Technical Team Startup Engineering Retention 187

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

How do you build out a Sales Development (SDR) function at your SaaS company? Establishing a baseline for successfully doing outbound with the existing sales team you have is critical before investing in a dedicated SDR function. First, they had six AEs before they started hiring any SDRs.

Sales Hiring 174

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Revenue 174

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

How should you handle presenting challenges to your C-suite team when you’ve just joined the company? She was hired because they saw a bit of softening in new business growth, and she came to help diagnose what was going on and help scale the business. The bad news is it wasn’t driving the results they wanted.

Scale 246

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 246

User Pilot

MAY 1, 2024

Before starting his own venture, Lenny worked in the product and engineering teams of companies like Airbnb and Neustar. Renowned for his tenure on Airbnb’s product team, Lenny’s professional journey truly began in 2010 when he served as the CEO of a budding startup named “Localmind.”

Underperforming Technical Team 75

Underperforming Technical Team New CTO Interviewing CTO 75

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 19, 2022

By now, most business leaders have had some kind of run-in with the effects of the Great Resignation. As the president of Sales Xceleration, a firm specializing in assessing and implementing sales strategy , sales processes, and sales execution to drive growth, I’ve seen how job hopping can affect otherwise stable sales teams.

Sales Hiring 79

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting Compensation 79

Casey Accidental

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

This can make it tricky to evaluate as an engineer, designer, product manager or CEO if the investment will bear fruit and whether one should keep going. I’ll explain how I think about these decisions as a product leader and give more context on the journey of developing entirely new products inside a company. Amazon on Alexa?

Underperforming Technical Team 63

Underperforming Technical Team Scale GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup 63

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Investing in Instacart was perhaps the hardest decision I had to make as a venture capitalist. We pulled from my prior marketplaces experience and dove into their business quickly to develop a point-of-view on the opportunity. to build digital grocery businesses in the U.S. It truly has been a team effort.

Marketplace as a Service 142

Marketplace as a Service Scale Underperforming Technical Team Construction 142

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2022

A crisis can strike at any time without warning, and it can be especially stressful when business leaders are not prepared for the unknown. Many businesses are struggling to survive after the pandemic triggered unprecedented challenges, crippling the global economy as a whole. Develop a well-defined vision. Define your crisis.

Travel 222

Travel Revenue Underperforming Technical Team Scale 222

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 12, 2019

A little over a year ago, I got the opportunity to start a new team within our sales organization – a team of Relationship Managers dedicated to growing our current customers at scale. We now had “hunters” who acquire new business and “farmers” who nurture existing business. Relentlessly measure impact.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

One of the biggest challenges businesses face when they grow is scaling effective , autonomous and quick decision-making. It has a compounding effect - the more good decisions a business makes, the better the results will be. OKRs are a useful mental model - they make it crystal clear what people and teams should be striving for.

Underperforming Technical Team 213

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service 213

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2023

Mistake #1: Viewing Investors Only As Capital As founders build a team, they focus on obtaining complementary skill sets. Of course, building great teams and finding product market fit is critical, but don’t forget about product investor fit. So if you’re trying to fit your business model into what SaaS looks like in the U.S.

Development Team Review 238

Development Team Review Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team SMB 238

The Angel VC

MAY 17, 2017

In our weekly investment team call earlier this week we decided to pass on two early-stage SaaS startups that were both on track to grow from zero to $100k in MRR in their first 12 months of going live. And chances are that it would have been a good investment. I’ll keep you posted.) What does it mean for SaaS founders?

Business Model 180

Business Model Venture Capital SaaS Underperforming Technical Team 180

Neil Patel

APRIL 20, 2021

Education is the key to success in business but I’m not just talking about your college or university; I’m talking about self-education. Understanding the finances behind your business can help you increase your profits, cut back on expenses, and operate more smoothly. The list could go on, but it’s all part of being a business owner.

