Kellblog

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

Emboldened by this seeming endorsement, I dashed off what turned into a lengthy email on interviewing and recruiting, a topic about which I am passionate not because I think I am good it, but because I think I am not. Thoughts on The Recruiting Process. To line of business, IT, or both? Ask a seller to role-play a sales call.

Sales Recruiting 109

Sales Recruiting Interviewing Sales Hiring Finance 109

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 5, 2020

Which startup sectors are most affected by coronavirus? Roger Lee is maintaining Layoffs.fyi , which is a table of all the startups who have unfortunately cut staff. On the brighter side, it is a resource for startups looking to hire as they grow. But starting that week, startups began reducing headcount by about 700 per day.

Sales Recruiting 325

Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 325

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

Brendon Cassidy, my VP of Sales wrote a version of this piece a while back. I though an updated version of this would be good for founders thinking about hiring a VP of Sales … VPs of Sales themselves … and VPs-to-be to read — Jason, ed. … 10 Rules to Being a VP of Sales in a Startup.

Sales Hiring 293

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 293

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

In this post, we’re featuring our Recruiting Manager, Elizabeth Faddis! Priority projects are focused on enhancing the company’s recruiting strategy, processes, and programs to deliver on current and future talent needs. You recently started your Recruiting Manager role at FastSpring, how are you liking it so far?

Sales Recruiting 97

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Management Technical Review 97

OpenView Labs

APRIL 29, 2021

Recruiting top talent is the common denominator across all scaling startups. It’s an extremely competitive market filled with hundreds of “hot startups” calling on all of the same candidates. It’s an extremely competitive market filled with hundreds of “hot startups” calling on all of the same candidates. It’s a lot.

Sales Recruiting 81

Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale 81

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

What was the first warning sign your VP of Sales wasn't going to work out? A new VP of Sales doesn’t always double sales in 30 days — although it can happen in SMB sales. The old playbook does help, but every great VP of Sales knows they quickly have to evolve it to any new role.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 246

Kellblog

MARCH 17, 2020

Rephrasing Lewis Carroll, “if you don’t know what you’re recruiting for, any candidate looks great.” ” I liken executive recruiters to Realtors. ” That know-not-what, by the way, is that it’s for sale. Let’s switch to executive recruiting. Sound judgment and maturity.

Sales Recruiting 77

Sales Recruiting Sales Enablement Startup Pricing 77

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2022

The Simple Reason Startups That Just Raised $100s of Millions Are Doing Layoffs. Gartner: Business Software Spend Still Forecast to Rise 11.3% SaaStr 602: Secrets To Combining PLG and Enterprise Sales with Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover. ?. Secrets To Combining PLG and Enterprise Sales with Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover.

Sales Recruiting 279

Sales Recruiting CTO Compensation Software Review 279

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2023

You really need a great CTO, not just a good business team. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the startup. You have to love, or at least commit to, recruiting constantly. If you’re not willing to constantly recruit cross-functionality … you’ll never attract the talent. If you budget any less, you probably will fail.

Part-Time VPE 220

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 220

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2024

They used the competitive advantage of recruiting out of the Midwest, where they knew the markets and the people better. As a manager, you have to do things differently. But if you know what success looks like in sales, support, engineering, etc., Half of sales and marketing resources might not exist in 24 months.

Sales Recruiting 198

Sales Recruiting AI Search B2B Sales Hiring 198

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2022

We’ve talked a ton about How to Hire a Great VP of Sales on SaaStr, but I wanted to highlight a few VP of Sales “personas” that I rarely, if ever, see work out. Because again and again, many of your will hire this VP of Sales. Here are the types of VP of Sales that just never work out. Sales is hard.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Scale 249

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Recently, Redpoint Office Hours welcomed Allison Pickens to clarify the COO role and when startups should consider recruiting one. Whereas a decade ago, a board might have hired a professional CEO to scale the operations of a startup, today, more boards seek COOs. The CoS doesn’t manage anyone. The Four COO Archetypes.

Sales Recruiting 191

Sales Recruiting Startup Scale Sales Hiring 191

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2019

If you must choose a long term headquarters for your startup, call an executive recruiter who focuses in that city. VP Engineering, VP Product, VP Sales, VP Customer Success, VP Marketing, or VP Operations. After establishing product market fit, the startups grow their management team to scale.

Sales Recruiting 214

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 214

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. We were coming off an environment where startup funding was as fruitful as ever. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales.

Sales Hiring 255

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 255

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2023

The best VPs of Sales I’ve hired were Directors of Sales before. Even if you are quietly biased here, let it go when they show up incredibly on top of how your business works, and where it should go. But at startups? Maybe once you have a full recruiting team, they can parse some of these.

Sales Hiring 267

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 267

Tom Tunguz

MAY 31, 2021

In terms of time cost to the startup, a failed executive hire is roughly similar, 9 months. When a company hires an executive, the business hires the executive’s network. The better the management hires for a business, the greater candidates' interest to work for a company. Looker was one of those examples.

Sales Hiring 162

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Branding 162

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 18, 2018

Startups are business machines engineered to grow quickly. Every lead hired today, whether marketing , sales, engineering or product, will have a very different job nine months from now, much less two years from now. Imagine you work at a startup that is growing headcount 125% year over year. And ship code on time.

Sales Recruiting 268

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Headcount 268

Tom Tunguz

MAY 2, 2021

This summer, startups will define how they return to work. A startup has three main activities: (1) recruit a team to (2) build a product and (3) sell and service the product. Recruitment. Startups will need to decide which of these three options they offer and to whom: which teams, levels of seniority, and geographies.

