Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

Another way is to look at the cash based cost of the stock based compensation. The chart above shows the average stock-based compensation (SBC) per employee by years since founding across the basket of publicly traded SaaS companies. The SBC investment pattern varies substantially by company. Many factors skew the investments.

Compensation 100

Compensation Startup Benchmarks SaaS 100

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2014

Since 2008, there has been a secular trend to increase cash compensation and decrease equity to startup management teams. In the past 5 years, VPEs have benefitted from a 10 to 16% increase in their cash compensation, but have seen their equity grants fall by 17-19%. Cash +10% +16%. Equity -19% -17%. Cash +26% +8%. Equity -31% -25%.

Compensation 100

Compensation Part-Time VPE Trends Startup 100

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2023

Carta is a platform that helps people manage equity, build businesses, and invest in the companies of tomorrow. The company is trusted by more than 30,000 companies, over 5,000 investment funds, and half a million employees for cap table management, compensation management, liquidity venture capital solutions, and more.

Scale 200

Scale Payments Payment Solutions Artificial Intelligence 200

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

It’s important to ask yourself if you’re engaging your clients enough, helping them to want to invest more in your offerings. Pay attention to your SLAs and, depending on their level of investment and commitment, commit your time and resources back into your partnership with them.

Scale 229

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 229

SaaStr

OCTOBER 22, 2022

Most VC partners don’t return 1x in cash what they invest. Managing existing investments usually takes more time than meeting new prospects. One slot of 30 or so investments per fund. But the compensation, both in fees and carry, diverges widely across partners, for many reasons. It’s hard! You are a product.

Compensation 221

Compensation Investment Management Sales 221

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2022

The reasons for this kind of nomadism can be complex—compensation, a growing remote-first workplace, morale, or a company’s reputation might contribute to their decision to leave. How do they sufficiently value and compensate an engineer’s skills in such a competitive market? Individual Growth. Key Takeaways.

CTO Coach 224

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO Engineering 224

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

What sales investments should you focus on in 2022? As in-person sales meetings continue to be either impossible, unpopular, or both, it makes sense for businesses to maintain investments in remote engagement platforms, which give sellers and customers an engaging way to meet virtually. Where’s the best place to begin?

Scale 89

Scale Investment Sales Forecasting 89

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

That’s a big change, and they can do it by building the first incentive compensation plan that includes variable compensation for specific goals. Companies are moving up-market, investing more in marketing, and orienting all processes around efficiency.

Scale 234

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Outsourced Development 234

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

They invest development resources for non-technical people to quickly run and analyze these experiments. Mistake #3: Not designing a sales compensation plan for PLG. “We We are using the sales compensation models from the 1970s, and these models drive quota-fulfilling behavior.”. Consumer growth teams are cross-functional.

Technical Review 243

Technical Review Technical Advisors Scale Compensation 243

Totango

APRIL 9, 2024

For the full scoop on all of their bold insights on team alignment and unlocking customer-led growth, check out the webinar: The importance of team alignment and variable compensation The roundtable kicked off with the consensus that aligning CS and Sales teams is imperative, not optional.

Scale 106

Scale Sales Compensation Customer Success 106

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2021

If you haven’t already made some good investments — it’s going to be tough to start your own fund. Go work at a fund first and make some good investments there. Start as an angel investor, make some good investments, and then, after proving yourself as an angel, raise a small fund. If you do mediocre investments it isn’t.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital Travel Compensation Investment 297

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

And that was customer success managers who were really just farmers — compensated 100% or close to it for Upsells, not Retention. Incent Sales Reps to close leads , but also give them the compensation to properly treat the prospective customers with respect. But I knew this was the wrong way to build a customer-centric company.

Compensation 246

Compensation Customer Success Interviewing Sales 246

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design My First Sales Rep Compensation Plan? but You don’t have the capital to invest here … the rep has to be accretive. but You don’t have the capital to invest here … the rep has to be accretive. That means you are constantly recruiting. The bigger you get, the more you need to do here.

