SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

Startups come in all shapes and sizes on various stages of a timeline, yet it’s not surprising how many have the same questions and concerns about how to scale from x to y to z, the right time to hire and fire, and how to keep a team motivated during hard times. Q: How Do You Get Sustainable Output In A Startup?

CTO Hire 242

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 242

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 278

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 278

Valerian Tech

DECEMBER 30, 2022

The role of a Fractional Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is to provide technical expertise and leadership to a company on a part-time or temporary basis. This can be a useful option for startups or small businesses that may not have the resources to hire a full-time CTO or may not need one on a permanent basis.

Fractional CTO 52

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Part-Time CTO CTO 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

Indeed this was also my #1 mistake and the #1 I see from so many startups learning to go upmarket. 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.

CTO Hire 321

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 321

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 258

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 258

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

To some extent, if you have the hottest startup in the world, the full package, you can play some games with investors. 99% of startups aren’t that. For 99% of startups, when you want money, tell VCs you want money. 2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” Hiring someone too junior. Ask for money when you want advice.”

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Last night I read this question on Quora : In general terms, what is the ideal size and make-up of a team for a pre-revenue SaaS startup? I think the second part of the question is more important. This can be a huge advantage, especially for a bootstrapped startup that can't afford to hire many people.

CTO Hire 106

CTO Hire Startup Sales Hiring New CTO 106

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

They were aware of it, but startups that I work with closely or invested in, if they got all the way to 25 million with 75% NRR, I would tell them to quit today. Your core models for sales, for marketing spend, for hiring and engineering and product. We’re startups, but 10 is the crazy CEO. I want to invest in her.”

Outsourcing Services 243

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

OpenView Labs

APRIL 12, 2019

Getting hiring right is absolutely critical. I’d like to talk about two different companies with two very different approaches to hiring post-seed raise. To get the team started we hired several junior developers. There is a binary feeling that comes from making those first few technical hires. We needed a CTO.

CTO Hire 69

CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 69

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

They’ve invested in all of these other businesses. Immediately told them to hire 50 reps in a different city, in a different city, and they did. The CEO was deferential because that was 10 times what he’d ever raised before, and did all of it. We might’ve touched on this one too on the hiring and the people.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

Co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah shared with us how they got there — and the top mistakes they made — just 3 quarters after their IPO. We have someone that probably 98 percent of you know virtually or socially in some sense, Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of HubSpot. But of course, it wasn’t always quite that big!

Part-Time VPE 283

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 283

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Some of the things we talked about were operational overhead and cost of various data stores we were running, along with whether or not we needed to hire dedicated database administrators for various different technologies. Ciaran, our CTO , came up with this magical line. He said, “I want to run less software, not more software.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2024

Deals are contracting, not because of layoffs, but because people are managing budgets so tightly. It Takes Time To Bounce Back Jason was the first investor in RevenueCat , a company that automates mobile subscriptions on your phone. How does a startup benefit from this? Every VC wants to invest. It’s a rocket ship.

CTO Hire 141

CTO Hire AI Venture Capital Sales Hiring 141

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2019

We ended up signing that contract in the uber back to the airport on the way home. It was our largest contract to date, kind of helps the other quarter. He was a VP of product at a series D startup, so a little bit ahead of us and we just had a real connection. For example, I referenced hiring a Chief Revenue Officer, Bill.

CTO Hire 170

CTO Hire Travel Underperforming Technical Team CTO Coach 170

Scytale

OCTOBER 21, 2024

Regardless of whether you’re running a startup or a more established business, this certification is the key to unlocking deals you once thought were out of reach. Streamlining the Sales Process: Ever been knee-deep in contract negotiations when the client suddenly asks, “Are you SOC 2 certified?” Uh-oh, now what?

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Scale compliance CTO Hire 52

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

Since 2010 we’ve seen more startups, funds, and capital than ever before, but with this drastic increase, investors are seeing unexpected new trends reshaping the future of the industry. We are a $50 million fund based in Lisbon, and we invest mainly in seed stage. Name, role, and also the stage in which you are investing.

New CTO 169

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 169

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2019

Well, we did the heavy lifting and highlighted a few here for you… “When to Hire and When to Automate” with Zapier CEO Wade Foster. After building their initial prototype, the team presented at Startup Weekend in Columbia and won. “The Cadence: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup into an Army.”

Payment Services 110

Payment Services CTO Hire Payments New CTO 110

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Along the way, we’ve interviewed trailblazers, business leaders, makers and doers to share their experience and insights on all things startup strategy, product management, design, marketing, customer experience, and much, much more. And so we hired somebody who had a lot of experience and could recommend ways to build the team.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

In it, Co-Founder and CRO of Kronologic, Aaron Bollinger, shows us how to close enterprise level deals when you’re a startup. How to overcome no credible timing event. All right guys, welcome to the Sales Hacker’s Success Summit presentation, How To Close The Enterprise When You Are Just A Startup. What You’ll Learn.

Enterprise 79

Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 79

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 You’ll probably want to include Contract Labor – R&D for any product-related contractors you work with. Donut charts – while often frowned upon – are handy for quickly introducing your company’s expense breakdown.

