SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

Why are we the best people to go out and solve this problem? Lessons for a first-time founder: Your words matter on paper, in a Slack channel, and in every conversation you have with your team. Finance partners set budget and work with you to identify requisitions around the people you hire. What problem are we trying to solve?

Headcount 222

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 222

Trint

AUGUST 24, 2021

I started at Trint as a BDR, where my job was to go out there and make phone calls, send emails and LinkedIn messages to get people talking about Trint and to get people interested in our product. When I had my interviews with Trint, I just remember thinking that the interviewers were my kind of people. That’s massive.

Outsourced Development 246

Outsourced Development Interviewing Leadership Customer Success 246

SaaStr

MAY 11, 2021

I’m not sure I’m a great giver of golden advice, but here’s my list of the best golden advice I’ve been given: Manage People — In General, and Earlier. The earlier in your career you can learn how to manage people, the faster you can excel in learning to scale. Managing people isn’t always fun. Recruiting isn’t fun.

Scale 286

Scale Compensation Interviewing Scaling 286

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

How To Build A High-Performing Team And Retain Top Talent. People are the most valuable asset of an organization. Every leader needs to have a strategic playbook to build high-performing teams and retain top talent,” says Guan Wang, Global Director of Market Intelligence for Snowflake. . Stage 1: Talent Acquisition.

Underperforming Technical Team 230

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Acquisition Company Culture 230

ChurnZero

APRIL 1, 2024

Rarely are teams thinking about the impact on new logo pipeline. Customer success is one of the most impactful teams on the post-sale experience. Here’s how your customer success team can help maximize the influence of previous experience on repeat buyers: 1: Drive key stakeholder engagement. This is a missed opportunity.

Investment 92

Investment Sales Funnel Customer Success B2B 92

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Business leaders don’t have the advantage of building on the knowledge people already have about a product, and they’re not coming in with an alternative to something already in existence. . They weren’t replacing something people previously used. . Implementing a better sales team early on. Set The Bar Low.

Sales Hiring 236

Sales Hiring Sales Compensation Branding 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2023

The Person that “Took Them From $0 to $100,000,000 in Revenue” or “That Scaled an Entire Dev Team from 1 to 100” or “Got Us On TechCrunch 7 Times in 8 Months” or whatever variant thereof. The #1 reason to do a start-up is Career Development. Only money. Only the hot stock in your hot start-up.

Sales Hiring 302

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Startup 302

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2020

Limited career path if don’t move into management. It’s easy to see in many SaaS companies, but overall in the world, many people don’t really value the large contributions sales professionals make. If you are part of a larger sales team, you may just be a number on a leaderboard in some sense. A lot of them. It really is.

Sales 340

Sales Churn SaaS Management 340

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2023

This was fine and dandy while the company only had 30 people, but after tripling in one year to 90 and then doubling to 180, they realized how important those titles were. People care about titles and career paths for obvious reasons, so if you care about your team, these need to matter to you too. It’s their job.

Startup 245

Startup Communication Leadership Engineering 245

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2023

Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. At Team SaaStr, we’re 90% distributed. And it’s at least useful to see what they’ve learned.

Engineering 230

Engineering Data 230

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

User Pilot

APRIL 30, 2024

In many ways, he has shaped how successful products are built and how teams can be organized to work toward excellence. Offering insights on structuring teams, discovering the right products , and fostering a strong product culture, Cagan provides a blueprint for success for both startups and established companies alike.

Management 88

Management Underperforming Technical Team Innovation Generative AI 88

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 15, 2021

It’s not just that more diverse teams are more effective and more profitable ( though they are ); but, as Karen Peacock, our CEO, says , “It’s just the right thing to do.”. Reflecting on her own career journey, Leandra Fishman, Intercom’s CRO, recalls being told, “You’ll never be successful without a college degree.” The lesson?

