Tom Tunguz

MAY 31, 2021

The cost of a failed account executive hire is about 8 months of lost productivity. What does it cost the organization to hire the wrong executive? In terms of time cost to the startup, a failed executive hire is roughly similar, 9 months. Hiring takes longer and is less fruitful. Looker was one of those examples.

Sales Hiring 197

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Branding 197

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Finding and recruiting top talent is consistently ranked as one of the biggest challenges for growing SaaS companies. SaaStr Annual attracts thousands of high-quality SaaS professionals across functions like engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success. Meet and Find Your Next VP / CXO!

Sales Recruiting 187

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 187

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2020

There’s a common thinking that sales teams should be relatively high churn. That the bottom 15-20% of the sales team almost has to churn each year, because it’s survival of the fittest. At Salesforce, at Box, the bottom end of the sales team churns out each year. Usually – no.

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 293

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

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. 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.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 363

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2024

Dedicated Slack Channel For Every Metric From the early days at Secureframe, they have had a dedicated Slack channel for every metric: every net new sale, every expansion, every churn, and every expense. So, as you’re considering hiring your VP of Sales or Engineering, find a great executive recruiter to work with and eat the bill.

Sales Recruiting 299

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 299

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

For example, a great Stretch VP of Sales might get you to from $50k to $500k a month in new bookings. Churn that stops decreasing. Churn should keep coming down, at least a bit, until it’s top quartile at least. When you see bookings, leads, churn or feature velocity flatten — that’s a flag.

Sales Recruiting 312

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Metrics 312

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. I Need a VP of Sales. Manage a trade show?

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. When to hire her (more here ). How to manage customer success. How to hire a great VP of product.

Sales Hiring 357

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Engineering 357

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. If you hire someone to do the first sales, you’ll never understand it yourself. When you go to hire your first sales rep, hire 2. You need to hire 2 to really see what works, and what doesn’t. More here.

Sales Hiring 313

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 313

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

Your best sales reps can close so much more than your average rep. Move the bottom 10% out and give the best leads to your top performer, and watch sales go up 20%. The best VPs of Sales design comp plans so the team never wants to leave. You should be striving for zero voluntary attrition on your sales team.

Sales Recruiting 281

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 281

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. Finding, hiring and retaining these VPs is challenge #1 for scaling up. appeared first on SaaStr.

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Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 306

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

I see this all the time in marketing hires that come out of non-demand gen roles. A head of sales that doesn’t recruit at least one strong rep in the first 90 days. A head of customer success that doesn’t own churn, or net revenue retention in the first 90 days. I can go on. “9 months.”

Sales Recruiting 349

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring SMB Engineering 349

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

In SaaS, once you have even a few million in ARR, the #1 challenge is recruiting top-tier VPs and building a truly top-tier management team: SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. It’s the people.

Scale 274

Scale Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE 274

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. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales. If that’s true, then you should absolutely hire more salespeople.

Sales Hiring 300

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 300

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2019

Pick a few that work for you: Get That Key VP Hire Done in Q1. Enough with the excuses for not having hired your real VP of Sales, or that VP of Engineering, or whatever. Hire a real recruiter. Drop other stuff to get this hire done. Hire more sales reps in the areas where they are profitable.

Part-Time VPE 325

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 325

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2022

A great VP of Customer Success in just a quarter or so decreases churn and increases account revenue growth. Sales growth slowly declines as she struggles to bring in enough reps. Sales growth slowly declines as she struggles to bring in enough reps. Churn slowly increases. Then, manage a small team.

Sales Recruiting 256

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Churn 256

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2020

SImple tips to Do Better in Q4 With What You Already Have: – Drive Down Churn – Drive Up NPS – Be More Grateful – Zoom with 10 Customers a Week – Promote Your Star(s) – Less Spam, more ABM – Weekly Webinar – Improve Lead Routing – Improve Lead Scoring – Talk to Every Prospect.

Sales Recruiting 350

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Churn Onboarding 350

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

But they are often just awful managers. This means more employee churn, friction, drama than you need. Manage People. This is one of the best things you can do, because 50% of the job of a CEO is recruiting a team, leading a team, empowering a team, convincing a team. You can hire up-and-comers, that’s OK.

Sales Hiring 280

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AWS Churn 280

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 12, 2019

A little over a year ago, I got the opportunity to start a new team within our sales organization – a team of Relationship Managers dedicated to growing our current customers at scale. The opportunity emerged out of a shift in how we practice sales. Starting a new sales team is not unlike doing improv.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2023

It’s the most common objection you’ll get in SaaS sales … Not Right Now. It can’t strategically improve sales software, financial software, quoting software, recruiting software, QA processes, call center software, etc. And when you hire a real, great VP of Sales. Truly qualified leads and prospects.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Software Review 312

The Angel VC

JUNE 25, 2015

For most SaaS startups, the VP of Sales (along with the VP of Marketing) is one of the most crucial hires they need to make. Unless you have a no/low touch sales model and you're growing virally (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a.

