SaaStr

JULY 5, 2025

Veeva is the dominant cloud software provider for life sciences – serving pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies with mission-critical applications for drug development, clinical trials, regulatory compliance, and commercial operations. You have to have enough to hire people to dedicate on it. That’s it.”

Underperforming Technical Team 239

Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring compliance Outsourced Development 239

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

You need: Sales leaders who understand complex, multi-stakeholder deals Customer success teams ready for high-touch support Legal expertise for enterprise contract negotiation Product leaders who can balance current needs with future vision Pro tip: Hire enterprise reps in pairs. If both succeed, you’re ready to scale.

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2024

Probably the biggest challenge in vertical SaaS I see is scaling the sales team. It’s pretty easy to hire SaaS sales execs to sell … a SaaS sales product. But who do you hire to sell a very complex piece of vertical software? So if you hire reps for standard B2B companies, they often literally close nothing.

Sales Hiring 317

Sales Hiring Scale Sales SaaS 317

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2025

billion valuation after 175M round Scale AI : $29 billion valuation / “sale” with Meta’s $14.3 Industry observers like Josh Bersin remain skeptical about replicating complex systems like Workday’s payroll and compliance frameworks. billion total funding, $157 billion valuation Anthropic : $8.4

AI Search 289

AI Search Artificial Intelligence AI CTO Hire 289

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2025

Companies are discovering that hiring AI talent or upskilling existing teams takes much longer than anticipated. Moving from AI pilots to production-grade implementations requires solving hard technical problems around data pipelines, security, compliance, and workflow integration. Integration challenges are mounting.

AI 281

AI Payment Services Payments Scale 281

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

AUGUST 2, 2024

Canva Head of Sales and Success for EMEA, Jorge Bestard, and Head of Strategic Sales for EMEA, Daniela Nyarko, share Canva’s journey from PLG to Enterprise, strategies to navigate the PLG trap, and why it’s so attractive. You get traction in the market and raise a round to build a marketing and sales team.

Scale 283

Scale Sales Hiring Sales B2C 283

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

Hiring for Customer Success When Braze was looking for their first customer success hires, you couldn’t find a CSM with seven years of experience in software because those people didn’t exist yet. Every incremental hire with a small team matters, so it’s worth being clear on what you want.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 291

SaaStr

JANUARY 13, 2023

They usually come in and handle compliance and oversight for an existing finance team that perhaps lacks the seasoned experience to handle models, venture capital and debt, prepare for an audit, etc. For sure, if you have a strong existing sales team that needs some mentorship, I can see a Fractional CRO working. Image from here.

Sales Hiring 326

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Scale Finance 326

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

They focused on building a payment platform that empowers international talent and independent contractors to get paid on time in a compliant way while also ensuring that companies can hire international talent and make payments efficiently. This insight led Deel to focus on solving payments and compliance.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 274

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2024

It’s less jack-of-all-trade hires, so the knowledge and questions they’ll ask will look a lot different. Either way, ensure the demand gen team sits down with sales and decides which accounts to go after. Either way, ensure the demand gen team sits down with sales and decides which accounts to go after.

Sales Hiring 300

Sales Hiring Scale SMB compliance 300

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

Stephanie Couzin, the VP of GTM Strategy and Ops, and Roderick De Greef, the VP of Sales and GM EMEA, share Lucid’s transition from a PLG company to a PLG and Sales-Led company. Lucid hired someone with a business background under a special project. This is where product-led sales comes in.

Scale 307

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Systems Review 307

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2021

So how do you simplify and speed up your sales cycles? He started as the first sales hire at TripActions when the company was small and he helped scale the business to 5,000 customers, 1,200 employees and a $5 billion private valuation. Read on for Michael’s insightful advice for driving faster sales cycles. Subscribe.

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Enterprise Sales 293

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2022

Quickly, though, your attention turns to initial traction, your first critical hires, and building out those early business functions. With early revenue, you start thinking about churn and scalability of every aspect of the business, including product, infrastructure, customer support, sales and marketing. Mistake #4: DIY Accounting.

Finance 332

Finance Outsourcing Services Systems Review Technical Review 332

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

Now sales and marketing limits the company’s growth. Time to hire account executives and demand generation. Buoyed by this advance, sales and marketing accelerate their efforts and grow their teams. Regional vice presidents join the sales ranks. They will hire account executives in different regions.

VP of Engineering 279

VP of Engineering Startup Sales Hiring compliance 279

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Communication is easier You can ramp people faster You can hire junior people The tradeoff is global talent. Grafana Labs still has features and capabilities they hold back that appeal to large enterprises, such as things around security and compliance. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team.

Scale 291

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 291

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How You Deal With Long Sales Cycles, E.g. 7-8+ Months? You cannot force 9 month sales cycles into 9 days. This is why “pipeline” doesn’t make any sense to start-ups, not really, but makes total sense for BigCo sales executives. Crazy discounting and high pressure sales tactics don’t work on long sales cycle deals.

Sales Hiring 293

Sales Hiring Sales compliance Enterprise 293

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2023

Many net-new purchases are for data security, compliance, risk management, and AI-powered tools. Compliance : The cost of GDPR compliance has totaled around $9B globally since its introduction. However, it’s not as simple as moving the money; since budgets are getting bigger, sales teams must support those budgets.

VP of Engineering 293

VP of Engineering Trends Sales Hiring Cybersecurity 293

SaaStr

DECEMBER 2, 2021

Rattle is building a magical combination between Salesforce and Slack that lets the sales team track and update Salesforce all while sitting in Slack. Panther helps remote startups hire anyone, anywhere, in just a click. They handle global payroll, taxes, compliance, and benefits — so startups can focus on work that matters.

