SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

We did a great deep dive on the timing here with co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah: Some really great data here for all of us to learn from! ServiceHub came around $350m, and CMS Hub not until closer to $750m ARR. I think for many today, this would be late. But helpful to see. Billion in ARR appeared first on SaaStr.

SMB 312

SMB CTO Onboarding Scale 312

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2025

Jeff Lawson, founding CEO of $16B Twilio before that … actually joined StubHub as CTO before Twilio. But he didnt get nearly as much equity as the other CTO because in his own words, he wasnt committed enough. Why not, as CTO? ” And so his co-CTO ended up with many times more equity. Which makes sense.

CTO 147

CTO Cloud SaaS 147

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2024

CTO/Engineering Leadership : The final approvers who need to see clear business value and ROI. Technical Decision Makers : These are your “10x engineers” – the architects and principal engineers who may not have leadership titles but carry massive influence with leadership.

Engineering 284

Engineering Development CTO Leadership 284

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2024

Worked out great for my CTO who stayed (proud of him), but if things were structured differently, I would have made nine figures just staying. The thing is, the company we sold to went bankrupt and I made nothing. I sold my second start-up to Adobe, left after a year — and the stock went up 10x after I left.

CTO Hire 274

CTO Hire CTO Banking Finance 274

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2025

Engineering : As you approach $10M ARR, it’s often time to hire a VP of Engineering in addition to your co-fouding CTO. A lot of stuff someone besides your creative CTO can manage. Even the best CTOs need to get stuff off their plates that someone else can do. And the technical debt grows.

Sales Hiring 250

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Scale 250

SaaStr

DECEMBER 31, 2024

Here are our criteria for SaaStrFund.com : Are both the CEO and CTO insanely good? Dear SaaStr: How Do You Evaluate Startups for Seed Investments? Better than I was as a founder? Are they committed to this market and journey for a decade or more? It takes being a bit crazy. Do they just really, really know their stuff?

Investment 274

Investment Startup CTO Marketing 274

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2025

AI and Cybersecurity: How Rubrik’s Co-Founder Built a $1B+ ARR Platform While Joining the AI Revolution Lessons from Arvind Nithrakashyap, Co-Founder and CTO of Rubrik, on scaling cyber resilience platforms, building multiple product curves, and implementing AI across both products and operations.

Cybersecurity 256

Cybersecurity AI Scale CTO Hire 256

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2024

Or couldn’t stand your CTO. I felt part of your core job as CEO was to assemble a management team, not complain about how you couldn’t get it all done. Or didn’t want to do sales. I still believe this. When I hear a CEO want to not deal with a functional area anymore that isn’t yet built out, that’s a big flag.

Sales Hiring 260

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Startup 260

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2025

AI Speakers: CEO Snowflake + CEO Observe: Where B2B Applications Are Going CEO Box Aaron Levie: AI, Agents and The Next Era of SaaS COO Google Cloud Francis deSouza: Hyperscalers: The Future and More CTO Rubrik: Co-Founder & CTO, Arvind Nithrakashyap CTO Neo4j: Philip Rathle (Valuation $2B+): How Revolut Left Salesforce and More: Rolling Your (..)

VP of Engineering 204

VP of Engineering CTO Coach VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Scale 204

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2025

When they launched a huge new feature customers were demanding, the CTO not only built it himself — but launched it in person at 10 customers. It’s also often true as you are entering new markets, or selling new customers. One of SaaStr Fund’ s fastest growing portfolio companies is restaurant SaaS leader Owner.

CTO Hire 209

CTO Hire New CTO Sales Hiring CTO 209

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2025

The Israeli R&D hub provided world-class technical depth (CTO Ilan Atias came from Apple-acquired PrimeSense), while the NYC headquarters ensured deep US market understanding and customer proximity.

Payments 227

Payments Payment Methods SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 227

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2024

As Dharmesh Shah co-founder and CTO notes in the SaaStr Annual deep dive below, the second time … they just really wanted to go big. (And most things in venture dont really work.) The HubSpot co-founders, for example, had $100m exits the first time. HubSpot was their second one. Today, its worth almost $40 Billion.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital New CTO CTO Product Marketing 274

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2025

Don’t Invest Without an S-Tier CTO If you follow me on social media, this won’t be a surprise, as I say it all the time. But when I look back at the investments where I lost money, the CTO wasn’t S-tier. Why It Matters Who Your “Lead” Investor Is #2. It’s too fast today in almost every segment.

Investment 147

Investment New CTO CTO ChatGPT 147

SaaStr

MAY 18, 2025

” Adobe Sign / EchoSign once “failed the due diligence” on a potential sale because their CTO was perceived as not strong enough (despite later becoming a chief scientist at Adobe) “You’re being interviewed and the bet is on the people” 6.

Technical Review 182

Technical Review CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring 182

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2025

AI for Growth: Building AI-Powered SMBs with Gustos CEO & CTO 14. How to Build a Category-Leading Product: Owns CEO 12. SaaStr & Mayfield AI Demo Pitch Competition LIVE Finale 13. AI and the Bottom Line: Canvas CCO on Freemium to Retention 15.

Scale 175

Scale New CTO CTO AI 175

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

Tagging your partner organizations, influencers, or thought leaders at your company (your CEO, CTO, etc.) We tag other LinkedIn profiles  Tagging will help increase the visibility of your post. can help increase the chance that employees and people who follow that page or person’s profile will also see your post. 

