Teamgate

JUNE 11, 2025

As Cory Watson, Principal Infrastructure Engineer at Keen , explains: “The ability to integrate API Monitoring into the communications channels our engineers use most often adds tremendous value, and allows us to respond to API failures much more quickly” Runscope also simplifies complex authentication scenarios.

Scale 52

Scale Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments 52

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2025

” His real-world example is that when he gets a contract to review as the CBO of Perplexity in a buying role, he doesn’t immediately send it straight to legal anymore. His and his lawyer’s time is 10x more productive on these calls. Engineers who grasp marketing. Product managers who understand legal.

Scale 217

Scale AI Sales Hiring CTO Hire 217

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2025

Every time I see a CRO that doesn't sell themselves, they fail. Every time I see a CTO that doesn't code themselves, they fail. Every time I see a CMO that doesn't market themselves, they fail. We’ve spend the most time on hiring a great first VP of Sales, but all the VPs are super important.

Part-Time VPE 307

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 307

Crafty CTO

JUNE 10, 2025

As I dig in to recap what I saw and learned at the AI Engineer World’s Fair 2025 in San Francisco , I was forced to face my failure to write consistently – a failure that dates back almost exactly a year, to June 12, 2024. Thinking back on it, I see two causes.

AI 40

AI Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT CTO Hire 40

TechEmpower SaaS

AUGUST 7, 2023

What does it mean to be a CTO for a startup? Should a startup CTO spend their time programming? The role of a CTO varies as the company matures. Here’s a graphic from Socal CTO that illustrates the roles as they change over time: In its earliest days, a startup’s top need is often to produce a product.

CTO Hire 390

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Fractional VPE 390

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2025

Co-founders Dharmesh Shah (CTO) and Brian Halligan (Chairperson) shared at SaaStr Annual the unfiltered truth on building an SMB powerhouse, pivoting to product-led growth, and why the “M” segment is SaaS gold. The company had to retrench and restart their global efforts multiple times.

Scale 193

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Scaling 193

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 18, 2025

Discussed in this Episode: When to hire your first account executives Key traits to look for in early sales hires Structuring compensation for first sales reps Should you ‘hire the buyer’ to be your sales rep? 31:55 Hiring for grit, curiosity & determination. What does Joe look like at that time?

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale VP of Engineering 98

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

IME, rough order to make hires in: VPM: $0.2m He asked which to hire first. If you have a few nickels in the bank, and you somehow find a great VP a half stage or even full stage early, just hire her. Hiring is so hard as it is. Make the hire now. ARR VPS: $1-$1.5m More here: [link].

Part-Time VPE 364

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 364

SaaStr

JANUARY 19, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What Makes a Bad CTO? While there is no legal definition for CTO or bright line between CTO and VPE, I’d suggest a start-up CTO really only has to do a few things — which are very hard: Assemble a small team (3–9) of very good engineers. A “bad” CTO doesn’t care about growing very, very quickly.

CTO Hire 292

CTO Hire Part-Time VPE CTO Engineering 292

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2022

The competition for engineers is fiercer than ever — and that means that companies need to work harder than ever to attract and retain them. Everyone involved has experienced these struggles firsthand, and what they say may help inform how you treat the engineers on your team. #1. Focus on retaining your engineers from day one.

CTO Coach 273

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO Engineering 273

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

At TechEmpower , we’ve used LLMs as part of marketing strategies where you can find and classify companies, personalize outreach campaigns and have personalized drip campaigns. By automating routine and complex tasks alike, AI allows engineers to focus on innovation and strategic tasks.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

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 287

Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 287

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

Or churn will increase, NPS will stagnate and decline, and upsell and revenue retention will be a fraction of what it could be. You’ll need more than 5–6 core engineers to go big. You will need a VP of Engineering to manage these processes, recruit and build the team, and make your product more secure and enterprise-ready.

Part-Time VPE 309

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 309

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Perhaps the single most important thing you can ever do in SaaS, at least after $1m in ARR or so, is hire the best VPs you can. We’ve talked a lot over the years about how not to hire a wrong VP of Sales — 70%+ of the first VPs of Sales don’t make it even 10 months. You need to hire up-and-comers. Get on jets?

Part-Time VPE 352

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 352

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Many companies believe excellent product design comes from hiring the best engineers and signing up for the latest software instead of building from the users’ perspectives. Stripe’s CTO, David Singleton, shares how they use a system of feedback, iteration, and fast shipping to create products that meet users’ expectations.

CTO Hire 292

CTO Hire CTO Payment Methods Payment Solutions 292

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

Or churn will increase, NPS will stagnate and decline, and upsell and revenue retention will be a fraction of what it could be. You’ll need more than 5–10 engineers to go big. You will need a VP of Engineering to manage these processes, recruit and build the team, and make your product more secure and enterprise-ready.

Scale 274

Scale Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE 274

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Lately I’ve been working with 5+ SaaS companies all hiring their first VP of Product. And critically, most have a really strong CEO-CTO partnership. A few general learnings: A VP of Product that Reports to CTO / Engineering Rarely Meets With That Many Customers. I just see this time and time again.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Outsourcing Services CTO Hire CTO 318

SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2020

Front-end, mid-end, back-end engineers of all sorts and types. Anyhow the one thing I learned, beyond getting help screening and hiring for these positions from domain experts, is to look for Flags. For signs the prospective hire just won’t work out, no matter how strong they might look on paper. You get the picture.

