SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2025

Because they could build it, but that would take time. Salesforce bought an online wordprocessor for $750m … just to get its CTO. #2. M&A teams especially are looking for the lowest price possible, and so they are looking for leverage. Hire one 95% of the time. They are all about the leverage.

Technical Review 273

Technical Review CTO Hire CTO Cloud 273

SaaStr

JULY 17, 2025

then the base price of $20-$25 a month if all you’ll likely need to pay. No hiring developers. Here’s how it actually goes: Stage 1: Play With Some Ideas ⏱️ 20 minutes 🔄 4 actions including in monthly pricing “Oh this is cheap! Without hiring a dev, coding myself, etc.? No coding it myself.

CTO Hire 261

CTO Hire Software Review New CTO Technical Review 261

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 194

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Scaling 194

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. It can be used to quickly scan and shortlist resumes, reducing the time and resources spent on the initial stages of the recruitment process.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

TechEmpower SaaS

DECEMBER 11, 2023

While the appearance matters, remember you are hiring the development firm primarily for its development skills, not its graphic design skills. cto , product , saas Quality of Work: The end product should not only look good but function as expected. Don't be charmed by an impressive aesthetic at the expense of functional results.

Software Development 443

Software Development Development Software Review Software 443

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

The first 2 scaled reps you hire that hit plan (some may churn before then) get special training. They get CTO training. And so we see reps 3-10, or reps-from-#3-until-The-VP-of-Sales-is-Hired … fail. Simplify to a 1 page contract. Make pricing simple. They get CEO training. So what can you do?

Scale 348

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 348

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

JANUARY 12, 2022

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. Hire that person, and make sure they are someone the top customers can really trust and count on.

CTO Hire 325

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 325

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 261

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 261

OpenView Labs

JULY 2, 2020

Pricing is a SaaS company’s most efficient profit lever, but it’s also one of the easiest things to screw up. Nailing your SaaS pricing strategy requires more than just picking the optimal price and forgetting about it. It includes the latest and greatest SaaS pricing resources, as well as some timeless staples.

Pricing 138

Pricing SaaS Payments Payments SaaS 138

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

OCTOBER 24, 2022

WorkOS CEO Michael Grinich, Developer Success Manager Betsy Calender, and VP of Developer Experience Zeno Rocha share how to price your product for developers, how to market it to developers, how to how to support them as they scale and use the products. Developers hate opaque pricing. The contract size grows. What about leads?

Underperforming Technical Team 210

Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development Development Part-Time VPE 210

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. ” “Yep, we need a price.”

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 290

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

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. By examining a company, their intent data, the companies visiting their website, who’s on the pricing page, who the buyers are, etc.,

New CTO 312

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 312

USIO

JUNE 28, 2024

is committed to empowering businesses to build powerful enterprise grade applications without the need for extensive coding expertise,” said Ben Hubbard, CTO at ues.io. Competitive Rates and Flexible Contracts: Benefit from Usio competitive pricing and avoid long-term commitments. Through this partnership, ues.io application.

Payments 130

Payments Merchant Services Payment Solutions Payment Services 130

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

After all, why make someone forcibly talk through budget and pricing if they clam up whenever the topic surfaces? For sales teams, they too must bring the right skill sets to the table, with the right tools (clubs) at the right time – all while staying laser-focused on the targets. Playing the right roles. Solution review.

Underperforming Technical Team 130

Underperforming Technical Team CTO Hire CTO Coach Technical Review 130

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

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. Jason Lemkin: 50 reps in a new city that you’ve never met, and hired in 60 days when you’re in the low millions ARR.

Sales Hiring 247

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 247

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. Maybe endless price increases,” Jason says. It’s a sign something is broken in the system.

CTO Hire 144

CTO Hire AI Venture Capital Sales Hiring 144

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2019

Quick recap: Keep your pricing simple. Mallun Yen : So, you were an engineer by training and then you became an engineering leader, as the CTO of Webex, and then you became a CEO. You’ve got to learn about sales, about marketing and, otherwise, you need to hire a lot of other people around you to help. Eric Yuan: Yep.

Sales Hiring 141

Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire Marketing 141

SaaStr

JANUARY 14, 2020

Should I sell a $20,000 engagement for a one week training course in a classroom or should I try to sell individual subscriptions to individuals around the world for only $100 a month, which was our initial starting price point, and we knew we had to burn the boats. Then another really interesting thing happened.

B2B 173

B2B B2C Scale New CTO 173

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 11, 2019

Pricing is an incredibly important part of any SaaS product’s go-to-market strategy. While there are many tactical elements to consider, the most successful pricing strategies are built on a strong, almost philosophical foundation: that your pricing needs to be a win-win that works for both your customers and your company.