Sales Recruiting 235

Sales Recruiting Government Sales Hiring Travel 235

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

The backup of 2020 was great, 2021 comes in and somehow we have 600 unicorns and everyone can burn 500 million a year or have huge sales teams. This is so different than the days of 2021 when a $200M ARR company might’ve had 2,000 or more employees, and maybe a startup doing just $50M had 700 employees. ” #2.

Sales Recruiting 288

Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Software Review 288

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2023

In 2020-2021, many SaaS startups faced a unique challenge. With teams spread across the globe, they had to find new working patterns to scale their businesses in a distributed environment. CRO at Wiz, Colin Jones, shares how this traditional startup evolved, thrived and grew from 0 to $100 million in just two years.

Sales Recruiting 212

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 212

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2022

One of the first what How to Hire a Great VP of Sales at the New York Enterprise Tech Meet-Up (thank you to John Lehr and Work-Bench for setting this up). The Number One Thing You Can Do to Accelerate Your Business Post-Initial Traction is Hiring a Great VP of Sales. I don’t know anything about sales.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting 259

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2023

So one recent survey we did really brought out a healthy debate: does your VP of Sales really need to be a product expert? Many of the comments said it was more important a VP of Sales understand process and leadership more than the product itself. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. Not just with buzzwords.

Scale 227

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 227

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

Ah the VP of Sales. The first post is What a Great VP of Sales Actually Does. The second post is a script for you to use (and modify as you see fit) – 10 Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales Candidate. Just so you know, there are 48 Different Types of VP Sales. The toughest hire. Such a high failure rate.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

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. Lead generation tools do change, but the basic motions of sales and marketing haven’t changed much.

Scale 241

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 241

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2021

A ways back, I asked Brendon Cassidy, VP of Sales at LinkedIn, Adobe Sign / EchoSign, and Talkdesk to put together his playbook for double sales. … How We Increased Sales Nearly 100% In One Quarter at HackerRank – Brendon Cassidy. HackerRank was not a $1 million or $2 million ARR business. Common sense.

Scale 277

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 277

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 16, 2019

So if scaling your sales organization is a priority in 2020, here are the things you need to be aware of to make sure you do so successfully. In my experience both as a salesperson and as a recruiter, it’s primarily been four things: They want the work they’re doing to matter to them. Hiring sales leaders will get harder.

Sales Recruiting 53

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Trends 53

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

The most frequent mishire in startups is the first head of marketing. The question facing founders recruiting marketers is: which is the most important to prioritize? Each of these kinds of marketers have critical skills for a startup. Each of these kinds of marketers have critical skills for a startup. Why is this?

Scale 214

Scale Startup Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 214

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

Over the last decade or so, I’ve compiled a metrics sheet to summarise a SaaS business. While no living document like this is ever perfect, this is currently the best board-level summary of the overall health of a business I have found. People is the first section because people are a startup’s most important element.

Metrics 209

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup SaaS 209

Tom Tunguz

MAY 28, 2019

They are are among the best engineers to recruit to the team and the first to join. Today, China, Brazil, India, Argentina, France, Ireland, Germany; you name it, there’s a startup with a remote office there. Sometimes, management spins up new offices to start a functional team like support or success or sales development.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Startup Sales Hiring Engineering 265

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

The Simple Reason Startups That Just Raised $100s of Millions Are Doing Layoffs. SaaStr 606: Your Real Valuation: How Focusing on Delivering Customer Value Generates Business Value with Gusto Co-Founder Josh Reeves. ?. Gusto Co-Founder Josh Reeves: How Focusing on Delivering Customer Value Generates Business Value.

Sales Recruiting 223

Sales Recruiting AWS Compensation Enterprise 223

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

Your startup is just getting off the ground. You might have a few account executives and a sales leader in place; maybe some revenue and a handful of customers. The sales team costs real money, and the question before the company is: how do you know what quota plan to assign to the account executives?

Compensation 151

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 151

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

Mark Roberge, the Chief Revenue Officer at Hubspot, has spent 20 years in startups. As he told me a few days ago, he has observed the lack of sales management and sales execution skills as one of the most consistent deficiencies limiting the potential of early stage SaaS companies. The first step is hiring a sales leader.

Sales Hiring 184

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Compensation 184

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

When a startup takes form, the first weeks and months and years are spent furiously. The startup raises capital. Suddenly, the business is working. The founders have hired department heads, who manage employees. At some point, those managers manage managers too. To recruit 100 people.

Scale 227

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Startup 227

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development. Is a CRO right for you?

Sales Hiring 238

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 238

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Chuck is the co-founder of Blueprint Expansion , a GTM roles recruiting firm that has helped over 50 VC-backed companies make amazing Sales, Marketing, & Customer Success hires. By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase.

Sales Hiring 105

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 105

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

COOs have become more common in management teams as ways for founders & CEOs to build the management team to scale a business. In conversations with management teams, the concept of a COO remains murky. Should you hire a COO for your startup? How you should you go about recruiting the right person?

Scale 293

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 293

Kellblog

JUNE 27, 2020

I’ve worked with several startups that fell into the following pattern: Selling a SaaS application at a healthy price (e.g., Resulting in an unprofitable professional services business (and wrecking the market for partner services). How about attaining their first business objective? 100K to $200K ARR). Implementations.

Consulting 144

Consulting Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 144