SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

So, in 2024, there should be a more normalized customer base from a retention perspective as you transition past Q1 and those customers are transitioning with you. Today, triangulation is how people prioritize who they will reach out to — what’s happening on their list of accounts, if they’ve posted a job, if they’ve hired a new CTO, etc.

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New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 312

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. You’ll find out tomorrow.

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 290

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

But as time went on, we shared lessons, what best practices were in customer success and revenue retention and all these things are, right. So I think my learning is just know the rules, know the KPIs, they’re all public, find public comps and copy them. And the best CTO I know in the world is the CEO.

Outsourcing Services 243

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

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 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

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 171

CTO Hire Travel Underperforming Technical Team CTO Coach 171

SaaStr

OCTOBER 24, 2022

They’re able to actually swipe a credit card, and what starts off similar to a freemium self-serve product can turn into a six-figure contract in just a few months. It might even be months later that a VP of Engineering or a CTO or CFO realizes that they’re built on a new platform. The contract size grows.

Outsourced Development 210

Outsourced Development Underperforming Technical Team Development Part-Time VPE 210

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Adam Risman: What were some of the aha moments you experienced in those early days when you were trying to find a product/channel fit? And so we hired somebody who had a lot of experience and could recommend ways to build the team. You find a bunch of nuances in there that are very interesting. Here’s Andrew.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. The different roles in SaaS companies: Chief Executive Officer : As the highest-ranking executive, this person ensures the company runs smoothly and employees are happy and engaged.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

So one qualitative is when the customers love the product and the metrics for measure the love is phenomenal engagement, great retention, let them expand dynamics into the customers, growth led by expansion MRR more than the new business MRR, and ideally negative share. That’s also retention and upsell.

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New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 170

OPEXEngine

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

To combat this and be more agile, SaaS management is morphing and restructuring functional management and multiplying the number of new C-Suite titles like Chief Customer Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and Chief Product Officer, not to mention Chief Performance Officer and Chief Security Officer.

Part-Time CTO 69

Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire Management 69

User Pilot

AUGUST 17, 2024

Hiring expensive consultants or setting up innovation labs doesn’t fly anymore. To increase your retention and renewal rates. Traditionally, the product function fell under Technology. More than 50% of Fortune 100 have a Chief Product Officer (CPO). The key culprit is the lack of clear vision and strategy.

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Underperforming Technical Team AI Technical Review CTO Coach 104

ProfitWell

FEBRUARY 4, 2020

When Co-founder and CTO of Chargify , Michael Klett isn’t brewing his own beer, he’s crafting billing experiences. This can range from help with pricing, retention, and churn, as well as providing subscription financial metrics so a customer can see everything that is going on from acquisition all the way through to retention.

CTO Hire 98

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 98

OpenView Labs

JULY 2, 2020

Time and time again SaaS companies are promising customers that they will save hundreds of thousands of dollars, but their pricing strategies are only capturing a tiny fraction of that savings. Find out here. Learn how raising prices can actually result in more profitable customers and higher retention rates.

Pricing 135

Pricing SaaS Payments Payments SaaS 135

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 Technical Review Scale Outsourcing Services 118

Casey Accidental

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Retention & Engagement. A deep dive on how to understand, measure, and improve retention through activation, engagement, and resurrection. Cross-Functional Growth: Growth Series , Advanced Growth Strategy , Retention & Engagement , Monetization & Pricing , Experimentation & Testing. Retention & Engagement.

CTO Coach 52

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO Scale 52

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

Accurately forecast revenue retention and expansion. In HubSpot’s case, we eventually hired a world-class data science team, but our scoring only improved by a few points,” notes Redbord. You’ll need someone familiar with your data—perhaps a CTO or someone responsible for business operations. Do you have a retention issue?

Startup 91

Startup Scale Systems Review Technical Review 91

Natalia Luneva

APRIL 30, 2021

Announcing new features, increasing customer satisfaction and retention are among the top functions of an online community. . #1 Of course, our team is involved to an extent, and we have an external part-time moderator for support. SaaS Community Marketing: 11 stories from software companies.