Sales Recruiting 177

Sales Recruiting Scale Compensation Business Model 177

SaaStr

MAY 11, 2021

If you aren’t investing 20% of your time, you’re doing less important things with that time. Hire them immediately, over-compensate them with equity, appreciate them … and get out of their way. Spend 20%+ of Your Time Recruiting. Recruiting isn’t fun. But nothing is more important once you have something. Get on a Jet. Let them run.

Scale 278

Scale Compensation Interviewing Scaling 278

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 29, 2023

Share your favourite media piece (GTM podcast or GTM newsletter) on LinkedIn and Twitter, tag us, and you’ll be entered to win a pair of GTMfund Airpod Pros!

SMB 73

SMB Scale Compensation Sales Hiring 73

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 19, 2024

One thing I do want to call out that I don’t see tracked enough is stock compensation. This is for information purposes and should not be construed as an investment recommendation. Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. For many companies, this can be viewed as somewhat of a free expense.

Cloud 177

Cloud Scale Compensation Metrics 177

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Folks that increased quotas to compensate for sales comp inflation and lower margins ended up in many cases with low attainment. It can still be a great investment, to pay out a huge amount of the total ACV — if it fuels epic growth paired with epic NRR. But where does that 20% magically come from?

Scale 313

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Sales 313

Buffer Resources

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

The TikTok Creativity Program represents a significant leap forward in how the platform compensates its creators, promising up to 20 times more earnings than the Creator Fund.  per 1,000 views, the Creativity Program aims to rectify this by offering enhanced compensation, potentially reaching up to $8.00

Payments 98

Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payment Methods 98

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 23, 2023

If they aren’t involved in interviewing, distilling down, and setting up the processes for the Account Executives, and setting up their compensation/goals, as well as meeting with the first Account Executives regularly, then they aren’t adding as much value as you need. Get someone who will do these things.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 6, 2021

Imagine you have a dollar to invest and you can choose between two options: a public cloud service or a layer 1 blockchain. These new shares are often granted to employees as compensation. If I work on behalf of a crypto company, I receive tokens as part of my compensation. How do you decide which is more attractive?

Government 215

Government Compensation Blockchain Banking 215

Kellblog

MARCH 29, 2023

Phrasing these strategies in terms of songs/albums: (1) Staying Alive , (2) Get Back [to where you once were valued], and (3) Born to Run [convince VCs that, “tramps like us, baby, we were born to run” — i.e., that we have a lean machine where ARR is a predictable output of VC investment.]

Metrics 123

Metrics Compensation Benchmarks Interviewing 123

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 19, 2022

The draws include better base salaries, competitive variable compensation, better perks, or remote work opportunities at other organizations. If you’re seeing that most candidates are asking about flexibility, it’s time to invest in creating flexibility as part of your culture. Reassess your compensation offer.

Sales Hiring 79

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting Compensation 79

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

He also invests through his family office, Reich Capital. Some of the companies that he founded include: TULA Skincare which was acquired by Proctor & Gamble – Troops.ai which was acquired by Salesforce – Spinback which was acquired by Buddy Media and then acquired by Salesforce.

B2C 95

B2C Compensation B2B Acquisition 95

IT World

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

Videoconferencing company Zoom is pinning its growth plans on investment in AI, after reporting its first fourth quarter net loss since 2018. The loss was largely a result of stock-based compensation expenses. Online revenue was also down 10% year over year to $481.7 Online revenue was also down 10% year over year to $481.7

AI 66

AI Development Compensation Investment 66

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

The best startups invest in their sales teams and work hard so most of the reps hit and exceed quota. This doesn’t mean huge compensation for low quotas. Well, they do tend to work at some of the best companies, so there is that. But it’s more than that. It’s no fun and demotivating for everyone to miss their goals.

