SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2023

PST, to unveil the data behind effective scaling. What are companies doing today to scale efficiently? This is why there’s no one-size-fits-all advice for scaling efficiently because every company is different. AE and SDR compensation is another tactic to align GTM with what you want. 80% of companies are slowing hiring.

Outsourcing Services 164

Outsourcing Services Scaling Venture Capital Forecasting 164

SaaStr

DECEMBER 2, 2023

Where, roughly speaking, each sales rep brings in at least 4x-5x the total compensation they take out. A bit more on the next stage here: Why Your Cost of Sales Generally Doubles As You Scale The post Dear SaaStr: What Is The Optimal Structure of an Initial SaaS B2B Sales Team? The optimal structure is one that is accretive.

Sales Hiring 234

Sales Hiring Scale B2B Sales 234

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

The ultimate goal of any compensation plan is to ensure account executive success at each stage. Managing these plans properly will enable the company to recruit new AEs to scale, because the current ones excel.

Compensation 136

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 136

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2016

It’s the most provocative idea about employee compensation I’ve found. But, this compensation strategy must be complemented with a plan to reward the exceptions, the 10xers. How can I achieve a Founder’s Award if my team can’t impact the company on the same scale as others (so is my work less meaningful)?

Compensation 100

Compensation Startup Benchmarks Engineering 100

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2023

So whether you’re starting out, building your startup, or scaling up to meet the needs of consumers, business, and society, we connect you with the right people, products, and best practices to help you thrive and grow. QuotaPath is the most adaptable compensation solution to bring Sales, RevOps, and Finance all on the same page.

Cloud 219

Cloud Scale Startup Sales Hiring 219

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

The Seven Things all Founders Should Know About Sales.

Generative AI 248

Generative AI Scale Compensation AI 248

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 29, 2015

Like most things in a startup, a sales commission plan should evolve as the company scales. For example, as Mark Roberge, CRO of Hubspot, wrote in The Sales Acceleration Formula , Hubspot adopted three different sales compensation plans throughout its early evolution which embody the three key ingredients of a sales compensation plan.

Compensation 100

Compensation Scale Payments Sales 100

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 16, 2019

If you want to build a revenue engine that will fuel long-term growth, you need to build and scale your sales org with intention. The optimal sales team structure is one that is accretive, where, roughly speaking, each sales rep brings in at least 5x his or her total compensation. Align compensation to how your buyer buys.

Scale 156

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Scaling 156

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 5, 2023

Exit 10+ Actionable Things You Can Do To Scale Faster In The Early Days Are We Back to a 6x World? SaaStr 693: The Secrets to Scaling and Growth in an Unpredictable Market with monday.com’s Co-founder and Co-CEO, Eran Zimman, and SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin       Top Videos This Week: 1. Is Your VP Too Hard to Work With?

ChatGPT 148

ChatGPT Scale Compensation AI 148

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Many times startup teams ask how to compensate a sales team for renewals and upsells. How should SaaS startups compensate their sales teams for upsells and expansions? What’s the best way to compensate sales teams? The 2016 PacCrest Survey contains a wealth of information about these types of go to market questions.

Compensation 100

Compensation Scale Sales SaaS 100

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Scaling a sales organization isn’t easy. Waze has four core pillars that help them grow, scale, and optimize its sales. Are you compensating your teams to sell recurring revenue? Compensation is a great motivator to make your team care and think about different clients and which verticals are likely to get higher revenue. .

Scale 237

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 237

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

Scale Potential: How much can this business grow? Consider whether the company is already showing extraordinary growth or scale or if the roadmap projects to expand significantly as it evolves. Compensate your sales team generously and fairly to attract the best talent. To get an idea, review the data.

Sales Recruiting 197

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 197

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

While we aren’t going 100% usage-based overnight, if you look at some of the mega-trends in software—things like automation, AI, and APIs—the value of a product normally doesn’t scale with more folks logging in. It requires shifts in go-to-market strategy, sales compensation, financial planning, billing, and much more.

Scale 98

Scale Pricing Scaling AWS 98

Totango

MARCH 15, 2022

Efforts to scale customer success team activity often fall short because of failure to avoid common mistakes. Your human resources practices, your project management procedures and your technology strategy all need to come together in order for you to scale up without overextending yourself.

Sales Recruiting 95

Sales Recruiting Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 95

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2023

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. Carta manages over two trillion dollars in equity for nearly two million people globally. SAP for Startups? It’s an unexpected story!

Scale 206

Scale Payments Payment Solutions Artificial Intelligence 206

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2020

If the founders are the highest compensated people in the start-up, at least pre-Scale (e.g., The second time, I funded the prototype myself ($0 salary) and then we raised a $2.6m seed and I took a small salary (no need to be $0 anymore, but anything large would decrease the runway). One thing I have learned, though.

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 290

OpenView Labs

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

We also walk you through all the classic stuff, like hiring, compensation, onboarding etc. Scaling SaaS Sales. Stripe’s Jeanne DeWitt Grosser on Buffalo, Whales, and Scaling Sales: In just five years, Jeanne DeWitt Grosser grew Stripe’s sales team to about 200 folks in the U.S. Sales Coaching Dos and Don’ts.

Scale 91

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Technical Review 91

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

This episode is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Scale. And I would also say, regardless of the field, is how you go about compensating this channel. If you can neutralize the channel from a compensation perspective with your direct sellers, that always helps. Jabari Norton, VP WW Partner and Alliances, Sumo Logic.

