Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

Your startup is just getting off the ground. Knowing about the options ahead of time may help you figure out the right sales plan for your startup. The ultimate goal of any compensation plan is to ensure account executive success at each stage. I’ve seen four stages in early stage software companies.

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Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 146

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

” Microsoft is now compensating their salespeople for selling Snowflake more aggressively than in the past, perhaps as a competitive joust to Databricks. ” For startups operating within data, which tops buyers’ lists , this news further signals a stronger market in 2024. And we’re seeing the effects of that.

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Tom Tunguz

JUNE 21, 2022

In addition, Lee shared his view on usage-based pricing and defending a startup’s great asset, talent, from poaching during the next recovery. UBP presented an opportunity to reinvent the account executive (AE) compensation model. Compensation. Startups must prepare for the inevitable economic rebound.

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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. I’ve seen these types of rewards work well at startups, too. And for most of the company, this strategy works very well.

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Compensation Startup Benchmarks Engineering 100

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2022

Top 10 Insights from the 2022 Startup Sentiment Survey. 50% of companies won’t change compensation this year, 33% will increase it, and 17% will reduce it. There’s no correlation between the amount of money a startup has raised and its runway. The typical founder feels 6.0

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Dear SaaStr: The Startup I’m Working At is Getting Acquired. Because it’s seen as their money, as “extra” compensation on top of the deal price. The post Dear SaaStr: The Startup I’m Working At is Getting Acquired. How Much Can I Negotiate? You can try a little, but it’s rough. How Much Can I Negotiate?

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Tom Tunguz

JUNE 10, 2015

Compensation structures are one of the most interesting questions facing customer success organizations in software startups. How should customer success leaders structure their team’s compensation in order to align the objectives of individual customer success managers with those of the larger business?

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Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 27, 2022

He’s an expert in the sales world, particularly in revenue operations and incentive compensation. Building a compensation structure that works for both salespeople and the company. Building a compensation structure that works for both salespeople and the company. Best practices for designing compensation structure [07:00].

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Compensation Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Leadership 82

SaaStr

APRIL 21, 2023

Maybe it was a lot of startups just plain not having real boards of directors. What’s changed is the majority of startups that are venture-backed don’t seem to get the CEO’s and founders’ compensation packages approved by the board anymore. Maybe it was the investing craziness of late ‘20 through late ‘21.

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Compensation Government Finance Startup 237

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%.

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Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

How much should your startup budget for its employee stock option pool? 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.

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Sales Hacker

JULY 14, 2023

Stephen Farnsworth , Head of GTM at Stealth Startup : SDR comp – commission should be 90+% based on things the SDR can control…booking a qualified meeting that is accepted into pipeline. Then create checks and balances across rest of exec leadership team compensation around cash or cost side metrics (in addition to top line).

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SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

The ones you actually just have to catch up? The 2023 list below! And sign up for FREE Workshop Wednesdays here. The Seven Things all Founders Should Know About Sales. Tunguz, MongoDB, Nick Mehta, Bessemer and More!!

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Generative AI Scale Compensation AI 245

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Who Should Approve Startup CEO Expenses ? In a startup, the reality is a CEO can probably do almost anything they want — up to a point. More here: Founders: Get Your Comp Package Approved By Your Board of Directors The post Dear SaaStr: Who Should Approve Startup CEO Expenses? Transparency builds trust.

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Startup Finance Compensation Leadership 183

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2023

So Carta recently put together some dat a on a topic I’ve wondered about: just how many startups allow option exercises beyond the traditional 90 day window? The answer: the general trend is just over 10% of startups have extended windows beyond the traditional 90 days for departing employees to exercise stock options.

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Startup Trends Data Compensation 236

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. In any case, this patterns startups in two ways: First, smaller salaries for CEOs reduces burn and lengthens the time startups can iterate their way to success.

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SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2022

Today, it’s hard because there are 1000x more SaaS startups before. Transparent compensation information is concern #1. So many startups screw this up, but you can fix it now. Second, many of us worry about being fully transparent with compensation. Concern #1 was a lack of transparent compensation information.

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Revenue Sales Hiring Compensation Startup 266

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2022

The Simple Reason Startups That Just Raised $100s of Millions Are Doing Layoffs. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. Each week, we round up our most popular content so you can catch up on anything you may have missed.

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Sales Recruiting CTO Compensation Software Review 285

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 15, 2018

You’re two or three years into your startup. Startups should pay key people market rate to retain them. Otherwise, they may leave the business, lured by the promise of greater compensation elsewhere. Otherwise, they may leave the business, lured by the promise of greater compensation elsewhere. Year 1 2 3 4 5 6.

