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30+ Tough Learnings from Losing a Top Customer

SaaStr

Another top mistake SMB folks make trying to sell enterprise. 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. Are we sure?

CTO Hire 285
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SaaStr Podcast #403 with Loom VP of Sales Sam Taylor

SaaStr

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? How does this change when selling to SMBs vs enterprise? * We were hired into the same role, same start date, competed head to head. Bret was formerly the CTO at Facebook.

Scale 182
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What’s New at ZoomInfo with CEO Henry Schuck

SaaStr

So to serve both segments at the simultaneously, ZoomInfo has been rolling out a Product-led sales motion, that gives the ability for an SMB customer to sign up directly on their website for a free trial and grow into a paid customer, without ever having to talk to an sales rep or go through a demo process. What technologies do they use?

New CTO 260
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Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot: From Day 0 to IPO. What Went to Plan. What Most Certainly Didn’t (Video, Podcast + Transcript)

SaaStr

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. You will fail if you: 1) try to build a suite of products out of the gate, 2) focus solely on SMBs, or 3) have an MBA. But of course, it wasn’t always quite that big!

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Product-Led Growth (PLG) For Startups

Mucker Capital

Obviously if you target enterprise customers, you usually have a very large ACV (Annual Contract Value) and the product usually is complex. We talk about using the product complexity, your target customer size, your contract value, and whether there's individual use case–those four things--to help you decide if PLG is a fit.

Startup 52
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SaaStr Podcasts for the Week with Bernadette Nixon, Jay Snyder, Nick Mehta, Loren Padelford, and Jason Lemkin

SaaStr

From contract signature to launch. Touching it, playing with it in a way a CIO or CTO might not before? Are you finding maybe quietly in the background, you need a little bit more services, a little bit more onboarding, a little bit more things that maybe weren’t anathema a couple years ago. I have a one year contract.

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CEOs of Zapier, Walkme and Dialpad: How to Build Your First Management Team (Video + Transcript)

SaaStr

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.