Part-Time VPE 209

Part-Time VPE Underperforming Technical Team Leadership Engineering 209

SaaStr

AUGUST 17, 2020

Here’s my list of the best golden advice I was given as a first-time — and second-time — CEO: Manage People — In General, and Earlier. The earlier in your career you can learn how to manage people, the faster you can excel in learning to scale. Managing people isn’t always fun. More here. Go All-In on Them.

Scale 363

Scale Business Interviewing Compensation 363

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 29, 2021

And so, Mark Rudden and his team had to figure it all out by themselves. Fortunately, Mark had quite a bit of experience working and scaling teams in demanding, hypergrowth environments. In fact, in some form or another, he’s been working in sales for most of his career. Putting people first. Caught your interest?

Sales Hiring 223

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 223

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

People think you can’t build a business without burning a lot of cash, too. Alessio shared that early on in his career, he wished he prioritized profitability more than he did. In 2012, they started with a freemium model where people could go online with a credit card and pay $100 a month. Instead, it was growth at all costs.

Sales Hiring 219

Sales Hiring Scale SMB Outsourced Development 219

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

The last 18 months have seen the biggest changes in the VP of Sales in his SaaS career. We’re still learning what world we’re in — some people interview over Zoom, some are focused on how to build teams in the current age, and many are dealing with a weird overhang from the SaaS explosion of 2021, quiet quitting, layoffs, and team turnover.

Sales Hiring 152

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 152

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 10, 2020

I hope this post allows people and teams to safely talk about Product Judgment. If you have ever wondered why some people are extremely good at creating successful products, and others aren’t, this post will help you. Two people with very strong Product Judgment can disagree. Nor from reading survey data.

Underperforming Technical Team 291

Underperforming Technical Team Interviewing Communication B2B 291

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 20, 2020

One of our core values at Intercom is “We love people who genuinely want to learn and grow.”. Of course, celebrating and encouraging a growth mindset is all good and well, but how do we put in place structures and processes that actually encourage career growth? Engineering career path. That doesn’t need to be the case, however.

Engineering 221

Engineering Management Headcount Development 221

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

Secret #1: ‘Build it, and customers will come in’ is not a great approach Early in Cacioppo’s career, she built multiple products with little to no user insights. Most of us can’t pull off a Zuckerberg, walk into a dorm room, and build a product that millions of people use.” Do what it says on the tin. Imagine a cookie tin.

Strategy 231

Strategy Scale Sales Hiring Startup 231

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

So how can sales leaders best manage their sales teams, both new and more experienced, to keep both morale and numbers up? First, launching Stripe’s LatAm sales team, and now in the platform sales organization. You can’t control uncertainty, but you can create stability for your team. They trust us to see the value.

Sales 229

Sales Management Operational efficiency. Forecasting 229

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 13, 2021

Jim asked his management team to watch it both because it’s uproarious and we all benefit from a laugh, and also because Ted Lasso practices many great management techniques. Imagine running a company not having met most of the team. The top performing sales people tell 20% more stories. How do you create alignment?

Data 271

Data Sales Management Marketing 271

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 4, 2018

Imagine walking into the office one morning and having your star team member ask if you have a few minutes to talk. And unfortunately, your suspicions are confirmed when they hand you their resignation and explain they’ve been offered “a new and exciting opportunity” that aligns with their career aspirations.

Underperforming Technical Team 223

Underperforming Technical Team compliance Development Customer Support 223

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 15, 2022

To ensure that future is as bright as possible, we need diverse teams of software engineers working on the world’s most pressing problems. We foster belonging at Intercom by celebrating our differences, and we are committed to building diverse teams. Diverse teams are repeatedly proven to be more innovative, productive, and happier.”.

Software Engineering 104

Software Engineering Engineering CTO Software 104

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

With all the news of unicorns and IPOs and acquisitions driven by the broader market, teams can fall into a trap to think building a startup into a success is easier for others. But I can tell you more than 12 years into my career as a venture capitalist, it’s hard. How do you engage people over Zoom? Maintain the culture?