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Startup Compensation Retention Pricing 145

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

As a SaaS startup begins to reach critical mass, the business generates more of its revenue from upsells and expansions, reaching about 30% at between $40-75M in revenue, which is in line with some of the models we’ve created. Many times startup teams ask how to compensate a sales team for renewals and upsells.

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Kellblog

JUNE 27, 2022

Bernard , Suranga , Alice , Rob ) as well as my other European startup colleagues (e.g., Expanding internationally means managing differences not only in language and time zone – but in culture, business norms, law, taxation, labor, employment, compensation, and competition. This series was both a lot of work and a lot of fun.

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Startup Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Compensation 117

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Tie compensation to these metrics to incentivize performance. A classic on founder compensation, always one of the most searched topics. Jason notes that a VP of Sales may still succeed elsewhere, but if they are not a good fit for a particular startup, that is the founder’s responsibility. . •

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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.

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SaaStr

MAY 28, 2023

SaaStr 660: CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers With CoSell.io CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers with CoSell.io’s Co-Founder Brendon Cassidy 3. SaaStr 661: VC AMA with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Black Mangroves MD Arnaud Bonzom at SaaStr APAC 2023  4.

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CTO Sales Recruiting Compensation Startup 201

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

How To Perfectly Pitch Your Seed Stage Startup With Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel 2. Workshop Wednesday LIVE: Rethinking Sales Compensation for a Consumption-Based GTM with MongoDB 5. The Proven Customer Acquisition Strategies Behind Toast’s Record Breaking Growth with Toast’s CRO 3.

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ChatGPT Compensation AI Acquisition 173

Mucker Capital

OCTOBER 10, 2023

SDR Strategy & Model Checklist In the intricate world of sales development, finding the balance between art and science is crucial for a startup's success. Instead, identifying a narrow target market and focusing efforts there is key, especially for startups with limited resources.

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Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development Development 52

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 23, 2023

At Point Nine, we aspire to continuously share what we learn with our community and the extended startup ecosystem. Sales is hard, especially in the early stages of a startup. You founded a startup to lead teams, grow your business, and embark on an extreme and hopefully glorious journey we all dream of.

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Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

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. SAP for Startups? Carta manages over two trillion dollars in equity for nearly two million people globally.

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Scale Payments Payment Solutions Artificial Intelligence 195

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2023

Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares. Note: an updated SaaStr Classic answer) The post Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares. Congratulations on the change for some liquidity. It’s both exciting — and confusing.

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Startup AWS Pricing Marketing 224

Tom Tunguz

MAY 1, 2023

When a startup is born, founders lead sales. Design partners, pilots, or founder-led sales - they have many names - these customers work with a startup to solve a problem. AEs, experts in closing contracts, often focus on reducing sales cycle & maximizing contract value - which aligns with their incentives & compensation plan.

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Scale Engineering Outsourced Development Sales 165

OnStartups

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

Startups are hard. If you’re a startup founder you already know these statistics and yet you are irrationally proceeding forward. During this time any one other than a co-founder will soon get frustrated by the changes of direction and eventually wonder if the compensation they are giving up on elsewhere is worth it.

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Startup Compensation Leadership Product Marketing 113

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky to work with founders and management teams to sell about $5b of startups. Startups are sold to individuals, not to companies. The champion - often a product leader, the CEO, or a general manager - risks their career by buying a startup. As Simon Sinek would say, start with the why.

Technical Review 276

Technical Review Construction Compensation Acquisition 276

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 5, 2023

How To Perfectly Pitch Your Seed Stage Startup With Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel 3. Workshop Wednesday LIVE: Rethinking Sales Compensation for a Consumption-Based GTM with MongoDB 4. The Proven Customer Acquisition Strategies Behind Toast’s Record Breaking Growth with Toast’s CRO 2.

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ChatGPT Scale Compensation AI 154

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2020

Q: What is a typical organizational structure for a SaaS startup with sales reps? 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. A rough structure from 1–25 sales reps: Early days: CEO acts as VP of Sales. Earlier if you can afford it.

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Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 239

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2022

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: The Simple Reason Startups That Just Raised $100s of Millions Are Doing Layoffs. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin.

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Sales Recruiting Compensation Cloud Retention 235

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

The Simple Reason Startups That Just Raised $100s of Millions Are Doing Layoffs. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. 5 Interesting Learnings from Duolingo at $360,000,000 in ARR. When You Fall Out of Product-Market Fit.

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Sales Recruiting AWS Compensation Enterprise 230

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2023

CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers with CoSell.io’s Co-Founder Brendon Cassidy 4. 5 Interesting Learnings from Monday.com at $640,000,000 in ARR Top Podcasts This Week: 1. Lessons Learned from 9 Years at Heap with Advisor & Former CTO Dan Robinson 2.

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