Social Media 108

Social Media B2B Interviewing New CTO 108

USIO

JUNE 9, 2025

If you’re a CTO, architect, or lead dev navigating this decision, you’re in the right place. Side-by-Side: PayFac vs PayFac-as-a-Service ️ Let’s Talk Tech: What the CTO Cares About 1. ‍ Final Thoughts for the CTO Becoming a Payment Facilitator is a career-defining decision.

Payment Services 130

Payment Services Merchant Services PayFac as a Service SaaS Payments 130

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2024

The numbers are strong, but the CTO isnt good enough. Not all the deals, but probably 80% of them. The Almosts. These are brutal as an investor and confusing for founders. Theres good stuff there, so its close. Or you love the team but the market is just too small, or growth is good but not great. But it almost never does.

Startup 261

Startup CTO Investment Marketing 261

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Including: CEO Snowflake CEO HubSpot CEO DropBox CEO Descript CEO Clio CEO Flock Safety CEO Own CRO ServiceTitan CMO Databricks CMO Infinite Reality CTO Rubrik CCO Canva CCO Bill CCO GitHub VP AI Wiz CEO Calendly and 100s more!! Investor Connections and Funding Opportunities — And $5m AI VC Pitch Stage!!

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 12, 2023

A Fractional CTO bridges the gap between founders and developers to help keep your tech strategy aligned with your business goals. This helps your startup stay agile and competitive in a fast-paced marketplace.

CTO Hire 975

CTO Hire CTO Startup Development 975

BetterCloud

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

Last month, IT Brews webinar focused on an all too common issue – rising software costs colliding with sprawling tech stacks.

CTO 52

CTO Cost optimization & reporting SaaS Operational efficiency. 52

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2025

Innovation velocity : AI-Native Development Speed Unsurprisingly, the primary reason buyers prefer AI-native vendors is their faster innovation rate Companies built around AI from the ground up deliver fundamentally better products with superior outcomes compared to incumbents retrofitting AI User evidence : Users who have adopted Cursor (gen AI-native (..)

AI Search 289

AI Search Artificial Intelligence AI CTO Hire 289

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

2025 SaaStr Annual is May 13-15 in SF Bay Area We have 100s of speakers and workshops coming to you from the best in SaaS, Cloud and AI, and we’re ready to announce our Launch Speakers: CEO Snowflake CEO HubSpot CEO Dropbox CEO Descript CTO Rubrik CEO Clio CEO Snyk CRO ServiceTitan CCO Canva CEO + CRO Flock Safety CMO + CRO Grammarly CEO Observe (..)

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 274

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) CTO AI Innovation 274

SaaStr

APRIL 29, 2025

250+ speakers. 12,000+ SaaS leaders. 100B+ in market cap. 250+ speakers. 12,000+ SaaS leaders. 100B+ in market cap.

AI Search 162

AI Search AI New CTO Scale 162

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 17, 2024

"Singular events can distort reality, but ChartMogul helps us see the bigger picture", says Patrick Craston, Intruder's CTO. We sat down with Patrick to learn about how Intruder gains perspective on the bigger picture with ChartMogul. What is Intruder?

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payment Features Payments 52

Scytale

DECEMBER 10, 2024

Scytale streamlined the process by providing expert-driven technology. They shared valuable insights about our security systems so we can better protect our customers data.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Software Review Systems Review compliance 52

Scytale

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

Martijn Brandse CTO & Co-Founder of Byner Book a Demo Benefits of SOC 3 A SOC 3 report takes your SOC 2 compliance up a notch by enhancing the value of your SOC 2 attestation and providing a public, easy-to-share badge of trust that showcases your organization’s commitment to data security.

compliance 52

compliance Underperforming Technical Team Scale Technical Review 52

Scytale

MARCH 12, 2025

Christopher Doman As co-founder and CTO of Cado Security – a leading platform for cloud-native digital forensics and incident response – Christopher Doman is a seasoned cybersecurity professional making waves in the tech startup space.

Startup 59

Startup Scale Cybersecurity AI Search 59

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2025

The CTO who said “we don’t need AI people, our engineers can figure it out “ is now 12 months behind companies that hired AI-native talent in early 2024. They’re the companies that made hard decisions about their teams early.

AI Search 175

AI Search AI Technical Review CTO Hire 175

Scytale

APRIL 30, 2025

Scytale streamlined the process by providing expert-driven technology. They shared valuable insights about our security systems so we can better protect our customers data.

AI 52

AI Government compliance Artificial Intelligence 52

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you have the CEO, CTO, some executive chat through, here’s the big picture of the company. David Vogelpohl (07:49) so help me understand then, and I love to kind of anchor to success when I think about strategies people can, you know, use, but when a candidate picks a small company over a large one, why do they do that?

SMB 107

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 107

Stax

APRIL 24, 2025

As Chief Technology Officer at Stax, Mark’s at the forefront of artificial intelligence in the industry. Ever wondered how AI is shaping the world of payments? Staxs Mark Sundt sat down with John Gaffney from PYMNTS to dig into this topic.

Merchant Services 88

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 88

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

Kiren Sekar, who’s spoken previously at SaaStr Annual , was Meraki’s CMO before becoming Samsara’s Chief Strategy Officer and founding chief Product Officer. Ben Calderon, Samsara’s CTO who runs the hardware team did the hardware at Meraki.

Scale 274

Scale CTO Coach New CTO Technical Review 274

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2025

As Dmitry put it: “Instead of you having to always ask for the update of what’s happening with this account, we’re able to detect those changes that are meaningful and surface that to you.”

Scale 219

Scale AI Sales Hiring CTO Hire 219