Payment Features 259

Payment Features Payment Services Payments Sales Hiring 259

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

In this Ask Me Anything Part 1, Lemkin answers the questions: Many VCs talk about funding, yet you’re so focused on sales. Question #1: Why Are You So Focused On Sales When Other VCs Are Focused On Funding? Question #1: Why Are You So Focused On Sales When Other VCs Are Focused On Funding? Their sales doubled in 60 days.

Outsourcing Services 285

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 285

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Another strategy we often see is moving from a PLG model to a sales assistive model with a more established sales team that can sell the product to the customer. . Governance and compliance are core to alignment. Hire ahead of the curve. Hire for where you want to be. New service offerings.

Scale 246

Scale Finance Sales Hiring Scaling 246

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

He brought up a very interesting topic that many GTM leaders / founders face as a challenge when scaling a startup; highlighting the 3 stages of executive hires as you scale and what to look out for qualitatively. You need to hire people who are very much think like you, as a founder. First bullet is definitely creative grinders.

Sales Hiring 118

Sales Hiring Technical Cofounder Scale Sales Recruiting 118

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

They are hiring leaders, building teams, and attracting advisors in the US while devouring the SV SaaS playbook. One smart way to build a US presence is to hire a GM, ideally someone who could run an important function like sales or marketing besides being responsible for US operations. Silicon Valley has a deep talent bench.

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Cybersecurity 293

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Just like filing your income tax returns or hanging that state-mandated safety poster up in your break room, sales tax is a back-office pain point, not a profit center. . That makes sales tax compliance easy to ignore… until it becomes a problem. . Why is sales tax such a pain for SaaS companies? There are a few reasons.

Merchant Services 202

Merchant Services Technical Review Scale Sales Hiring 202

Payrix

DECEMBER 18, 2024

Takeaway #2: Inflation and surcharging compliance Ella highlighted the rising importance of surcharging as a response to inflation and escalating operational costs. Ensuring compliance in surcharging practices is critical, as violations can lead to substantial fines. Are you planning to stand up a sales arm?

Payments 130

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services Payment Services 130

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

FastSpring, a leading global payments platform for over 3,500 growth-stage companies including top video game publishers, has hired Chip Thurston as Head of Gaming. FastSpring allows you to offload the complexity of global payments, sales tax and VAT compliance, player payments support, and many other aspects of payments management.

Sales Hiring 78

Sales Hiring Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 78

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2019

More here: I Never Lost a Customer I Actually Visited | SaaStr Not hiring a full-time RFP person. They are too much work to just dump on a product person, success person, sales leader, etc. Not hiring a full-time Chief Security & Compliance Offer. Hiring a CSO way early if you are truly going enterprise.

Sales Hiring 174

Sales Hiring Enterprise CTO Hire CTO 174

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

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 8, 2018

In a time where buyer behavior has rendered cold calling nearly obsolete, successful sales prospecting begins with using tools like live chat and social media to build relationships. He’d go on to become the VP of Sales at Sprinklr, guiding the company through its own high growth period, before striking out on his own.

Social Media 186

Social Media Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 186

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

The Accounting Team Responsibilities: Financial recording and reporting Compliance, Audits Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable Tax, Treasury Your accounting team makes sure every financial transaction is recorded correctly and categorized. This role can be recruited through headhunters or your network.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

You have to be careful to pair that with someone strong to manage the relationship, that has more time and that also can be trusted. As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself. Hire that person, and make sure they are someone the top customers can really trust and count on.

CTO Hire 325

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 325

FastSpring

DECEMBER 5, 2024

How a merchant of record like FastSpring can handle all the complexities of global payments for you, even taxes and compliance. Spend less time managing your payments and compliance and more time making great games! Dealing with compliance and taxes in any region, country, or jurisdiction where you choose to do business.

Payments 89

Payments Payment Services Merchant Services Payment Methods 89

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2021

To keep up with the ever-increasing demand, our AutoFile team (which is in charge of state sales tax filing and remittance on behalf of customers) was working long into the nights and through the weekends, and despite their belief in what we were doing, morale was taking a hit. Hiring is one of these times. When to be patient.

Scale 200

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS compliance 200

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

The Challenges and Pitfalls of a Partner Ecosystem Drata attributes much of its success to its partner ecosystem, which is an interesting case study for most, so how do they break up marketing, sales, and resource allocation vs. a more direct-sales modeled business? The sales reps were friends, and accounts were shared.

AWS 279

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 279

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

But developers notoriously don’t want to talk to anyone ever, and they’ll still spend six figures and beyond without ever talking to sales. Head of Sales: They don’t understand what SAML means and don’t plan to learn it. This doesn’t include the compliance or security teams. 50% of SaaS sales are outside of North America.

Enterprise readiness 283

Enterprise readiness Payment Solutions Enterprise Payments 283

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

Your biggest customers are likely in frequent contact with your sales teams, and there’s a risk that their feedback will carry more weight as an input into your product decisions. . Finally, as we’ve moved upmarket, we’ve worked hard to ensure our sales and product teams collaborate deeply and effectively.

Scale 249

Scale Management Sales Hiring Healthcare 249

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

Hypergrowth in today’s highly competitive and budget-constrained SaaS world may be less frequent now, but Vanta, the software tool empowering security companies to achieve compliance and manage risk, has defied the odds.

Strategy 246

Strategy Scale Sales Hiring Startup 246