Startup 90

Startup Merchant Services DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

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. This is a program where we invite luminaries from the startup world to share their insights. Lionetti, the CMO at Confluent, and most recently, the CTO from Zendesk, Adrian.

CTO Coach 164

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 164

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

In this framework, you’ll learn how to design a scoring system that aligns to your growth strategy, brainstorm and select leader indicators of success, and operationalize the system across your startup. It’s not uncommon for early-stage teams to lean on CS to improve renewal rates and buy time for their software to catch up.

Startup 91

Startup Scale Systems Review Technical Review 91

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

CEO Joel Gascoigne tells us about the decision to invest in new analytics tools and how Buffer sustained long-term growth thanks to growing their ARPA. The Solution: Invest in a revamped data infrastructure. Joel had what he calls “an honest conversation” with Buffer’s CTO Dan. What is Buffer. Click To Tweet. Click To Tweet.

Payment Solutions 113

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

OpenView Labs

MARCH 17, 2020

When you ask average questions, you get average hires. If a potential senior hire has gotten so far as to talk with the CEO , she’s probably someone the company wants. Related: Are You Hiring for Culture Fit or Culture Add? For example, I met with a new client recently, the CTO of a fin-tech startup.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. What to do before building a team for your SaaS company You can’t just jump into hiring without some forethought, or you’ll make many mistakes. Before the hiring process, take some time to decide on your current needs and hire as your company grows.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

The Gold: these are very rare and hard to achieve at the scale-up stage, so you’ll mostly encounter them with startups. That’s the advice, Petri Hollmén picked up on the more technical side of things from the opening session on Day 2 with Cal Henderson, CTO of Slack. Hire Game Changers to Propel Growth. Full post. . Full post.

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

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. I think different startups will choose different paths here. Navigating platform shifts David: Cool.

AI Search 143

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence Scale 143

Hacking Revenue

AUGUST 4, 2016

We can put together a WordPress website and we have some fancy badges in CodeAcademy, but no CTO in his right mind will let either of us touch their production environment and/or keyboard. We know the tools, we know the methods and we know how to hire and manage people. But we do know how online businesses work. Nothing is new here.

Software 75

Software CTO Hire Scale New CTO 75

Mattermark

AUGUST 23, 2017

Fred Wilson counters the argument that Resource Constraints make it difficult to succeed as a startup, saying that great operators are never limited by a lack of funding or engineers. Our CTO Kevin says: “It’s like the beginning of people’s imagination with computer games, which is awesome.”

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Startup CTO Travel 40

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. Speed is every startup’s biggest competitive advantage. Capital is important.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Technical Review Scale Outsourcing Services 118

Mucker Capital

APRIL 6, 2023

Hila Qu joined Mucker’s Tony Yang for an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) conversation about Product-Led Growth (PLG) for Startups to kickoff the 2023 Mucker Growth Series. Hila Qu has been the Head of Growth or VP of Growth at a number of different companies and startups, most notably Acorns and GitLab. That is a natural hurdle for PLG motion.

Startup 52

Startup Scale CTO Hire Outsourced Development 52

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. It really starts in how you’re hiring. Unconscious bias is a part of all of us.

Sales Hiring 88

Sales Hiring Revenue CTO Coach CTO Hire 88

Natalia Luneva

APRIL 30, 2021

Of course, our team is involved to an extent, and we have an external part-time moderator for support. 5 Sebastian Schaeffer, CTO at dofollow.io (B2B PR SaaS) says: “ Our community is primarily on Facebook and Linkedin and it has been live for over a year. What’s the most essential thing for an early-stage startup?

Marketing 98

Marketing Social Media SaaS New CTO 98

Casey Accidental

JUNE 26, 2018

Technology companies are rapidly hiring analyst roles to pair with their product teams. And while my previous post discussed how to hire analysts and structure their teams within organizations, I haven’t written about how analysts should approach their careers. Option 2: Become an Analytics Manager.

CTO Coach 53

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO CTO 53

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

CEO Joel Gascoigne tells us about the decision to invest in new analytics tools and how Buffer sustained long-term growth thanks to growing their ARPA. The Solution: Invest in a revamped data infrastructure. Joel had what he calls “an honest conversation” with Buffer’s CTO Dan. What is Buffer. Tweet this quote. Tweet this quote.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Payment Features Outsourcing Services Payments 52

Point Nine Land

APRIL 9, 2021

Having invested in 9 B2B marketplaces and gathered data from 20+ different investors, here are our findings on what it takes to raise money in 2021 for B2B marketplaces. A technical co-founder or CTO is always a great-to-have at this stage and becomes a must-have as the business scales beyond seed. Market Characteristics ??

Marketplace as a Service 59

Marketplace as a Service Payments B2B SaaS Payments 59

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 21, 2020

Now he’s a partner making investments on the VC side at Foundation Capital with over 20 years of operational experience. Now he’s a partner making investments on the VC side at Foundation Capital, but has over 20 years of operational experience. We invest in technology companies typically at the earliest stages.

Payment Methods 60

Payment Methods Scale CTO Coach SMB 60