Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. The best ways he found to learn leadership skills was to hire a management coach to meet him once per month, to talk through the issues facing him at Optimizely.

CTO Coach 101

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 101

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How does a First Time Founder Identify 10x Hires? How do you hire a great CTO, a great VP of Product, a great VP of Sales … if you’ve never worked with one? There’s a reason almost every founder you talk to had a mis-hire for their first head of sales. It’s hard.

Sales Hiring 205

Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 205

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2023

Dan Robinson, current Advisor and former CTO at Heap , shares five essential learnings from nearly a decade of building a SaaS business. What Your Job Is (And What It Isn’t) Your Job is to Make the Company Win A CTO may imagine their primary job is to provide technical expertise, lead engineers, and help build the product.

CTO Coach 174

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 174

Kellblog

APRIL 4, 2021

The CEO said to the CTO as we were leaving, “spend the $9M anyway.” Your investors and advisors will have plenty of opinions but if you end up buried, you will be buried alone. Unlike your VCs and advisors, you have but one life to give for your company [3]. They apologize for missed quarters or bad hires.

CTO Coach 99

CTO Coach CTO Hire Sales Hiring CTO 99

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

When is the right time to hire the first sales rep? Should you hire 2 at a time? What does one look for in their first sales hire? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. I was reached out to by a recruiter there.

Scale 177

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 177

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

That question has been on Will Larson ‘s mind for a long time. For those who don’t know him, Will has over 10 years of experience in the likes of Yahoo, Digg, Uber, and Stripe, and he’s currently the CTO of Calm , the mindfulness app that helps millions of people to lower their stress levels and sleep better.

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

BetterCloud

AUGUST 6, 2021

” At that time, I said, “You know what, I think I really want to become a CIO or CTO.” When I decided I wanted to be a CIO or CTO , I was an associate director or what other companies might call a junior director. Or have you always wanted to manage and mentor people ? It either works or it doesn’t.

Technology 98

Technology CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO 98

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

What’s their new CAC Payback Time? I personally find it surprising that a SaaS company’s forecast may often include such an expense breakdown – as it should – but the company’s actuals are a mere black box. You’ll probably want to include Contract Labor – R&D for any product-related contractors you work with.

Merchant Services 90

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2020

Brendon introduces his playbook to hiring the first VP of Sales from his experiences as VP of Sales at LinkedIn, EchoSign, Talkdesk and more. Learn the dos and don’ts to make the correct hire the first time and not rush into hiring the wrong VP of Sales, which can cost the company months or even years. Roughly 90%.

Sales Hiring 154

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire 154

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2021

Will Larson , CTO of Calm. Des Traynor , Co-founder and CTO of Intercom. We chat with Maggie about all things sales – from laying down a solid foundation to hiring the right people and, finally, scaling the team into hyper-growth. Liam Geraghty: Will Larson is the CTO of Calm , the mindfulness app.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Scale Technical Review Outsourcing Services 118

BetterCloud

MAY 17, 2021

Secondarily, I had a chance to chat with [CTO Jamie Tischart ] even before he joined the company. Were there any mentors that helped you get to where you are today? I often say that Black people in this space are over-mentored. There’ve been some key mentors for me in my career. That was very exciting to me.

New CTO 52

New CTO Part-Time VPE CTO Coach CTO Hire 52

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 15, 2018

He had to quickly determine which team members displayed a potential for leadership and teach them the fundamentals of management so they could make new hires and scale – without ruining the culture. Find a sponsor , not a mentor — someone who is in the room when opportunities arise and makes sure your name comes up.

Leadership 141

Leadership Engineering Part-Time VPE CTO Coach 141

Casey Accidental

JUNE 26, 2018

I’ve written before about analytics teams as a crucial function in today’s technology companies. Technology companies are rapidly hiring analyst roles to pair with their product teams. Since analysts are being hired so frequently, they need managers who can mentor and coordinate learnings between teams.

