SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

They don’t have the bandwidth to support five sub-partners in their category. Look at the most important categories that surround your category. Mapping Partnerships When you have a relationship like AWS, you have to hire someone who has managed a complicated, matrix-level, nuanced relationship. Otherwise, it falls apart.

AWS 199

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 199

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 15, 2021

Suppose you’ve started a company that’s creating a category. Do you spend aggressively to create the category or conserve capital, knowing education will take time? New categories form at unpredictable rates because each market has distinct nuances. I’ve watched buyers in new categories. Product matters.

Strategy 256

Strategy Banking Finance Education 256

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Throughout her time there, she scaled the SaaS company from $1M ARR to pre- IPO, along the way, creating the category of customer success software, and paving the way for Gainsight’s $1.1B Should you hire a COO for your startup? Today, she advises and invests in companies on these topics and others. If so, at what stage?

Scale 299

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 299

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2021

The #1 biggest mistake I see from $1m to $10m ARR is chasing new market segments, new categories, new areas where you have 0 or almost no traction. Hire a real management team. Hire a VP of Sales that knows what they are doing. Hire a VP of Marketing that knows demand gen cold. There are 10,000 new apps out there.

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Headcount Pricing Market Segmentation 294

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

They were among the first in their category to think of the external side of the market because the external U.S. It became a hiring ground for early-stage out-of-college grads who are just getting started and have helped keep Dobeco’s real estate costs and salaries more manageable. Hire for greatness! That’s the secret.

Sales Hiring 193

Sales Hiring Scale SMB Outsourced Development 193

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

First, they had six AEs before they started hiring any SDRs. When Sam joined, there were two AEs, and he hired four additional AEs. The first hire after six AEs was a senior hire, Ashley Kelly, as Senior Director of Sales Development. Before even introducing SDRs as a function, there was a heavy focus on outbound.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Revenue 171

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Creating an entirely new category in the B2B tech market is its own ball game. Gong is one of those companies that created its own category and was most recently valued at $7.5b. If You Create A New Category, Make Sure It’s Awesome. Blond mirrors this position with his time at Zenefits, another company that created a category.

Sales Hiring 210

Sales Hiring Sales Compensation Branding 210

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2023

Every category has plenty of category leaders today that are really, really good. We do care about: How to actually get more leads How to avoid legal exposure How to minimize downtime How to better monetize our apps How to improve pricing How to make more per customer How to hire better How to make benefits truly better Etc.

Startup 169

Startup Sales Hiring AI Content Marketing 169

SaaStr

AUGUST 1, 2022

Laura identified four key factors as major wins for Red Points as they grew and built an entirely new category. . Create a new category. Does the category you’re serving understand the value of your service? Finding the right buyer persona is key to becoming the leader of your category. they could ?solve. Global approach.

Underperforming Technical Team 201

Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Innovation Investment 201

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

Mistake #1: Hiring Too Inexperienced and Junior Managers and “VPs” Stretch VPs can do amazing things if you get it right. Hiring someone who’s never really been a manager at all, for a management role, for a true “owner” role … is usually a stretch too far. More on that here. She needs $150,000.”

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS Enterprise 363

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: About 70% of SaaS Public Companies Are New Versions of Existing Categories of Software (Updated) Growth Slowed Down About 33% On Average For Everyone in Q1 The Top 20 SaaStr Tips to Getting a SaaS Start-Up Going When Should You Add a Second Product?

CTO Hire 195

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 195

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2023

Does it introduce efficiencies that provide a path for less hiring? Be sure you are investing in R&D and hiring strong engineering teams. Oates explains, “Software that supports critical infrastructure will continue to be purchased and renewed, year-over-year.” The bottom Line? Is it mission-critical? The best product will win.

VP of Engineering 231

VP of Engineering Trends Cybersecurity Sales Hiring 231

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Sometimes, that’s true and you have to look outside of the company for your next great hire. But Nick admits that he’s swung and missed on way more executive hires than he’s hit on. The Takeaway: People often say you should hire for the person you need four years from now because you’ll be growing fast. This list goes on.

