SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2023

Ode to the $100,000,000 Exit Dear SaaStr: Should You Hire Someone That Seems Good … But Always Job Hops? SaaStr 638: Lessons Learned in Scaling Your Team & Revenue from $1M ARR to $1B+ with Cloudflare CRO Chris Merritt  2. SaaStr 639: Scaling a SaaS Sales Team While Building Culture with Figma VP of Sales Scott Pugh   3.

Scale 218

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 218

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

What started as a simple WordPress blog in 2012 has now become the world’s largest community of SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. And SaaStr Europa brings 2,500+ SaaS execs, founders, and VCs together to Europe every summer. We were the first major SaaS event back in the SF Bay Area. SaaStr is turning 10!

Scale 284

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 284

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

Hundreds of thousands of experts are telling you how to succeed in SaaS. SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin shares the 10 worst pieces of SaaS advice, excuses, and mistakes founders make, and what to do instead You can’t always expect a great VP of Sales to double sales in 30-60-90 days. Hiring someone too junior. Yes, you do.

Part-Time VPE 194

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 194

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Confused about trying to understand SaaS roles? SaaS companies have many moving parts, and it can be difficult to determine who does what. TL;DR SaaS, or “Software as a Service,” is a business model that delivers centrally hosted software to subscribers over the internet. What is a SaaS business model?

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2021

There, Amplitude has become part of the core product stack for many SaaS and software leaders for product analytics. Customer count growing as fast as revenue — a good sign for the future. Use overages to renegotiate contracts, not charge per event. CEO Spencer Skates owns 8.5%, CTO Curtis Liu 8.0%.

Scale 274

Scale CTO Hire New CTO CTO 274

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. That it’s time to bring in someone that knows.

Sales Hiring 360

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 360

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2021

And importantly, you need to spend more time with your existing customers (vs. But even if you’ve hired the world’s best VP of Sales … you can’t opt out of sales entirely. You still need to spend 15-20% of your time in sales. Hire a VP of Finance or even a CFO Early if You Are Growing Quickly.

Part-Time VPE 271

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 271

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

These are all full-time jobs by $1m ARR. Fixing it yourself becomes the biggest time sink and excuse for not hiring there is. You end up spending all your time backfilling roles you should have hired. And even worse, you often sort of give up trying to make the hire. Less and you under-invest. More here.

Part-Time VPE 271

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 271

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

The main benefits of categorizing your SaaS company’s expenses are more accurate metrics and forecasts, and getting a better understanding of your company’s overall spending. Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 Cost of Revenue Let’s start with your Cost of Revenue.

Merchant Services 90

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2019

I remember my CTO once arguing with a Fortune 500 company on a “security” concern they had which really made no sense. More here: I Never Lost a Customer I Actually Visited | SaaStr Not hiring a full-time RFP person. Not hiring a full-time Chief Security & Compliance Offer. Didn’t matter. They were concerned.

Sales Hiring 169

Sales Hiring Enterprise CTO Hire CTO 169

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

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. That you can’t have a majority of y our revenue dependent on one customer. ” — Ankit Sindhi, Founder, Spurt.

CTO Hire 287

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 287

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

This post will walk you through what SaaS companies need to know about sales tax compliance, how to know when and from which customers you should collect sales tax, and best of all, how to automate sales tax so you can check “Do something about sales tax” off your to-do list once and for all. Why is sales tax such a pain for SaaS companies?

Merchant Services 169

Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 169

OPEXEngine

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

A Couple SaaS Generations Ago… Traditional software companies managed sales, product development, finance and HR in siloed organizations by function. In the early SaaS days, management structure was essentially the same. The SaaS operating model requires execution across functional activities.

Part-Time CTO 69

Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire Management 69

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.

Underperforming Technical Team 188

Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development Development Part-Time VPE 188

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. Wade Foster is Co-founder and CEO of Zapier, a SaaS company that allows users to integrate web applications they use. “The Cadence: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup into an Army.”

Payment Services 101

Payment Services CTO Hire Payments New CTO 101

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. And it really makes no sense because I’ve asked so many of the best SaaS CEOs that are public how to go multi-product. I mean, that’s a specific example, not to a SaaS company.

Outsourcing Services 199

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 199

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 31, 2019

Heading into the 2020 planning season, SaaS FP&A teams are working to finalize 2020 budgets and planning. Over the past decade benchmarking software and SaaS companies , I’ve had the chance at OPEXEngine to work with hundreds of amazing Finance execs who work incredibly hard at getting the right data to support their company’s goals.

Finance 40

Finance CTO Hire Headcount SaaS 40

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

An early entrant to the SaaS field, the company has pioneered a number of fields that are now commonplace in the industry — content marketing, the transparent startups movement, and remote work. Joel had what he calls “an honest conversation” with Buffer’s CTO Dan. What is Buffer. Click To Tweet. Pick each piece individually.

Payment Solutions 113

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 11, 2019

Pricing is an incredibly important part of any SaaS product’s go-to-market strategy. At Hired, we started out with a transactional model that was—at the time—a super disruptive approach and one of our key differentiators. And—like everything else in the fast-moving SaaS world—pricing is not a once-and-done task.