CTO Coach 53

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO CTO 53

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 5, 2022

And as nice as verbal assurances and a handshake are, as you grow and try to sign with more established, enterprise-level companies, you’ll find yourself more and more having to provide proofs of compliance before closing the deal: The shift to the cloud, more and more data breaches – it really put a magnifying glass on third-party risk.

Scale 211

Scale Software Review compliance Technical Review 211

Outseta

OCTOBER 15, 2018

The company had for a few years prior followed a growth-first path, hiring aggressively and prioritizing projects designed to make an immediate impact on their growth rate. That money brought us two phenomenal teammates, a really helpful mentor who's still on our board, and lots of connections and help from investors. of the $3.5M

CTO Hire 65

CTO Hire CTO Coach SaaS New CTO 65

User Pilot

MARCH 7, 2024

This could be explained by the fact that it was women, more often than men, who had to step down and work part-time to take care of stay-at-home children during the pandemic. Also – a study by Paychex from December 2018 found that 33% of women in technology have considered changing careers because of male colleagues.

Technical Review 105

Technical Review CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire 105

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 24, 2021

A thanks to [Marsh 00:00:34] for stepping in at the beginning of the month, and a great session with our own Jason Warner and Adrian, the CTO of Zendesk. Lionetti, the CMO at Confluent, and most recently, the CTO from Zendesk, Adrian. We have the formidable Claire Hughes Johnson, who is the chief corporate advisor at Stripe.

CTO Coach 127

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 127

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Viviana Faga, Investor & Advisor @ Coda. Christine Spang, Co-Founder and CTO @ Nylas. Dave Walters, CTO @ Hired. Christa Diaz, Senior Director, Customer Success @ Hired. Jenn Knight, Co-Founder, CTO @ AgentSync. Brian Peterson, CTO @ Dialpad. Tolithia Kornweibel, Chief Revenue Officer @ Gusto.

VP of Engineering 274

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder CTO Coach CTO Hire 274

Buffer Resources

JANUARY 30, 2023

He spent 12 years at Amazon, leading organizations as a general manager and technology director. Then he became CTO at Bezos Academy, a non-profit organization founded by Jeff Bezos. After leaving Bezos Academy, he decided to start a paid newsletter focused on career development, organization design, and hiring.

Social Media 17

Social Media CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO 17

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2021

Viviana Faga, Investor & Advisor @ Coda. Christine Spang, Co-Founder and CTO @ Nylas. Dave Walters, CTO @ Hired. Christa Diaz, Senior Director, Customer Success @ Hired. Amy Pisano, CRO @ Hired. Jenn Knight, Co-Founder, CTO @ AgentSync. Brian Peterson, CTO @ Dialpad.

VP of Engineering 267

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder CTO Coach CTO Hire 267

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

. * How does one know when we need to hire generalists vs specialists? How does Karl fundamentally think about finding great talent and keeping top of funnel full? How does Karl think about working with recruiters? How does Karl structure the hiring process today? Why do they have a hiring committee? What works?

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach 221

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

Today on the show, we’ve got Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares, a company that applies AI to your contract. If you missed episode 128, check it out here: How to Unshackle Your Career Growth With a Mentor with Tom Martin. How to find advisors when you’re a CEO [22:32]. We’re on iTunes.

Scale 107

Scale CTO Hire Scaling CTO Coach 107

SaaStr

JULY 28, 2021

I retired from SunGard Treasury Systems as their CTO. When you find the right partner, the right investor, what they can do in terms of helping you grow and scale a company is just invaluable. He’s not necessarily interested in putting in the work that’s necessary or getting the coaching or the feedback that he needs.

Startup 274

Startup CTO Hire Sales Hiring CTO Coach 274

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

We know, by persona, by ICP, how people respond to what, for a long period of time, and how we can, more specifically, get meetings with these individuals,” because that was the name of the game. We brought in this brilliant CTO who’s got a PhD in informatics. I see this online all the time. Find Sales Hacker.

Scale 71

Scale Artificial Intelligence Sales Recruiting Consulting 71

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2019

Again, we felt that there was much greater value in being authentic than trying to be someone that we weren’t and try to find positives. I immediately left the office, went home, packed a bag, went the airport, booked flights, showed up there at mid night, met with the individual. It was the last day of the quarter as well.