Sales Hiring 321

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 321

BitPay

JANUARY 17, 2024

The approval and launch of these Bitcoin ETFs offer investors a wide variety of options for investing in Bitcoin in ETF form. Integrating crypto into payroll systems, like the BitPay Send solution, allows for faster, more efficient, and cost-effective payments, including regular compensation and bonuses.

Merchant Services 52

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Methods Payments 52

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2021

2 – Get your compensation right. 3 – Invest in your onboarding process. Investing in your CRM and database is key. It’s easy to over-invest in sales and underinvest elsewhere. Reevaluate your assumptions and mess with the model as needed. Maybe include bonuses within the OTE. 4 – Build a supporting cast.

Sales Recruiting 172

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 172

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2023

Pepper shares that ICONIQ, a venture capital firm with $10B under management, made fewer investments last year than ever before. AE and SDR compensation is another tactic to align GTM with what you want. PST, to unveil the data behind effective scaling. It was a tough growth environment, but it feels like it’s changing in 2023.

Outsourcing Services 161

Outsourcing Services Scaling Venture Capital Forecasting 161

IT World

FEBRUARY 1, 2023

Responding to media reports about possible pay cuts, Intel said on Wednesday that in order to navigate “macro-economic headwinds and work to reduce costs across the company,” it has made several adjustments to its 2023 employee compensation and rewards programs.

Compensation 68

Compensation Investment Revenue Strategy 68

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

Employee Engagement: Show your employees that you are invested in their career goals and help them build a plan (that they own) to achieve those goals. Also, reward employees for good work recognition, thoughtful thanks, and compensation. Set expectations starting at the interview process on company values, pace, and vision.

Retention 130

Retention Leadership Compensation Communication 130

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

In these scenarios, investing in larger post sales teams drives account growth. Compensation strategies for customer success are evolving to include a larger fraction of performance compensation. The greater the opportunity to upsell account, the greater the likelihood of performance-based compensation.

Compensation 108

Compensation Scale Benchmarks Customer Success 108

SaaStr

AUGUST 29, 2022

Understanding how to measure, compensate, and create one unified Revenue team is the key to hypergrowth. But when you’re in the throes of putting it together, it’s challenging to track the countless workstreams, investments, and partnerships involved – not to mention bringing all these pieces into alignment.

Scale 245

Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service B2B 245

SaaStr

AUGUST 17, 2020

If you aren’t investing 20% of your time, you’re doing less important things with that time. Hire them immediately, over-compensate them with equity, appreciate them … and most importantly, get out of their way. Spend 20%+ of Your Time Recruiting. Recruiting isn’t fun. But nothing is more important once you have something. More here.

Scale 363

Scale Business Interviewing Compensation 363

ChurnZero

JANUARY 18, 2023

Knowing an employer is investing in their employees for development and continued learning opportunities is a significant plus in today’s market. Competitive compensation. Offering a competitive compensation package has never been more important to attract and retain strong talent. A culture of recognition.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Compensation Technical Review Consulting 98

ChurnZero

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Top SaaS CEOs Talk Compensation, Automation, and Investors. Customer Success Compensation Catches Up to Sales. In the next three to five years, compensation between Customer Success and Sales will become close to equal.”. In 2017, [Eric] did his first really big round where Sequoia invested.

Customer Success 93

Customer Success Technical Review Systems Review Compensation 93

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

So today — competition is why tech compensation is always. Paying up for the best, when you only need a relatively small team, is a small investment with high return. Nor really do even most SaaS companies, with vast sales and marketing teams. Maybe taht was always true. More here -> MoreSaaStr.com.

Compensation 138

Compensation Engineering Software Investment 138

Neil Patel

JANUARY 10, 2021

Investment options for a 401(k) are determined by the plan the company chooses. Employees may get some say in where they invest the money, though they will most often be choosing from a limited portfolio of options. They have varying degrees of support, charge fees according to their own rules, and offer different kinds of investments.

Government 115

Government Compensation Investment Pricing 115