Sales Hiring 40

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Technical Review 40

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2019

As a global technology provider powering thousands of SaaS companies, Google is at the forefront of driving exciting and innovative technologies to market. You’ll also learn how leading SaaS companies are able to scale and thrive in this complex, dynamic environment. Who’s here on a CEO or more on a business hat SaaS?

Cloud 167

Cloud Scale Trends Machine Learning 167

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

In Today’s Episode We Discuss: * How Bob made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found Crossbeam. * What were the core mistakes that he made with RJ Metrics? * Does Bob agree with the notion that channel sales have completely died in the world of SaaS? Loving our podcast content? What did he mean by this? Why is this?

Sales Hiring 133

Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 133

Outseta

OCTOBER 15, 2018

By Geoff Roberts Last year Clement Vouillon of Point Nine Capital wrote an article entitled The Rise of the Non “VC compatible” SaaS Companies. And it expressed a growing sentiment in the world of SaaS start-ups; for the majority of SaaS founders the traditional VC model is a clusterfuck that makes very little sense.

CTO Hire 65

CTO Hire CTO Coach SaaS New CTO 65

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

Don’t overextend your resources when testing new SaaS growth ideas. He stressed the importance of not jumping at every SaaS growth idea that has potential, as it may easily lead to an overextension of your resources. In the SaaS industry, this will be the demo call, whereas the wow-moment can be applied to every different industry.

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

In Today’s Episode We Discuss: * How Sam made his way into the world of SaaS with Dropbox and how that led to his leading the sales and success team today @ Loom. 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? Sam Taylor.

Scale 173

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 173

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 9, 2022

More and more people are hiring leaders, not for past experience, but for capability and capacity. We hire a third-party firm. Gabby: We probably track 50 to 60 KPIs, so I’m not going to multiply that times four. We also need to change the way that we make hiring decisions. That would just be crazy.

CTO Coach 52

CTO Coach Customer Success VP of Engineering CTO Hire 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2020

What other elements of the contract should startups really spend a lot of time focusing on? Julian Lemoine, Co-Founder, and CTO of Algolia will share his lessons learned on how to stay focused and innovative as you scale while also avoiding the innovation for innovation’s sake pitfalls. This episode is sponsored by Brex.

CTO Hire 134

CTO Hire compliance Scale Startup 134

Point Nine Land

APRIL 9, 2021

Over the last few years, we’ve published a number of SaaS funding napkins as well as marketplace napkins. So if you’re a US-based startup, you might be able to shoot slightly higher ;) Unlike SaaS companies which have been around for years, B2B marketplaces are a relatively new category and not many investors have invested in them yet.

Marketplace as a Service 59

Marketplace as a Service Payments B2B SaaS Payments 59

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

An early entrant to the SaaS field, the company has pioneered a number of fields that are now commonplace in the industry — content marketing, the transparent startups movement, and remote work. Joel had what he calls “an honest conversation” with Buffer’s CTO Dan. What is Buffer. Tweet this quote. Pick each piece individually.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Outsourcing Services 52

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 6, 2019

If we succeed, the benefits go beyond retaining revenue: successful customers spread positive word of mouth which makes it easier to attract more customers. The question is not whether a CSM is a valuable asset to a SaaS business, but rather, how valuable are they? How many CSMs should you hire? What is their ROI?

Scale 43

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 43

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Each year, tens of thousands of SaaS fans attend SaaStr Annual. 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. So what’s a founder to do?

Scale 251

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 251

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2024

In it, we cover the SaaS community’s most pressing questions about Artificial Intelligence (AI), pricing, efficiency, and funding. The average public SaaS company is marching toward $400k in revenue per employee. Is the CTO involved in these decisions? Is SaaS dead right now?

AI 246

AI Pricing Artificial Intelligence Scale 246

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. His answers didn’t disappoint. They wanted a one-call close.

CTO Hire 192

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 192

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2020

Brendon introduces his playbook to hiring the first VP of Sales from his experiences as VP of Sales at LinkedIn, EchoSign, Talkdesk and more. Learn the dos and don’ts to make the correct hire the first time and not rush into hiring the wrong VP of Sales, which can cost the company months or even years. Roughly 90%.

Sales Hiring 159

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 159

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2024

“Doubling Down” is a new series where we hear from top B2B SaaS investors on their most recent activities and takes on the current market. Jason Warner , who was CTO of GitHub before and during my time as COO there (and a former partner at Redpoint!) What’s the #1 bit of advice you’d give to SaaS founders today?

Management 234

Management CTO Hire New CTO AI 234

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2021

The top SaaS companies grow faster than ever these days. The first type is the kind of management team hired by second+ time founders. Veterans of the SaaS journey. But most of us are first-time founders, or close to it. That CTO that doesn’t quite have the traditional background. More on that here ).

Part-Time VPE 235

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 235

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

Software as a service or SaaS has been growing as a leading software distribution model. The world of SaaS has simplified software creation and distribution making access easier than before. Leveraging the power of cloud technology, SaaS has re-engineered the way we look at modern technology and software. Aaron Levie.

VP of Engineering 10

VP of Engineering Scale SaaS Venture Capital 10

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 230

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 230