SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

75%-90% of the time, enterprises have already made a tentative decision which vendor to choose before they pick up the phone or hit the Contact Me button or issue the RFP: In an established category, customers will pre-pick one of the Top 2–3 vendors based on brand, market share and research. Well before they even talk to a sales rep.

Enterprise 241

Enterprise Software Pricing Branding 241

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

In the near term, we believe that for a vast majority of white-collar jobs, the role of AI is to augment and improve humans. Categories like this will make incredible apps for LMs and AI because of the high volume of tickets and high signal-to-noise. It’s how decision-makers make informed decisions. So, we’re back to the debate.

AI 245

AI Generative AI Venture Capital SaaS 245

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. This goes without saying, but we’re saying it anyway. Set The Bar Low. That’s the secret sauce.

Sales Hiring 209

Sales Hiring Sales Compensation Branding 209

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

In this era of ever-increasing digital disruption and innovation, category design can be the ultimate business strategy for brands wishing to stand out from the crowd. The book aims to help companies apply category design to open new markets and create new demand. and the Making of IBM , and The Two-Second Advantage.

Technical Review 205

Technical Review Sales Hiring Innovation Systems Review 205

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

However, as more workers have left their roles over the past few years and employee expectations shift, it’s important for both job applicants and hiring managers to understand what indicates a winning business. If your investors aren’t helping recruit for you, I don’t think they’re doing their job,” says Blond. Use your best judgment.

Sales Recruiting 179

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 179

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2023

Instead of trying to use a clunky, forms-based search box, you can now have a conversation with Monty to discover the best app, even if you don’t know the best category (there are over 2,000 on G2). People can communicate as humans do, and AI uses those words and matches them to a business problem regardless of category.

AI Search 188

AI Search AI ChatGPT Software Review 188

Tom Tunguz

MAY 23, 2022

It’s one of the best parts of the job. 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. From every startup I work with, I learn about the different ways of building a company.

Startup 222

Startup Customer Success Scaling Data 222

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. Probably because of that, it’s “Lead Rich” The other is in a large, but less defined category. That’s a hard job too.

Sales Hiring 236

Sales Hiring Sales Revenue Enterprise 236

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 8, 2019

Blockchain is clearly the category with the steepest slope. Software - up more than 3x, Software is a perennial category. Analytics - surprisingly, this category has seen its zenith. The world has moved on from MapReduce jobs and is reverting to other data sources that speak SQL natively or are cloud-native. Hot Spaces.

Artificial Intelligence 280

Artificial Intelligence Startup Blockchain Social Media 280

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. Howie’s job became taking all of the possibilities and simplifying them down into a clear set of objectives that everyone can align around.

Scale 191

Scale Software Review Scaling Sales Hiring 191

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2021

Part of my job when I invest in a start-up is to get folks excited about the company. In theory, many things can stop a SaaS startup after $4m-$5m ARR from getting to $100m. In practice, high churn is the only thing. — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) January 17, 2021. It’s not that hard. Because I am genuinely excited.

SaaS 363

SaaS Venture Capital Churn Branding 363

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

DECEMBER 26, 2022

We’ve seen up and downs, but never the pace of acceleration we saw starting in late 2020 … and never the pace of deceleration in some categories we started to see in the summer of 2022. But your job is to find that 24%. It’s not just the 11th tool for calendering or the 99th tool for sequences. It’s a reset.

Sales 189

Sales B2B SaaS Marketing 189

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 29, 2023

In this article, we highlight the job responsibilities of a retention specialist, the skills needed to become one, and the resources these professionals can benefit from. A retention specialist needs to be proficient in an array of software across categories. Tired of the increasing customer churn rate?

Retention 102

Retention Customer Lifetime Value Churn Outsourced Development 102

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 27, 2024

When you look at how to segment your audience for messaging, consider these three broad categories: Industry: This is your wider audience that cares about who you are and what you do. Category: These are your decision-makers. Understanding these categories can help you tailor your messaging for optimum impact. Let’s get into it.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Venture Capital Generative AI Social Media 88

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 13, 2021

We’ve recently updated our product designer job levels to give our designers a map for advancing their careers at Intercom. We’re also sharing them publicly to help those design teams without job levels to create their own. That’s why we update our job levels whenever our team says that they’re not clear or helpful.

Interviewing 271

Interviewing Leadership Engineering Communication 271

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

It’s the job of the CMO to bring it down to 1-year, 5-year plans. Your job is to communicate the CEO’s vision. Draw on your experience selectively and remember that all new category-busting companies will need marketing innovation and agility. Distill it down to what we can do now, tomorrow, and a few years from now.

Scaling 195

Scaling Marketing Management Branding 195

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

As a founder, that high bar means you have to meet with more investors because of those flavors, even more so if you’re not in a hot category. It was too easy to spend money and check the box of doing your job instead of getting creative on campaigns that drove outsized returns. That’s how hard it can be to get funded.

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 245

Mucker Capital

APRIL 2, 2024

Four Main Categories Where Pain Can change to Value. It's important to understand these categories and their impact on cost and benefit, irrespective of the product or sector. Creating visuals to display these value estimates across these categories can create a compelling case for the business sponsor.

Sales Recruiting 52

Sales Recruiting Technical Review Enterprise Cybersecurity 52

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 1, 2023

UserGems : Behind the curtains UserGems just had their best quarter in company history across GTM metrics – all revenue, logos, and brand metrics (organic growth, category creation, etc.). For example, winning the Category Creator award from Pavilion and G2 , and being in the list of Vendr Top Q3 Net New Purchases.

