Intercom, Inc.

JULY 13, 2021

The only thing harder than designing a product is designing your career. For instance, the Design Career Index shows that 71% of design orgs don’t have a career progression framework. But if you don’t have a map for your career, then how do you know where you’re going? Start with the problems.

Interviewing 271

Interviewing Leadership Engineering Communication 271

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Raj started his career as a marketing manager at Cisco focused on the SMB market. He then jooined Google to become the lead product marketing manager on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Next, he headed marketing at Atlassian for Trello, Confluence, Jira for Business Teams & other products.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 144

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Marketing SMB Cloud 144

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Kicking us off is Jay Levy, Managing Partner at Zelkova Ventures. #1. Secondly, they built a product that is in the market with significant traction. #2. Jay Levy is Managing Partner of Zelkova Ventures. What’s your most recent disclosed investment? Why did you do the deal? We recently invested in Respondology.

Development Team Review 241

Development Team Review Management Technical Review Social Media 241

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What do you look for when hiring a VP of Product for a B2B SaaS? First, I’d go for a SaaS expert over a domain/target market expert in just about any senior hire — VP Product, VP Sales, VP Marketing. I wish they could make the jump, the B2C folks, because they make prettier, easier-to-use products.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring B2C B2B Engineering 278

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2022

Dear SaaStr: Do My VP of Eng and My VP of Product Have to Be Technically Excellent? And a Great VP of Product must: Have managed a dev team of some sort (even just an outsourced) one at some point in their career, AND. Truly owned bringing critical features into production. This has been pretty much my experience.

Part-Time VPE 243

Part-Time VPE Engineering Management 243

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

It’s not only rare(r) to see such explosive growth by a SaaS company, but to also watch Jonathan’s exciting career growth at the more senior levels within a hyper-growth company. You could give one rep the entire city, but that would be counter-productive. And when they paired reps with partner reps, productivity accelerated.

Payment Methods 208

Payment Methods Acquisition Scale Payments 208

The Daily Egg

JUNE 26, 2021

Product management is a skill that continues to grow as marketing and customer retention techniques evolve with the digital world. A product management course can provide the skills you need to begin or advance your career as a product manager.

Management 222

Management Retention Marketing 222

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2023

They want to focus on the product, then on the funnel, A/B testing, optimization, SEO, SEM, etc. Learn your prospects’ business processes in detail, and how your product enhances them. Learn how your potential customers will excel in their companies through your product. But, you’re going to have to hustle.

Scale 271

Scale Sales Hiring Enterprise Sales 271

User Pilot

APRIL 30, 2024

Marty Cagan is a popular name in the product management world. In many ways, he has shaped how successful products are built and how teams can be organized to work toward excellence. Marty Cagan is a well-known figure in the product management and technology industry. Who is Marty Cagan?

Management 88

Management Underperforming Technical Team Innovation Generative AI 88

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 3, 2022

Our products and platform have come a long way since Intercom was founded 11 years ago, and while our innovation is absolutely something to be proud of, we’re especially proud of the company culture we’ve built in tandem. The survey covered topics like management effectiveness, perks, focus on employee growth, and overall company culture.

Company Culture 211

Company Culture Innovation Compensation Development 211

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2024

This was precisely my experience upon meeting Toni and Carlos, the founders of Embat, in an area we’ve extensively have been exploring: treasury management and payment automation. Embat is building the next-generation treasury management software. So I’m going for something else. Focus and double down on things that work.

Payments 221

Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Scale 221

Tom Tunguz

MAY 15, 2023

A product manager today faces a key architectural question with AI : to use a small language model or a large language model? the company has no plan/interest to staff a team to manage AI infrastructure or develop deep machine learning experience / expertise in-house. The pace of innovation in the field clouds the answer.

Artificial Intelligence 201

Artificial Intelligence AI Machine Learning Scale 201

SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2022

For the first time in my career, I’ve worked with amazing first-time managers as CEOs. Before I was a CEO, I was a mid-level manager, a director. Those management teams weren’t perfect, and I wouldn’t copy everything they did. And once you have a real management team, that’s your job.

Communication 312

Communication Engineering Management Company Culture 312

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

From $5M to $100M: Founder Secrets to Scaling a Multi-Product Startup with Lattice’s CEO Jack Altman, co-founder and CEO of Lattice shares the secrets to scaling doing multi-product. Biggest Mistakes of My CMO Career with Databricks, Zoom, Okta, and HyperGrowth Advisors A deep dive on what makes for a great CMO. #6.

Scale 214

Scale AI Scaling Business Model 214

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2023

With good teams, good customers, good products, all that. You’re new, you aren’t stuck on 20 boards, you don’t have a bunch of dogs to manage. Try to actually care about founders, and not just see them as a product, as an investment vehicle. But don’t look at the calendar / clock. The merely good ones.

Investment 298

Investment Cloud SaaS Management 298

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

His day-to-day role as a first-time founder involves a lot of work around creating and building the MVP product and filtering out all of the noise in this SaaS ecosystem. You want to be scrappy and figure out how to do as much as possible without deploying the capital you’ve raised and preserving that money to build a product.

Headcount 219

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 219

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. Go All-In on Them.

Scale 363

Scale Business Interviewing Compensation 363

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

Product webinars are a great way of keeping up-to-date with the latest news and trends in product management in an accessible way. We’ve collected some of the best product management webinars for 2024, so you don’t miss out. What is a product webinar? Book the demo today!

