Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 28, 2013

There’s an interesting phenomemon occurring in founder compensation for post-Series A companies: founding CEOs are swapping cash for larger equity stakes in their companies. Founding CEO salaries, post Series A, have fallen by about 24% while founder equity has increased by 32%. This trend is broad.

Compensation 100

Compensation Trends Startup Benchmarks 100

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Often, G&A (finance, legal, etc.) Because it’s seen as their money, as “extra” compensation on top of the deal price. This varies by acquirer and type of deal. They pretty much never get any really incentives to stay, maybe some standard stock options as new hires. Don’t even want.

Startup 214

Startup Sales Hiring Compensation Finance 214

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

Re:ceeve , a finance SaaS company based in Germany, is looking for a candidate who is excited to help revolutionize receivable processes for finance, public utilities, and other enterprise industries. Uzio , an HR, benefits, and compensation solution, is looking for a VP of Sales to manage a growing team of five AE’s.

Sales Hiring 316

Sales Hiring Scale Payment Solutions Payments 316

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 21, 2022

Lee headed finance for the company from $15m in ARR to more than $1b. UBP presented an opportunity to reinvent the account executive (AE) compensation model. Compensation. In addition, Lee shared his view on usage-based pricing and defending a startup’s great asset, talent, from poaching during the next recovery.

Startup 203

Startup Outsourced Development Sales Hiring Compensation 203

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2022

1Password raised capital after running bootstrapped for a decade because they felt like they were leaving money on the table by not having a marketing and finance team. As a small company, you can not compete with tech giants in terms of compensation alone. “Have a clear purpose when you start looking for investors.”.

Development Team Review 227

Development Team Review B2C Compensation Technical Review 227

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 12, 2017

With increasing focus on grit and many claims of meritocracies in organizations across the country, why does variable pay compensation even exist? On top of that, why are sales people some of the few employees subject to variable compensation structures? What is Variable Pay Compensation Anyway?

Compensation 79

Compensation Sales Hiring Sales Payment Services 79

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

It’s 2021, but surprisingly, a significant number of SaaS companies still use outdated sales compensation plans. Salespeople are often compensated at the highest rate when they win brand new business, but that might not be good for revenue expansion and might contribute to churn. Instead, establish a scaling pace.

Scale 181

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 181

Sales Hacker

MARCH 29, 2022

These 3 trends have many sales, revenue, and finance leaders wondering how to build compensation plans that hit on all three AND align to business strategies. On-target earnings continue to climb, quota attainment percentages are dropping, and the job market remains in the hands of the seekers.

Retention 76

Retention Compensation Finance Trends 76

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 29, 2023

Meka earned a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in Economics and Finance from Princeton and his MBA from Harvard Business School P.S. We’re officially running a GTMfund giveaway program! Meka started his career working in Player Development & Baseball Operations for the Cleveland Indians.

SMB 73

SMB Scale Compensation Finance 73

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 26, 2021

That’s how my friend Stacey describes the way sales compensation plans have changed over the last 15 years of her SaaS career. Why do sales compensation plans have to be so complex? Sales compensation was set up to ensure that reps are suitably rewarded for their performance. Ramp policy. What is their policy on draws?

Software Review 95

Software Review Compensation Payment Features Underperforming Technical Team 95

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2023

And in fact, once you have VC investors, this is often required in your Investor Rights Agreements or other financing documents. I would have the board approve CEO salary, all material expenses (>$5k-$10k), and an overall CEO expense policy. And approving the CEO’s salary is often required under state laws.

Startup 176

Startup Finance Compensation Leadership 176

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 12, 2015

Like a financial budget, ESOP budgets help a startup plan how to finance its growth. A Series A company would likely expand its ESOP as part of a Series B financing, adding perhaps another 5-10%, depending on the hiring plan of the company. Sometimes, a company expands the pool between financings.

Startup 113

Startup Compensation Finance Benchmarks 113

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

Rob has a background in finance, but jumped into the startup world first at Groupon, where he was the GM for their Latin American division, before moving to New York to become the first sales hire for Justworks. The benefits of a career in finance on evaluating companies. How did you go from finance to leading a startup sales team?