Scale 228

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Scaling 228

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 31, 2023

A few notes on this analysis: First, not all software categories will grow 15%. But the dominant strategy has been to hire more reps while maintaining quotas rather than increasing quotas meaningfully - perhaps an artifact of the easy money era. Factor Delta in 2024 Software Spending +15% Inflation +3.7%

Headcount 192

Headcount Sales Hiring AI Cloud 192

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

They are hiring leaders, building teams, and attracting advisors in the US while devouring the SV SaaS playbook. Companies, especially those with an undifferentiated product, may want to think strategically about the evolution of their respective category and the path towards building a platform. . Bundling is real.

Scale 208

Scale Sales Hiring Cybersecurity Underperforming Technical Team 208

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 14, 2020

80% of respondents have paused hiring, and a similar number have reduced their budget. Business travel, new hires, and new software purchases were the top categories of budget reductions. Typically, go to market hiring is paused for most businesses. About 15% will see an increase. 62% have or will change quota in 2020.

Sales Hiring 286

Sales Hiring Forecasting Sales Travel 286

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2022

Don’t Hire a VP of Sales Everybody Loves. A 4 Point Test To Know If You Are Ready to Hire BigCo Folks. SaaStr 550: How to Reinvent a Category that’s Already Been Won with Mark Ghermezian, Co-Founder @ Braze, and Founder and General Partner @ m]x[v capital. It’s a Lot Harder to Build a SaaS Decacorn Than It Used To Be.

Sales Hiring 198

Sales Hiring Leadership Innovation Retention 198

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Historically, SaaS investors tended to look for the undisputed top dog competitor in every category, and would pour huge amounts of money into those companies. Now founders must prove not that they will be the only leader in the category, but that they can differentiate enough to win and yield incredible growth. artists.”

Venture Capital 185

Venture Capital Sales Hiring Social Media Healthcare 185

Tom Tunguz

MAY 23, 2022

Many startups face a strategic question early on of whether to create a new category. Today, the company announced a $135m Series D to continue creating this category with relentless focus. MC is hiring in most roles. It’s a heavy lift. A former executive at Gainsight which created customer success, Barr jumped in.

Startup 213

Startup Customer Success Scaling Data 213

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2021

You can’t hire some magic salesperson to “get you more sales”, at least not at first. Once you have 10, 15, 20 customers … you can hire someone to help. Just because your product is free, or has a free category, does not mean anyone will find it. If you don’t know — you won’t get funded. A bit more here.

Sales Hiring 322

Sales Hiring Investment Acquisition Product Marketing 322

SaaStr

DECEMBER 6, 2022

On Balancing Compliance and Growth: Compliance, for any sub-category in SaaS, whether it’s marketing following GDPR compliance or your product team following FinTech compliance – it’s binary. ” #2) Hire a team that supports and assesses risk. There are different rules to both learn and follow.

Scale 226

Scale Scaling compliance Forecasting 226

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

Everyone should understand why they are in that category and what the high-performers are doing that the low-performer isn’t doing. 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. You can see the people falling below 50%.

Sales Hiring 194

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Sales 194

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 19, 2021

During this period, there have been three main categories of data work: business intelligence, machine learning, and exploratory analytics. And if you’re passionate about building the future of exploratory analytics, Hex is hiring. The number of data teams is growing as more companies rely on data for daily operations.

Sales Hiring 322

Sales Hiring Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Data Analysis 322

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2023

From Atlassian to Zoom to Cloudflare to Bill and More!