Acquisition 279

Acquisition Finance Startup Engagement 279

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2024

When Christian asks his sales team how much pipeline they need to hit their number, everyone typically gives a similar answer: “ You’re going to hear 3x a lot. ” In essence – re-train your sales team to think about pipeline requirements based on actual data vs. gut instinct. The second rule: Measure Everything.

Enterprise 268

Enterprise Scale Sales SaaS 268

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

There’s a CEO at the top in red, VPs in orange, senior contributors in dark gray, team leads in green, and junior individual contributors in light gray. Sometimes there are directors running teams that should be headed by VPs. To scale means hiring lots of people. Hiring a large team is necessary, but insufficient.

Startup 262

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team Scaling 262

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2022

Number of people who quit their jobs in December 2021: 4.3 Alice Katwan , SVP at Twilio , discusses how you can build a high-retention sales team while being remote. Leverage your network: Reach out to your network and ask your team to do the same. Invest in your team’s development.

Sales Hiring 233

Sales Hiring Scale Retention Sales 233

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 20, 2019

Picture this: You’re a product designer with a handful of years on your career path. Developing your product design career as an individual contributor. Developing your product design career as an individual contributor. There’s a classic fork in the road for product designers who are looking to grow in their career.

Development 223

Development Leadership AI Search Communication 223

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2023

When we first wrote about this here , it was controversial, a lot of people said “you have to give a VP of Sales more time” But I think once everyone that’s done it thinks about it, they agree. They are aggressive, so they can bring in the first batch of hires for her team. At least, not yet. You have to.

Sales Hiring 241

Sales Hiring Scale Scaling Revenue 241

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2023

Instead, looking forward and seeing that the speed of mobile adoption would lead to people moving their lives, products, and services into mobile was the conviction that led Braze to its future success. During the pandemic, the way people transacted and communicated changed rapidly. and banking on a change in how customers behave.

Scale 213

Scale Mobile Venture Capital Scaling 213

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

Across the US, people are quitting their jobs in record numbers. . This year, it’s estimated that approximately one in four people have quit their jobs , and those positions are remaining open for much longer than expected. Yet few managers ask themselves the hard questions: am I the reason people are leaving?

Management 291

Management Software Review Construction Engineering 291

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 18, 2022

As a staff engineer, a lot of your energy goes into cross-team collaboration for the vision and strategy. Having staff engineers as mentors allows more junior people to get clarity on which steps to take to reach those roles and you fast-track the process of creating engineering leaders. Where is the company going to be in five years?

Engineering 204

Engineering Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review 204

Buffer Resources

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

We use this report to do a deep dive into the experience of remote workers around the world, their work structure, their struggles, and their career growth and pay. A whopping 98 percent of respondents want to work remotely for the rest of their careers. One teammate has been a digital nomad ever since joining the team.

Trends 131

Trends Communication Engagement 131

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 3, 2020

Our experience has shown us that people perform best when they know what’s expected of them, so we think interviews should be a transparent, two-way evaluation. We’re confident this won’t help people game our system, but it will give you the best chance to show us your strengths. We don’t expect you to know anything about us.

Interviewing 290

Interviewing Systems Review Compensation Travel 290

FastSpring

MARCH 8, 2021

Why do you think it is important for more women to want to have a career in the tech industry? Even if you are specializing in one field, often, you’re engaging with team members from other departments and learning about their skillset, tech stack, goals, etc. The great thing about tech is that you become so well-rounded.

Technical Review 145

Technical Review Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Leadership 145

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 26, 2024

He also shares insights and highlights from a decades-long career in machine learning, which includes stints running research teams at both Yahoo and Amazon Web Services. “And then deep learning comes along and people just run stuff, and it does something and they find it to be interesting.

AI Search 98

AI Search Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence AI 98