Finance 59

Finance Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services 59

Kellblog

JANUARY 23, 2022

People who typically majored in economics or finance (sometimes CS), worked for 2 to 4 years in management consulting or at a tech firm, attended a top business school, joined a VC firm as an associate, and then worked (usually hard and against the odds) their way up to partner. Finance executives. To ensure contemporary naming (e.g.,

Compensation 126

Compensation Entrepreneurship Finance Startup 126

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

45% of expansion stage SaaS companies now say they have a usage-based or consumption-based pricing model, according to data from OpenView’s forthcoming 2021 Finance and Operations benchmarks report. . Here’s what that means for Product, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Pricing, and Finance.

Pricing 64

Pricing Customer Success Scale Compensation 64

Tom Tunguz

JULY 14, 2018

Your VP of Finance should model the impact and approve each experiment. When experimenting with novel compensation or new sales tactics, for use in the contract, ensure that your cash flows are well-timed. For example, qualification, pricing, positioning, incentives and contract structure. This is a wonderful phase for a startup.

Payment Solutions 183

Payment Solutions Sales Compensation Government 183

Buffer Resources

APRIL 10, 2024

Career and finance creator Chloe Shih ( @chloe.shih ) partners with various finance-focused brands to share advice with her audience. Don't be afraid to set your own limits and turn down offers that don't align with your goals or compensate you fairly for your work. 

Payments 91

Payments Payment Methods Marketplace as a Service Payment Services 91

Kellblog

AUGUST 7, 2019

I’ve been asked about this a few times lately, less because people value my accounting knowledge [1] but rather because people are curious about the CAC impact of such deals and how to compensate sales on them. The question on my mind is how do I look at this from a new ARR bookings, ending ARR, CAC, and sales compensation perspective?

Deferred Revenue 74

Deferred Revenue Pricing Payments SaaS Payments 74

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

So the ability to do flexible payment plans, financing, retire that pre-committed spend has been a really significant a way for us to accelerate and amplify our transactions. We had great uptake on the private offer process, and being able to reduce daily sales outstanding for finance, and accelerate our transaction speed for sales.

Scale 190

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 190

Neil Patel

APRIL 21, 2021

However, had I gone after bloggers who write about finance, even though a particular blogger might like my software, their audience most likely wouldn’t care. Compensate Influencers. If someone is going to spout good things about your brand, they need to be compensated. Who Uses Influencer Marketing? Swap guest posts with them.

Social Media 133

Social Media Technical Review Compensation Software Review 133

Software Platform Consulting

MAY 28, 2019

I spend very little time on issues of compensation on this blog. sales, finance, customer success, and supplier enablement). If you are going to get in one, be prepared to spend plenty of time on issues of compensation!! Source: [link]. This is the third in my series on SaaS Metrics for Enterprise-Driven B2B Networks.

SaaS Payments 56

SaaS Payments Enterprise B2B Metrics 56

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

So they created a software that provides control, visibility, and payment methods for corporate finance teams. So we said, “How can we take the innovation around payment and integrate it into a piece of software that will make it usable for finance teams and modern companies?”

Scale 162

Scale Payment Methods Payment Solutions Marketing 162

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Founders may reduce staff, particularly in recruiting or new projects that the company prefers not to finance. Growing this way requires a lot of cash to finance the acquisition investment. It requires changing the sales process, likely suffering some decreased sales velocity and tinkering with compensation structures.

SaaS Payments 124

SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Payment Services 124

Tom Tunguz

MAY 1, 2016

Venture financing has slowed by upwards of 15% in the first quarter. Stock-based compensation, unexpected operating costs, and other factors can impact the earnings-per-share surprise, more often negatively and positively. It is an election year. The Federal Reserve has changed its interest rate hike plan. Q1 GDP growth fell to 0.5%

Forecasting 100

Forecasting Compensation SaaS Finance 100

Tom Tunguz

JULY 14, 2015

Startups on the path to IPO must prepare for a year or more, learning new disciplines in finance, corporate communications and operations. In finance, the company must develop an ability to forecast and achieve quarterly financial targets. But the demands of being a public company are stringent.