Scale 87

Scale Outsourced Development Technical Review Acquisition 87

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Candy, Vitamins, and Painkillers Kevin Fong, a VC, said, “We divide business plans into three categories: candy, vitamins, and painkillers. Figure Out The “Jobs To Be Done” Clay Christensen of Harvard Business School worked with Mcdonald’s to increase milkshake sales. That’s when OpDemand was born. We throw away the candy.

Sales Hiring 130

Sales Hiring Development AWS Engineering 130

Kellblog

AUGUST 27, 2022

In extreme distillation, Play Bigger argues: Category kings (companies who typically define and then own categories in the minds of buyers) are worth a whole lot more than runner-ups. Therefore you should be a category king. “I’m an CMO and it’s 2018. Of course I’ve read Play Bigger. So, off you go.

Strategy 136

Strategy Marketing Startup Customer Success 136

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

Second-timers know the playbook and can execute against it faster. But often times, they also have a bit of healthy skepticism, a bit of baggage, from the last time. First-timers often know very little, but are baggage free. That can be very powerful. More on that here. But a stretch VP is one thing. It just doesn’t work. She needs $150,000.”

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS Enterprise 363

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

As they began Dynamic Account assignments, Gusto began breaking down categories and account criteria and ruled out a few “traditional” sales silos that they released weren’t helping them better segment a sales rep’s book of business. While stability isn’t bad, sometimes it can stagnant you.

Scale 202

Scale Sales Marketing Construction 202

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

When the company parts with the teammate, see how you can help them with their job search. When a teammate leaves the company for another job, celebrate them on LinkedIn or send them a bottle of champagne. In this talk, Nick shares his top 10 failures as a CEO while getting to $200M ARR. If they don’t, you need a different team.

Scale 227

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Scaling 227

IT World

JANUARY 4, 2023

The "Computer & IT" category was the top career category for fully remote jobs in 2022, with fully remote listings growing 24% year-over-year, according to job search site FlexJobs. Online job search site Indeed recently published a list of the “best” remote jobs available now.

Technical Support 70

Technical Support Application Development Software Engineering Engineering 70

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 2, 2021

Before we start a project, we usually consider potential innovation within the latter two categories – product strategy and execution. We spent two to three weeks outlining our vision for solving the core jobs we had identified, but time-boxed ourselves and avoided evaluating every job listed in the problem statement.

Innovation 251

Innovation Investment Sales Recruiting Strategy 251

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2022

If you take the time to consider your buyer’s POV, the marketing team’s job should sharpen into focus. 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? This question demands you understand what you are telling the buyer.

Sales Hiring 220

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Market Research 220

User Pilot

APRIL 10, 2024

Group content into modules and categories. Here are 8 knowledge base creation best practices that can help you create deep connections with your customers: Include multiple types and formats of resources. Create granular content. Add a search functionality for easy navigation. Personalize the knowledge base content based on user segment.

Software Review 93

Software Review AI Search SaaS Technical Review 93

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2021

I.e., to carry her own individual quota (in addition to that of the whole team). Just carry their own $X00,000 quota in addition to the rest of their job, you’ll think. The moment comes when it’s time to hire your first VP Sales. So then that time comes. So at this stage, the VP Sales, while necessary, sure looks expensive.

Sales Hiring 201

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Interviewing 201

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2021

There’s a metric the very top founders track quitely, but ruthlessly, that I find other founders either don’t track, or sort of hide from. That’s % of marketshare. And importantly, if it’s growing, or shrinking. Why does it matter? And potentially also, of the need to upgrade the team. But growing more slowly. It compounds.

Azure 204

Azure Headcount AWS Education 204

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

This job isn’t for everyone. 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. Revenue matters, too.

Sales Hiring 194

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Sales 194

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

That’s your job. Well, they do tend to work at some of the best companies, so there is that. But it’s more than that. A few factors that contribute to high-performing sales teams: High quota attainment. The best startups invest in their sales teams and work hard so most of the reps hit and exceed quota. They have great leaders.

Sales Hiring 309

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 309

Sales Hacker

JULY 31, 2023

The “Changed Jobs in Past 90 Days” filter When a new decision-maker joins a business, they typically want to make a quick impact. Then select “Changed jobs in last 90 days” to see people in your accounts who changed roles in the past 3 months. Example: We target HR professionals at my company.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 52

User Pilot

JUNE 28, 2023

To help you understand your different user personas , your customer feedback questions should reveal your users’ jobs , goals, and objectives with your product. Let us now consider different question categories and the most important questions you can ask in each. They are also tailored to each customer’s current context.

Market Research 97

Market Research Scaling Branding Social Media 97

Kellblog

JULY 30, 2023

It’s HR supporting managers to do their jobs better. The CEO’s job is to get what matters right. Legal compliance. Recruiting support. It’s not the “HR police” fighting against evil managers and protecting employees from them. “Shouldn’t customer success be about relationships?”

Software Review 68

Software Review Technical Review Sales Recruiting Artificial Intelligence 68

FastSpring

MARCH 27, 2023

It got us thinking: Why is there no purpose-built operating system for corporate learning and development teams, when their jobs are so strategic to the business, and they’re managing massive budgets, but they can’t track things like ROI?” I spoke to Ryan about how they created a new enterprise ops category: LearnOps.

Payment Solutions 91

Payment Solutions Payment Services SaaS Payments VP of Engineering 91