Scale 243

Scale Sales Hiring SMB SaaS 243

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

The toughest hire. So you expect the right things, and hire your rockstar at the right time to do the right things. So you hire someone that really did it, and can do it — not a pretender. OK so you’re ready to make the hire. Now — who do you hire? You’ve hired 1-4 reps on your own.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

On Category Creation. From the beginning, Airtable convinced themselves that they had a different category of product through the creation of a software creation platform that anyone can use. It’s more a matter of “when” not “if” to change the bottoms up adoption in order to be able to layer on higher and higher sales enterprises.

Scale 192

Scale Software Review Scaling Sales Hiring 192

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2024

. “I f you’re expanding and scaling and you’re closing more deals, it may justify a full-time hire to take the load off the team. Now, if you’re in FinTech or another highly regulated industry, you’re probably going to be doing these things and have a dedicated hire earlier.”

AI 148

AI SMB compliance Sales Hiring 148

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2020

6. “What Makes a Great VP of Sales and How to Hire One” Another SaaStr Classic that is just as relevent today. What Makes a Great VP of Sales and How to Hire One. “About 70% of SaaS Unicorns Are New Versions of Existing Categories of Software” A personal favorite. More on that soon!

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Sales Hiring AWS Cloud 318

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

It does mean a well-oiled machine that hires strong reps of all backgrounds, and gets them the help and training so they can scale up and succeed. Then the new hires, and everyone else, will believe. But not once you are hiring 10+ a year. It’s no fun and demotivating for everyone to miss their goals. They have low attrition.

Sales Hiring 310

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 310

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2023

This is the reason 70%+ of SaaS companies that IPO are just new version of old, successful things: About 70% of SaaS Unicorns Are New Versions of Existing Categories of Software | SaaStr But … but … Small markets can grow into large markets if you change the market or there is otherwise disruption in the market. Third, there will be turnover.

Sales Recruiting 200

Sales Recruiting Marketing Sales Hiring Market Segmentation 200

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Any startup in any reasonable category likely has dozens of competitors, and Altman believes the best strategy to compete in 2023 and beyond is multi-product. The customer journey applies to every software category, and it guides your roadmap with more holistic solutions for your customers. What Caused This Crowded Software Market?

Scale 222

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 222

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

Failing to close a key hire. The company’s goal is to change the world, quite literally, by building a product, evolving user behavior, and sometimes creating a category. We’ve had the privilege to partner with some iconic companies. Let me pull back the curtain: all of them have had their tough days. Missing a quarter.

Acquisition 279

Acquisition Finance Startup Engagement 279

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

One is in a large, existing, old, established category. Probably because of that, it’s “Lead Rich” The other is in a large, but less defined category. If you are in a Lead Poor environment, if you are creating a new category, if you are changing behavior. But it’s more subtle than that.

Sales Hiring 237

Sales Hiring Sales Revenue Enterprise 237

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 25, 2023

Tricky questions also cloud recruitment conversations : who is hiring the new employee? The biggest technology companies may slow or pause their M&A programs because the odds of success in certain categories may mar their ability to consummate mergers. Third, the business must navigate through the thick fog of uncertainty.

Acquisition 198

Acquisition Startup Government Technical Review 198

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

When the company started 20 years ago, it didn’t hire salespeople. It wasn’t until 12 years in that they hired their first commission rep. Don’t Tie Revenue To Headcount “You want to get away from a business model where every incremental dollar requires incremental hiring,” says Deatsch. Here’s why. Directly off the website.

Sales Hiring 211

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 211

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

Our ad-hoc, mind-meld sessions are infrequent, but when we have them, they are two to three hours long and we discuss anything that comes to mind or is relevant, like how we think about a specific category or what impact something might have on our business. I challenge you to resist that urge. Step 6: Be prepared for a rollercoaster.

Scaling 195

Scaling Marketing Management Branding 195

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2022

Are you asking them to choose you from a sea of competitors, or are you trying to convince them to adopt a new, category-defining product? Action & Tips: Take the time to conduct custom periodic studies of market research, category formation, gong call recordings, etc. 5 Hire Your Next Marketing Leader Using Pillar Profiles.

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Market Research 221