Sales Hiring 185

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 185

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

How do you diagnose and solve churn? She was hired because they saw a bit of softening in new business growth, and she came to help diagnose what was going on and help scale the business. Key Takeaways Creating Sales Acceleration at Lattice There are a few takeaways from Dini’s time at Lattice.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 273

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. Remember it’s a mutual sales process. Use work test samples.

Sales Recruiting 110

Sales Recruiting Interviewing Sales Hiring Finance 110

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Co-founder and CEO at Greenhouse, Daniel Chait, sits down with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin to share what’s new at Greenhouse, a successful recruiting software company at $200M in ARR today. Getting off the ground is one thing — an easy pitch of being an HR tech startup focused on improving hiring.

Sales Hiring 281

Sales Hiring AI SMB Scale 281

Sales Hacker

APRIL 5, 2021

In 2020 I was building my sales team at Livestorm , and at the time we were going through a big hiring boom. For the first time in my life, I was in charge of vetting and hiring new team members at scale. This was a big challenge for me because I am very passionate about hiring without bias. First impressions still count.

Sales Hiring 120

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Company Culture Interviewing 120

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2021

For us, it’s about fixing this problem, serving the customer well, so a very service driven mindset, which I gave a talk on a few days ago here, has been a big part of Gusto and affected our hiring from the early days. Certainly, at YC where our version of hiring is basically choosing which founders to fund. Get tickets here.

VP of Engineering 293

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 293

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency. Then, the sales team went to work. In his opinion, the hiring process is a preview of their sales technique.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 9, 2025

So read on, and hopefully, your SaaS sales journey will be less about trial and error and more about steady progress toward success. Whats important to note is that each model targets a distinct customer persona and, therefore, has a unique approach to the customer journeyfrom brand awareness to sales and, ultimately, conversion.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Sales Recruiting 52

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2022

Jason Lemkin: You certainly can hire a whole content team and build 10,000 pieces of content, but I will tell you what I have always seen work is one incredible piece a week. Jason Lemkin: I’ll answer it, but are you thinking more on sales or technology or broadly speaking in the question? That’s a great example.

Scale 293

Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring VP of Engineering 293

OpenView Labs

AUGUST 19, 2021

Sales recruiting is broken. The sad truth is that VP of Sales are turning over within 19 months —and that timeline is shrinking. . Not only that, the market has heated way back up and the VP of Sales is one of the most sought after roles. What is the hardest executive hire you’ve made?

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Scale 98

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Your sales team is integral to your business’s success: not only do your salespeople bring in the big deals, but they also represent your company and culture to every new and potential prospect. So why is sales team culture still an afterthought for so many organizations? People all across the company are so proud of our sales team.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 143

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 78

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Trends 78

Baremetrics

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

Your marketing and sales budgets, and the personnel assigned to those teams, will also rise. A hiring plan is the basis for growing your team and organizing your future payroll expenses. A hiring plan allocates expected future expenses based on your revenue forecasts. What is a hiring plan? Evaluate your hiring process 4.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Forecasting Finance 97

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

As a founder/CEO, building your first management team is something that you often lose sleep over. Which role should you hire for first? For starters, your first hire should be someone who can complement your skills, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak, but it goes much deeper than that. And for good reason.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 261

Kellblog

JUNE 27, 2020

And, depending on the initial contract duration, high customer churn [1]. churn of 25%, and services margins of negative 66% when I started working with them [2]. Customers are left high-and-dry with failed or partial implementations that, if left unfinished, will likely lead to churn. High adoption failure.

Consulting 144

Consulting Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 144

Totango

DECEMBER 13, 2022

As corporate expectations grow and hiring remains challenging for CS, automating the customer journey on a digital platform can do much of the heavy lifting for understaffed teams. . Speaking of the team, hiring presents a great opportunity to reassess the skills and expertise that will help you meet your goals. Let’s get aligned.

Sales Hiring 99

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Customer Success 99

OpenView Labs

APRIL 24, 2019

As a recruiter, I hear from many founders and sales leaders regularly about how many salespeople they need and how quickly they need them. And I’ve seen many startups who fail to make this distinction create a cycle of diminishing returns that impacts the trajectory of their growth for the long haul… especially in enterprise sales.

Sales Recruiting 89

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 89