SaaStr

AUGUST 2, 2020

I retired from SunGard Treasury Systems as their CTO. Bootstrapped, because nobody in their right mind would have actually invested in us back then and took it up until 2014 as a bootstrapped company. He would, time after time, point to an area that I had completely missed. Cannot put a price on that.

Startup 162

Startup CTO Hire Scale CTO Coach 162

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2019

And by business technology function I want to define that because sometimes there’s a overlap with the CTO from an engineering side. And what that has resulted in is that you have CIOs and their leadership teams are basically involved in architecting systems across the company and what those basically mean.

Technical Advisors 158

Technical Advisors Scale Technical Review Payment Solutions 158

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. For us, we went with quality. Same with McDonald’s.

Technical Advisors 164

Technical Advisors Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 164

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2019

And so once I had the idea I convinced my father to invest and become a customer. He was investing in internet companies. And I thank a lot of that to actually Met Gourniak, who I hired at that time. And even if you haven’t started a company, I remember my CTO for my first company BigMachines was Vic Austin.

Sales Recruiting 175

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale SaaS Payments 175

Outseta

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

And many CEOs simply fail to understand the nuances of the role and the future building benefits of marketing investments made in areas like “brand” where the return on investment is not immediately recognizable on the balance sheet. I’ve played the following roles at various tech companies.

Sales Hiring 50

Sales Hiring CTO Coach CTO Hire Underperforming Technical Team 50

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 18, 2020

That means we need new pricing models, we need to figure out new delivery mechanisms for our data, so on and so forth. And so I quickly raised my hand and said this is an awesome opportunity for me to get sales leadership experience, but also get the expat experience, which at that time I looked at as something incredibly valuable for me.

Subscription 106

Subscription Payment Features Scale Underperforming Technical Team 106

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2020

But if you really want to build customers for life, this is the time where empathy will shine and doing the right thing long term versus short term is going to make that customer either be a customer for life or not. From contract signature to launch. Touching it, playing with it in a way a CIO or CTO might not before?

Payment Methods 205

Payment Methods Merchant Services Scale Payments 205

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

As part of the run up to 2021 SaaStr Annual in the SF Bay Area Sep 27-29, we’re taking a look back at some of our top sessions of all times. Get best price tickets here!!! Which role should you hire for first? I am guessing it’s probably the hardest problem to solve, hiring a job, let alone at this level.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 259

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2022

The real goal here is to push up the effective price by having the VCs “pay” for an increase to the pool after the financing closes. Don’t force VCs to find out in due diligence that only 2 percent of the pool, not the customary 15 percent or so, is available for new hires. Half of a VC investment is in the CEO.

Finance 291

Finance Technical Review CTO Hire New CTO 291

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2024

At SaaStr Annual we had a great session with HubSpot Founder & CTO, Dharmesh Shah, and their Chief People Officer, Katie Burke, on building happier employees. Also, don’t miss out on discounted prices for SaaStr Annual 2024 tickets. Dharmesh Shah : So, I asked myself, “Okay well, who can best dig into this?

Part-Time CTO 268

Part-Time CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 268

SaaStr

JANUARY 14, 2020

That was our first transitionary moment, and from that point forward, we began investing heavily in building a way to teach people technology skills outside of a physical classroom. So we kept investing, we knew we were onto something, and little by little we saw our traction improve. Then another really interesting thing happened.

B2B 133

B2B B2C Scale New CTO 133

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 20, 2024

You could either spend, you know, you raise some venture funding, you could either spend some of that funding on hiring out a whole team and developing all those competencies, or you can spend that on making your model even better. David: And so you’ve done it differently this time around? You’ve got to think about taxes.

AI Search 142

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence Scale 142