Scale 209

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 209

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2023

Everstage is a leading Sales Compensation Management platform that automates commission processes, and enables sales teams with on-demand access to performance insights. Make enables individuals, teams, and enterprises across all verticals to create powerful custom solutions that scale their businesses faster than ever.

Scale 210

Scale Compensation B2B Innovation 210

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Mistake #2: Scaling sales team disproportionately to growth funnel. 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.”. This leads to salespeople calling users to buy before they have the chance to adopt.

Technical Review 251

Technical Review Technical Advisors Scale Compensation 251

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2020

CEO hires 2 reps, in the beginning, each barely pays for themselves, but by months 4–6 they are able to close 3x-5x their total compensation. Then: Have to scale from reps 3–8 or so. By 15 sales reps, you probably need a first head of sales operations to handle training, onboarding, compensation, quotas, etc.

Sales Hiring 240

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 240

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2022

If the founders are the highest compensated people in an early-stage start-up, at least pre-Scale (e.g., Later, as you scale, it makes sense if the CEO has the highest salary, at least by a modest margin. So different situations = different answers, up to a point. One thing I have learned, though. But not when cash matters.

Scale 229

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Scaling 229

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

JUNE 4, 2023

SaaStr 664: What You Need to Change at $10M to Scale to $100M with Sameer Dholakia, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners  2. What You Need to Change at $10M to Scale to $100M: Sameer Dholakia, Partner Bessemer (Workshop Wed) 5. 5 Interesting Learnings from Monday.com at $640,000,000 in ARR Top Podcasts This Week: 1.

CTO Coach 159

CTO Coach CTO Scale Venture Capital 159

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

As your company scales, you’ll start to hit 15%+ attrition in your employee base just naturally each year. Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design My First Sales Rep Compensation Plan? Every CEO I see past $2m in ARR or so, be it Unicorn, IPO’d, or figuring out how to get to $5m to $10m ARR … the pain is the same. Recruiting.

Sales Recruiting 183

Sales Recruiting Scale Compensation Business Model 183

SaaStr

MAY 11, 2021

The earlier in your career you can learn how to manage people, the faster you can excel in learning to scale. Let them grow and hire and scale as far as humanly possible. Hire them immediately, over-compensate them with equity, appreciate them … and get out of their way. Managing people isn’t always fun. Let them run.

Scale 280

Scale Compensation Interviewing Scaling 280

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. When should you scale?

Sales Hiring 198

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 198

Tom Tunguz

MAY 1, 2023

As a company scales, founders transition sales to others. AEs, experts in closing contracts, often focus on reducing sales cycle & maximizing contract value - which aligns with their incentives & compensation plan. Said another way, founder-led sales are sales engineering sales, not account executive sales.

Scale 152

Scale Engineering Outsourced Development Sales 152

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 19, 2023

That book, Scaling People : Tactics for Management & Company Building. The operating system consists of the workflows to achieve the goals according to the cadence: recruiting, performance management, & compensation. In late 2021, Office Hours welcomed Claire Hughes-Johnson, former Stripe COO & VP at Google.

Startup 192

Startup Scale Systems Review Compensation 192

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. And in the end, at least at scale, sales reps really can’t take home much more than 25% of the ACVs they close. But it all breaks at scale much higher than that. Then ultimately, no one is happy.

Scale 320

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Sales 320

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

Yes, every SaaS treat had multiple offices at scale — but still, offices. Fourth, compensation will become less flat, and there will be some comp deflation for mediocre reps. Almost every SaaS VP of Sales and CRO I’ve talked to in the past few months isn’t going back. Training was done, in part, by osmosis. They’ll get left behind.

Sales Recruiting 351

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review SaaS 351

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Yes, they will refine it once the engine is running, but they don’t need to stand up the entire sales org from scratch without any proof that it will scale. A true VP Sales is looking for proof that they can successfully scale a sales org and revenue. How does this scale beyond the founder? Get someone who will do these things.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

SaaStr

AUGUST 29, 2022

10 Lessons Learned Scaling to $1B Valuation with Drift’s Co-founders : Reaching unicorn status is nice validation, but the luster fades when founders can’t navigate the hidden challenges that come with uncharted territory. Scaling Revenue in 2022: What’s the Same and What’s Different? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Scale 253

Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service B2B 253

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

ClickFlow , a SEO experimentation tool, is looking for aVP of Sales to help them scale over the coming year. Uzio , an HR, benefits, and compensation solution, is looking for a VP of Sales to manage a growing team of five AE’s. Help us manage and scale tens of millions of partner and sponsor revenue. Yes, we’re hiring too!

Sales Hiring 327

Sales Hiring Scale Payment Solutions Payments 327

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. The best sales teams scale together, with low churn and ideally close to zero churn in management and top performers. The more you train them, the faster they scale.

Sales Hiring 328

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 328

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 8, 2023

By activating the expression of fetal gamma globin in adults, it compensates for the root cause of sickle cell disease. With more than 7,000 genetic diseases affecting millions, CRISPR offers a tantalizing promise: curative treatments that can be engineered on a grand scale. On the horizon This is just the beginning.

Compensation 140

Compensation Innovation Engineering Technology 140

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2022

scale, just slightly better than neutral about the market. 50% of companies won’t change compensation this year, 33% will increase it, and 17% will reduce it. The survey results review the trends in the public market, in founders’ minds, and the private market. Top 10 Insights from the 2022 Startup Sentiment Survey.

Startup 190

Startup Scale Headcount Software Review 190