Sales Hiring 94

Sales Hiring Generative AI AI Leadership 94

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 20, 2019

Picture this: You’re a product designer with a handful of years on your career path. You’ve cut your teeth on a few big launches and earned your stripes as a solid “mid level” product designer. Developing your product design career as an individual contributor. Results: The main ingredient of career development.

Development 223

Development Leadership AI Search Communication 223

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

After writing An Elegant Puzzle about the challenges of engineering management in high-growth organizations, his focus shifted to a career path that’s much less understood – the technical leadership track. If you’re a senior engineer and want to further your career, what skills should you develop? Will Larson: I would love to.

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

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. I’m just thankful that Trint was able to provide that for me and was able to support my career development in that way.

Outsourced Development 246

Outsourced Development Interviewing Leadership Customer Success 246

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

But I can tell you more than 12 years into my career as a venture capitalist, it’s hard. Cutting costs to reduce burn and buy time to get the product right. Managing the psyche of a team throughout the rollercoaster of everyday startup life. Manage burnout? It’s always hard. How do you engage people over Zoom?

Acquisition 279

Acquisition Finance Startup Engagement 279

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

Each will have a unique leadership style, sell different products, target different markets, lead different teams, and build distinctive growth strategies. You will be looking for someone to manage and scale the team. Types of Qualifications: Experience : Degrees or career milestones. Skills : Well-defined abilities.

Sales Recruiting 204

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 204

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

It’s impossible to talk about new technology without talking about human flourishing — every new technology from the plow to the microchip has typically been followed by a period of newfound wealth for consumers in the form of cheaper goods, improved productivity, and longer, healthier lives. We expect this time to be no different.

AI 139

AI Travel Technology Communication 139

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

Salesforce is a complex product, with (sometimes) long deployment cycles, professional services, dedicated admins, and all that. Put your customers and your prospects together in an event, and if your customers are superfans, they’ll sell the propsects that come on your product. I understood the importance of Dreamforce.

Travel 241

Travel Enterprise Management SaaS 241

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 15, 2021

Reflecting on her own career journey, Leandra Fishman, Intercom’s CRO, recalls being told, “You’ll never be successful without a college degree.” The pandemic has disproportionately affected women’s career growth. This last year has had a major – and potentially devastating – effect on women’s careers. The lesson?

Part-Time VPE 209

Part-Time VPE Underperforming Technical Team Leadership Engineering 209

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

As a startup evolves from product market fit to scaling, organizational design becomes an executive imperative. Span of control the number of people reporting to a manager. Most managers work well with 6-7 reports. Most managers work well with 6-7 reports. Managers bear another major responsibility: building their teams.

Startup 262

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team Scaling 262

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2023

In this session of SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays, the Managing Director & Head of Growth Equity at OMERS Growth Equity, Mark Shulgan, shares advice for focusing on the fundamentals and keeping profitability at the forefront. Engineering Productivity: It’s crucial to balance adding new features with product maintenance.

Scale 233

Scale Scaling Software Review Operational efficiency. 233

30 Day Leadership

JANUARY 30, 2024

Ever wondered if your career could be more than just a path directed by others? They delve into Derek's background, his career progression, and lessons learned from investing in himself as a leader. Ready to take charge of your career trajectory? Ready to take charge of your career trajectory?

Leadership 52

Leadership Investment Development Management 52

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

Some companies have a recruiting team and a separate talent sourcing team to identify candidates for initial phone interviews, while others have hiring managers in charge of the end-to-end talent acquisition process. Sometimes this requires holding team members accountable and managing the poor performers. Stage 4: Employee Promotion.

Underperforming Technical Team 228

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Acquisition Company Culture 228

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 1, 2024

This latest group of founders is boldly tackling big challenges ranging from upleveling key career skills to addressing loneliness through easy connectivity. in second grade and always had a passion for programming and making products, which persisted into his college years and led to the decision to collaborate with Luis.

Technical Cofounder 72

Technical Cofounder Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 72

SaaStr

APRIL 15, 2021

A few thoughts to excel as someone new to SaaS sales: Really learn the product cold. You can only solve a customer’s problems if you know the product you are selling cold. They can only answer the basic 5–6 questions about the product. Work for the best manager you can. And also — how you can accelerate your career.

Sales 361

Sales SaaS Startup Branding 361

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 29, 2021

In fact, in some form or another, he’s been working in sales for most of his career. What started as a few gigs selling media, property, and even bicycles turned into a blooming SaaS career that Mark has been mastering for the last decade at Salesforce, Wrike, and now BrowserStack. I have worked in media, sold property, managed a band.

Sales Hiring 223

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 223

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky to work with founders and management teams to sell about $5b of startups. The champion - often a product leader, the CEO, or a general manager - risks their career by buying a startup. During that time, I’ve observed a few things about M&A.

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Construction Compensation Acquisition 277

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

For context, Docebo is a learning management platform addressing the needs of corporations that train an audience internally and externally. Folks tend to think about Learning Management Systems and HR applications automatically addressing internal audiences and employees of a company. The image above is a glance at Docebo today.

Sales Hiring 216

Sales Hiring Scale SMB Outsourced Development 216

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

Hypergrowth in today’s highly competitive and budget-constrained SaaS world may be less frequent now, but Vanta, the software tool empowering security companies to achieve compliance and manage risk, has defied the odds. Even though she thought they were brilliant, most of the products didn’t get the attention of users.

Strategy 228

Strategy Scale Sales Hiring Startup 228

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

By inviting product teams to sales processes and vice-versa, you’re enriching them with insights that help drive a better experience and a more robust roadmap. I mentioned some of your previous roles in the intro, but I’d love to hear you talk about your career journey up until this point. Thanks very much, Liam.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210