CTO Hire 160

CTO Hire Travel Underperforming Technical Team CTO Coach 160

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 13, 2020

Ideas Ryan finds transformative [29:33]. Hiring managers are also just trying to sell as well. Users come to us all the time and they say, Hey, this company looks awesome. Are they hiring? That goes to the hiring manager. And if you get hired, RepVue will actually pay you $500. Sam’s Corner [33:50 ].

Marketplace as a Service 95

Marketplace as a Service CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Data 95

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2020

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. Is there hiring decisions? How important do you think time to value is? Paul Rosania: So let’s imagine I went to you as a CTO. How will the support they receive change? Harry Stebbings.

CTO Coach 179

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Software Review CTO Hire 179

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

You can watch the full session , and if you missed the podcast with the first half of the interview, you’ll find that here. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. We might’ve touched on this one too on the hiring and the people.

Sales Hiring 238

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 238

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2019

And I thank a lot of that to actually Met Gourniak, who I hired at that time. But I think within your own category find something that’s really going to grow inevitably with you or without you and riding that bigger wave is really what can make your startup successful. And so we find this is now a great way.

Sales Recruiting 170

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale SaaS Payments 170

SaaStr

AUGUST 2, 2020

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. I retired from SunGard Treasury Systems as their CTO. When you find the right partner, the right investor, what they can do in terms of helping you grow and scale a company is just invaluable.

Startup 158

Startup CTO Hire Scale CTO Coach 158

Mucker Capital

APRIL 6, 2023

Hila is a mentor with Mucker Capital. Obviously if you target enterprise customers, you usually have a very large ACV (Annual Contract Value) and the product usually is complex. They ignore that someone has to use the product to see the value to then become revenue and/or to sign a contract. So those are things to think about.

Startup 52

Startup Scale CTO Hire Outsourced Development 52

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2019

And this is not just about something you do in a later stage, when you raise that $120,000,000 that PJ from Sherpa had done, but something you can do at the series A stage when you’re doing small hires to build out your team. I used to be a CTO and operator, co-founder of a SaaS start up. One other thing would be talent pickup.

Outsourcing Services 109

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Technical Review 109

SaaStr

JULY 30, 2018

At our inaugural SaaStr Europa last June, podcast host-with-the-most Harry Stebbings sat down with MuleSoft Founder and CTO Ross Mason to discuss the organization’s sales strategy, building a strong company culture, how to think about international expansion, and much more. You got to go and say it again another 10 times.”

Technical Advisors 159

Technical Advisors Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 159

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2019

And then it was just a matter of, okay, make sure that it works, make sure that it scales, then very important not to forget, make sure that people buy it, that they know how to find you, you know. That means lots and lots of hiring and I don’t want to say firing, we did fire anyone, but people get reshuffled, you know? We did not.

Scale 148

Scale Business Sales Hiring CTO Hire 148

Sales Hacker

MARCH 25, 2019

Simmone talks about her experience building Gilt City and Kidpass as a woman of color and how she advises companies to build diversity and inclusion into their hiring practices and sales teams. How to build diversity into your hiring practices. I’m an advisor at some of the best tech accelerators here in New York.

Sales Hiring 68

Sales Hiring Revenue CTO Coach CTO Hire 68

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2019

290: Yousuf Khan is a serial CIO, start-up and VC advisor. During his time at the company, they raised over $108m from Lightspeed, ICONIQ, Kleiner, Sapphire, and Bain Capital. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. Harry Stebbings. Yousuf Khan.

Technical Advisors 152

Technical Advisors Scale Technical Review Payment Solutions 152

Hull

JANUARY 22, 2019

These roles are filled by engineers that roll up to the CMO/COO (not CTO) as part of a growth team. The marketing function in technology companies is usually a response to engineering constraints. Casey Winters Growth Advisor at Greylock. Dogpatch Advisors on building "relevance at scale" for sales enablement.

SaaS Payments 77

SaaS Payments Technical Advisors Engineering Payment Solutions 77