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 257

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2022

Miguel Carranza, CTO at RevenueCat, shares ten learnings from firsthand experience in architecting an API & SDK that is currently on 5,000+ apps and has seen 3x growth Year-over-Year. . Instead, the CTO suggests that you avoid adding new pieces of infrastructure until absolutely necessary. What makes a great API?

CTO Hire 246

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 246

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 242

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 242

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2019

From large scale mainstage sessions to intimate workshops and even a dedicated lounge, we are carving out some of SaaStr Annual just for developers and engineers. ” When to Hire and When to Automate” with Zapier CEO Wade Foster. The post Developers and Engineers! Have no fear, we have got you covered.

CTO Coach 185

CTO Coach Engineering CTO Hire Development 185

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? Positions Needed: Enterprise AEs, Mid-Market & SMB AEs, SDRs, Sales Ops, Sales Engineer. CTO (40 Employees). CTO (114 Employees).

CTO Hire 284

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 284

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2021

Use overages to renegotiate contracts, not charge per event. Folks come out differently here, but while Amplitude charges per volume, in part, it doesn’t make a material amount from overages. 245 employees in Sales & Marketing — vs. 101 in Engineering / R&D. The engineering team is also surprisingly lean. #7.

Scale 307

Scale CTO Hire New CTO CTO 307

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 27, 2018

On call work like this can be a powerful customer orientated activity that connects engineers to the value customers get from your product. Back in the early days of Intercom, our CTO Ciaran was the entirety of the on call team, both in and out of the office. The history of on call at Intercom.

Engineering 209

Engineering Software Review Technical Review Systems Review 209

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

They’ll revolt when you make a senior or mid-level hire that as a group, they simply cannot suffer one day longer. It’s happened to me, and I think for whatever my faults, I have a pretty high EQ and am a half-decent manager. The three times it happened to me: A very senior engineer that we just HAD to have.

Part-Time VPE 284

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 284

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. That it’s time to bring in someone that knows. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. Of Engineering.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

These are all full-time jobs by $1m ARR. Fixing it yourself becomes the biggest time sink and excuse for not hiring there is. You end up spending all your time backfilling roles you should have hired. And even worse, you often sort of give up trying to make the hire. That’s when you want to lean in.

Part-Time VPE 293

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 293

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

They hire a VP of Sales who doesn’t want to sell or learn the product. You also don’t want to hire a VP of Sales who won’t carry a bag. If you joined a startup at $2M and wanted to get to $6M with reps doing $400k, that VP of Sales would need to hire ten reps. 90% of the time, sales falls when a founder steps out of it.

CTO Hire 209

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO Venture Capital 209

SaaStr

AUGUST 20, 2023

In my first start-up, there were literally only a handful of engineers who understood our technology. The best we made our CTO. But what if our CTO gets hit by a bus? They feed on each other, hire other toxic people, and turn the company against the mission and each other. Sometimes, still hire them. For a while.

CTO Hire 246

CTO Hire CTO Technology Engineering 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

It is a prerequisite to hire folks with a high IQ to success in software. You probably need a wicked smart CTO, some incredible engineers, maybe an insanely smart head of product or marketing, etc. Q: Is it a prerequisite to have a high IQ in order to succeed as a tech entrepreneur?

CTO Hire 220

CTO Hire CTO Engineering Software 220

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

SaaStr 559: Secrets to Building Your Marketing Engine To Drive Scale with Airtable CMO Archana Agrawal. with Jenn Knight, Co-founder and CTO of AgentSync, and Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone. Attract, Hire & Build a Diverse Sales Team | Handshake VP, Employer Partnerships Jessica Peluso. Top Videos This Week: 1.

Scale 237

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO 237

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 11, 2020

Intercom has responded by hiring a diversity and inclusion consultant, updating our recruitment strategy and hiring practices to reduce bias, scheduling allyship training for all employees, and amplifying Black voices in our podcast and blog. We take so much pride in the work Intercom is doing to take a stand against racial injustice.

Technical Review 289

Technical Review Software Review Systems Review CTO Hire 289

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Take stock of customer satisfaction at each point of the journey—product, engineering, design, growth, presales, support, and post-sales. The next hiring focus should be growth marketing. At the same time, you can start hiring for unpaid channels—someone who understands SEO and how to build a community.

Scale 244

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scaling 244

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. There are no Cloud magicians, and you can’t hire a PLG magician. Let’s jump right into the questions.

Scale 284

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 284

Andreessen Horowitz

JUNE 14, 2023

Note: engineering leaders’ titles tend to be inconsistent across companies. It’s common for founders to assume the role of chief technology officer (CTO), who either runs the day-to-day work of engineering or focuses on a long-term technological vision.

VP of Engineering 75

VP of Engineering Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire 75

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to see: A couple of good hires brought in Improvement on some metrics A big deal or two hanging out there, brought in and closed Things taken off your plate. More time may make them better if they’re already progressing, even if it’s just 10-15% in the first sales cycle. Hiring someone too junior. That often compounds.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

Which role should you hire for first? For starters, your first hire should be someone who can complement your skills, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak, but it goes much deeper than that. I am guessing it’s probably the hardest problem to solve, hiring a job, let alone at this level. And for good reason.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 261