Outsourcing Services 119

Outsourcing Services Business Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development 119

Audacix

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Knowing this fact, around 51% of organizations are planning to increase their investments in security for the next year. Securing your applications, organization's cloud posture and networks will require strategic planning and investing in vulnerability management. Table Of Contents In 2023, USD 4.45

Underperforming Technical Team 40

Underperforming Technical Team Enterprise Software Management 40

Audacix

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Knowing this fact, around 51% of organizations are planning to increase their investments in security for the next year. Securing your applications, organization's cloud posture and networks will require strategic planning and investing in vulnerability management. Table Of Contents In 2023, USD 4.45

Underperforming Technical Team 40

Underperforming Technical Team Enterprise Software Management 40

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

A market gap can be caused by missing functionality or poor user experience. Tracking user behavior in-app enables product teams to find ways to improve product experience. Competitor analysis enables PMs to find areas where rivals fail customers and develop sound positioning and differentiation strategies.

Underperforming Technical Team 89

Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Market Research Outsourced Development 89

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

I’m talking about product-led growth as an investment strategy, but really my background is 10 years of operating experience in the product-led growth world. Now I’m investing in that. I say investment strategy, but really it’s like how do you build a company that’s focused on product-led growth?

Investment 101

Investment Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Software Review 101

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

A mentor of mine suggested that I reframe my search to seek out companies that I would invest in, instead of the other way around. He told me, you can invest time, talent, or treasure. Unfortunately for me, I had little experience, not much talent, and lacked the treasure/money to invest. It seemed like the best investment! .

Scale 272

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 272

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 96

Underperforming Technical Team Development Revenue Sales Hiring 96

Baremetrics

AUGUST 6, 2021

There comes a point in any successful business, however, when it’s time to grow. For the cacophony of new voices to come together in harmony, they will need a guiding process and structure as scaffolding for the business you are building together. Plan your hiring process long before adding people to the team. start free trial.

Underperforming Technical Team 130

Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development Consulting Scale 130

Neil Patel

OCTOBER 29, 2020

They don’t have the strategy, tactics, or tools they need to market their business well. The bad news is that marketers waste 37 to 95 percent of their marketing budget. This is really common, but it doesn’t have to be; if you have the right digital marketing strategy in place, growing your business is easier.

Underperforming Technical Team 145

Underperforming Technical Team Strategy Development Payment Methods 145

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

I still remember the very first time I met Dev back in 2011 and I was this engineer turn first-time founder, CEO running the business. And we were like less than 10 million ARR and business was doing very well. And I met with Dev and I was telling him our business was doing very well and he asked me, “Why is it doing well?”

Sales Recruiting 255

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 255

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

sales team. Well, let’s go to the business school at Michigan.” As everyone left to work for an investment bank in California or New York that summer of ’99, I went to work at a startup in Ann Arbor. I did all sorts of things there from sales, to project management, to running the engineering team, hiring.

Scale 227

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales 227

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

They are hiring leaders, building teams, and attracting advisors in the US while devouring the SV SaaS playbook. Application SaaS has matured and increasingly there are fewer niches available to build large businesses. In return, they will spend a certain number of hours per month with your team. Learnings on GTM.

Scale 233

Scale Sales Hiring Cybersecurity Underperforming Technical Team 233

Casey Accidental

NOVEMBER 13, 2019

Founders have started reaching out asking for help converting their SAAS or SAAS-like business into a marketplace. I’ve helped their business, but they’re asking for help driving more customers. Now, this story itself explains why many businesses fail to make the conversion to marketplace.

Marketplace as a Service 106

Marketplace as a Service Business Model Business Underperforming Technical Team 106

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2023

A bad experience with a revenue operations leader might taint your view of the position at all future companies, but that would be a mistake, as CRO Confidential podcast host Sam Blond learned first-hand. If you’re growing quickly and making a lot of sales hires, you might invest earlier. Develop a sales methodology.

Sales Hiring 214

Sales Hiring Education Scale Strategy 214