Sales Hiring 45

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Technical Review 45

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

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

User Pilot

AUGUST 17, 2024

Hiring expensive consultants or setting up innovation labs doesn’t fly anymore. Product is now at the C-level: More than 50% of Fortune 100 have a Chief Product Officer (CPO) who no longer reports to the CTO but directly to the CEO. It isn’t the lack of team adoption or poor implementation of new tech. There’s more.

Underperforming Technical Team 104

Underperforming Technical Team AI Technical Review CTO Coach 104

Sales Hacker

MAY 5, 2021

Pricing and packaging strategies. As Director of RevOps, he scaled his team at Sendoso by hiring smart generalists to lead their own teams of MOps, SOps, CSOps. Ask him about his thoughts on what companies are looking for in a RevOps role or where companies go wrong trying to hire/ build their RevOps function.).

Scale 120

Scale Technical Cofounder Technical Advisors Sales Hiring 120

Baremetrics

MARCH 16, 2021

QuikNode wants to see technology transform decentralized applications, smart contracts, decentralized governance, voting systems, and more. Bunsen, a serial founder and multi-CTO before starting QuikNode, had used Baremetrics in previous roles and was familiar with the value it brought to growing businesses.

Blockchain 90

Blockchain Artificial Intelligence Payment Solutions Payment Services 90

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

Joel had what he calls “an honest conversation” with Buffer’s CTO Dan. One interesting thing that Joel shared with us, was that he realized implementing these software tools would require a large investment, but he consciously made that decision: I would gladly spend $100,000 on a tool if that would allow me to avoid hiring.

Payment Solutions 113

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2020

I just came out of Stripe, I just came out of Datadog, I came out of Fastly, I’m an engineer, I love the guy that was the CTO of Fastly who [inaudible 00:08:34] making it up. You don’t really care who that human is, you care about the price. Just like a whole bunch of people said, “I’ll never hire remote.”

Sales Recruiting 219

Sales Recruiting Development Team Review Technical Review Sales Hiring 219

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

Which is why you should sign up for the 2 for 1 Insider Sale and get two people for the price of one. Thanks for everyone who took the time to write their impressions and share with the community. Hire Game Changers to Propel Growth. In his own words: Notion Capital organised an excellent panel event focusing on hiring.

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

If you are trying to overcome no brand and market, you can’t ask somebody for a three year contract. Or, if you do ask for a three year contract, have some terms in there that show that you’re going to prove ROI. Down the road, you can say, “ I demand a two year contract. You would approach it by hiring more people.

Enterprise 79

Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 79

Valerian Tech

JULY 5, 2023

Furthermore, data analytics can help identify trends, optimize pricing strategies, and forecast demand, leading to better revenue management. This data can be leveraged to provide personalized experiences, targeted marketing campaigns, and tailored offerings.

Payment Services 52

Payment Services Technology Payment Solutions CTO Hire 52

Crafty CTO

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Yes, I needed to replatform my blog, but I also needed a web presence for my new fractional CTOing entity. In the end, I found a name that I think works well for both (ask me again in 5 years): Crafty CTO / craftycto.com for the entity, with the blog living at CraftyCTO.com/blog.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Software Engineering 40

OpenView Labs

MARCH 10, 2020

While the CTOs may be directly involved in the purchase decision-making at the startup and SMB organizations, the role of the CTO at larger organizations can be very different, and not all CTOs look the same. “A A lot of our clients want to target CTOs or C-level executives,” said Valentino Volonghi, CTO of AdRoll.

Enterprise 52

Enterprise Software Review CTO Hire Software 52

ProfitWell

JANUARY 2, 2020

One of the best examples of this type of sales is Netflix—its pricing strategy paved the way for many modern subscription platforms. 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. B2C pricing.

B2C 52

B2C Payment Features Subscription Payments 52

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 5, 2022

Evernote’s CTO on Your Biggest Security Worries From 3 to 300 Employees. You’re basically getting all of your controls implemented doing the Type 1 audit, and at the same time, starting your four to 12 month period for the Type 2. That saves everyone time, and it results in lower-priced audits. Caught your interest?

Scale 211

Scale Software Review compliance Technical Review 211

Upscope

JANUARY 5, 2020

However, it became flooded with competitors who described themselves the same way and they found that competing on price for high value complicated work is difficult. If you position around "time saved" you lose money Jason Cohen has built and sold several companies and is the Founder and CTO of WP Engine. The result?

Strategy 128

Strategy Marketing Sales Hiring Engineering 128

Valerian Tech

JULY 18, 2023

This allows for the distribution of workloads across multiple cloud platforms and mitigates the risk of vendor-specific limitations or pricing changes. Businesses need to monitor and optimize resource utilization, select appropriate pricing models, and utilize tools provided by cloud service providers to track and control costs.

multi-cloud Kubernetes 52

multi-cloud Kubernetes K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) Cloud CTO Hire 52