Marketing 98

Marketing Social Media SaaS New CTO 98

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

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. After the Series A, Buffer fell into a similar trap to Wistia - they hired too quickly, specifically to accelerate product development. The company even took $2.5M

CTO Hire 65

CTO Hire CTO Coach SaaS New CTO 65

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 6, 2019

How many CSMs should you hire? We also have an episode of the ProfitWell Report that looks at the data from almost 2,000 companies to uncover how customer success impacts retention and churn, linked here. We value product marketing to the highest, so we’re always keeping an eye on the PMA’s finds. What is their ROI?

Scale 43

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 43

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 9, 2022

Traditionally, it’s the chief officer of finance or operations. But promotional paths are a-changing, according to a time-series by Spencer Stuart summarized in Harvard Business Review’s “ Finding the Right CEO.” Find the hardest problems to solve and you will succeed.

CTO Coach 52

CTO Coach Customer Success VP of Engineering CTO Hire 52

ProfitWell

JANUARY 2, 2020

Because the contracts are typically much higher in these sales agreements, B2B subscriptions often require a much longer sales process before your customer will consider making a purchase. When you’re just starting out, this information can be difficult to find. Contract length. B2C contract length. B2B contract length.

B2C 52

B2C Payment Features Subscription Payments 52

Mucker Capital

APRIL 6, 2023

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

Startup Scale CTO Hire Outsourced Development 52

Natalia Luneva

APRIL 30, 2021

SaaS Community Marketing: 13 stories from software companies Announcing new features, increasing customer satisfaction and retention are among the top functions of an online community. #1 Of course, our team is involved to an extent, and we have an external part-time moderator for support.

Marketing 40

Marketing Social Media SaaS New CTO 40

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 18, 2022

Serve as senior-level advocate for all customer issues and provide ongoing management to ensure timely resolution. Direct the hiring, orientation, and training plan for Relationship Management team members as applicable. Nurture key relationships internally – product team, BD team, COO, CTO, etc.

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO 19

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2024

Public valuations are still at a fraction of their 2021 peaks, but seed rounds are more expensive than ever. Investors should immediately engage with the CTO to assess their technical capabilities and potential, as great CTOs can demonstrate their exceptional skills quickly. Is it sustainable?

CTO Hire 290

CTO Hire Development Team Review Software Review Technical Review 290

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2024

It’s challenging to find super high-quality folks unless you’re in B2C, where customer support is sales. You can find some pirates and romantics, and you might have to use AI. At the CIO’s office, there’s a certain amount of budget for experimentation, but not that much. Give everyone x amount of money to go find the best one.

AI 299

AI Pricing Artificial Intelligence Scale 299

SmartKarrot

AUGUST 16, 2022

Why do some experts consider QBRs to be a waste of time? These are the primal questions you will find answers to in this article. These annual executive business meetings are a wonderful time to discuss contracts. Whatever suits the customer would be the right time. It need not always be the chief customer officer.

Technical Review 10

Technical Review Systems Review Business CTO Hire 10

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

One of the top SaaS influencers is Dharmesh Shah , co-founder, and CTO of HubSpot. Steli Efti is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Close. His insights on SaaS sales, hiring sales reps, and finding customers are a gold mine for anyone in the SaaS space. Dharmesh Shah. Steli Efti. Bottom Line.

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VP of Engineering Scale SaaS Venture Capital 10

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 194

Scale Business Sales Hiring CTO Hire 194

SaaStr

AUGUST 22, 2020

365: The Office of the Future, How Everything’s Changed and What 2021 Will be Like with Justin Bedecarre, CEO @ HelloOffice and Jen Nguyen, Founding Partner @ TEAMWERC. Centralized HQs with all the perks and amenities “under one roof” have traditionally been used as recruiting tools to attract and retain top talent. Aaron Levie.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Cloud CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

Sales Hacker

MARCH 11, 2025

Guest Speaker (Cassie Young): LinkedIn Primary VC Host (Scott Barker): LinkedIn Newsletter Find GTMnow (GTMfund’s Media Brand): Website LinkedIn Twitter/X YouTube Podcast Sponsor: Pursuit The best talent isn’t actively job hunting. Pursuit helps companies hire elite go-to-market talent on a non-retainer basis.

Scale 77

Scale Technical Advisors Sales Hiring Technical Review 77

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. So, I’m Chief Technology Officer, and years ago I was volunteered by my co-founder to work on culture.

Part-Time CTO 284

Part-Time CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 284

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. Focus obsessively on churn.

Scale 187

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Scaling 187