Compensation 113

Compensation Finance Forecasting Communication 113

OPEXEngine

APRIL 23, 2020

To continue the conversation on working remotely, we invite you to join us for our upcoming webinar on April 28th at 1pm EST when we discuss Working Remotely as Finance Professionals – Best Practices During the COVID-19 Crisis. And here for the Hiring and Layoff Poll of Growth and Mid-Sized SaaS Companies results. To register, click here.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring Benchmarks Payments Compensation 59

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2021

As part of being Somewhat Lean, I went without any salary not just in the very beginning, but then again for quite a long time after we raised a $2m Series A financing … until we raised our Series B. At Adobe Sign / EchoSign, my second start-up as a co-founder, in the end I went the other way.

Banking 247

Banking Finance Investment Revenue 247

Chaotic Flow

MAY 13, 2014

Sales is compensated on recurring revenue and avoids discounts based on total contract value. And, executive compensation is based on non-GAAP SaaS financial goals. As the use of SaaS metrics becomes the company standard, they are pushed out into departmental plans. Customer success focuses on churn reduction.

Metrics 135

Metrics SaaS Compensation Benchmarks 135

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 8, 2015

Early on, the SMB customers finance a startup’s growth and enable the startup to build a broader product over time that eventually becomes more attractive to enterprises. Total Compensation, $k 75 250. Serving these customers finances the eventual development of an enterprise-grade product. Inside Outside.

Innovation 208

Innovation Startup Scale SMB 208

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 27, 2013

Capitalization structure risk - does the company have enough room in the cap table to take more investment necessary to grow while still ensuring employees and executives are well compensated? Is the financing risk manageable given the current environment and company trajectory? How strong is their relationship?

Venture Capital 221

Venture Capital Technical Review Compensation Business Model 221

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 19, 2016

After the initial testing phase with monthly pricing plans is complete, a startup will likely hire an inside sales team and compensate them based on quota. Even though the users have the opportunity to cancel anytime, they continue to use the product. When precisely to hire an inside sales team varies widely by company.

Outsourced Development 100

Outsourced Development SaaS Payments Startup Sales Hiring 100

OPEXEngine

MARCH 15, 2022

If you can sell from home – do,” says Daniëlle Keeven, VP of Finance at paddle.com—a merchant of record for software companies around the world. But successful international expansion is not a matter of simply hiring international sales and finance staff overseas to sell into new territory. Your HR and finance teams will thank you.”.

Payment Services 40

Payment Services SaaS Payments Merchant Services Payments 40

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

While it is easy to dismiss the small fraction of a percent of equity as trivial, balk at what looks like a low offer or focus on cash compensation because it’s more tangible, equity offers can carry real value ( just ask employees of Slack, Uber, Lyft and Pinterest ). Is this an exciting amount of compensation?

Compensation 40

Compensation Finance Venture Capital Pricing 40

Sales Hacker

MAY 26, 2021

The focus is on things like reporting, territory management and later stage tasks such as contract negotiations and finance approvals. Here, you can use your sales operations skills to get into your reps’ heads by creating compensation and incentive plans. Sales ops takes a high-level view of the sales organization.

Scale 60

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development 60

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 13, 2020

Maybe this is why, according to an ACPQ survey, only 40% of finance executives surveyed rated their FP&A capabilities as effective. So much is at stake—bonuses, compensation, hiring—that it’s easy to see why managers are incentivized to set up attainable, rather than aspirational, goals.

Systems Review 52

Systems Review Forecasting Finance Benchmarks 52

Kellblog

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

Or executive compensation. mild vs. modest recession), financing options (e.g., A proposal , where, e.g., the CEO and CFO present next year’s operating plan, seeking board approval at the end of the session. Or a stock option refresh. Management presents either one or three options and seeks an approval of their choice.

Compensation 73

Compensation Forecasting Finance Startup 73

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

If that’s 20% of someone’s total compensation, that’s a material pay cut — and that’s certainly not keeping the company a great place for those who stay. In the end, what matters is the expected value of the bonus program to employees, and if that plan has unrealistic targets, that value quickly drops to zero.

VP of Engineering 108

VP of Engineering Travel Underperforming Technical Team Headcount 108