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.” But you have to see progress in one sales cycle.

Part-Time VPE 194

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 194

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. Account Managers: They serve as the lead point of contact for all customer account management matters. 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

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2019

For me, it took a while to build up the experiences and confidence to get there: First, I worked with enough startups and CEOs to “get it”. I had a chance as a startup lawyer working in “Silicon Valley” to work with 20+ startups. Second, I joined the best startup that would have me, as a Director and then Senior Director.

Part-Time VPE 157

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 157

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

403: Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Success @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. Before Quip, Sam spent an incredible 3 years at Dropbox where he was the first enterprise sales rep in the entire company. Should you hire 2 at a time?

Scale 173

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 173

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

CTO Hire 287

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 287

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2019

Even if you don’t like sales, or big companies, or whatever. Not hiring a good enough CTO. If you never thought you’d sell to sales reps, and even sort of hate sales, but that’s your core customer — embrace it. A bit more here: 15+ of The Top Sales & Marketing Mistakes SaaS Startups Make | SaaStr.

Growth Hacking 116

Growth Hacking CTO Hire Startup Sales Hiring 116

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Just like filing your income tax returns or hanging that state-mandated safety poster up in your break room, sales tax is a back-office pain point, not a profit center. . That makes sales tax compliance easy to ignore… until it becomes a problem. . Why is sales tax such a pain for SaaS companies? There are a few reasons.

Merchant Services 169

Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 169

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. Pete was a Google Associate Product Manager for AdSense and launched Google App Engine. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. These were some of the things I learned from Pete. And you should do it right then.

CTO Coach 101

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 101

The Angel VC

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Continuing my little series using the "minimum viable" approach , here is my 2nd DO for SaaS startups: Build the right team I've written about the topic before, so if you've read this post from early this year most of what I'm going to write now won't be new for you and you may want to skip this article. What comes next?

Sales Hiring 121

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup Outsourced Development 121

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.

Sales Hiring 159

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 159

Kellblog

JANUARY 29, 2020

The majority of startups solve a problem that is already being solved in some way today. Most interesting ideas attract several startups so, odds are, you have fairly direct competitors pretty much from inception. Some startups have relatively complete teams while others have only a CEO and CTO and a few functional directors.

Startup 99

Startup Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO 99

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. They have service and all this, but the second cloud for them was sales. Your core models for sales, for marketing spend, for hiring and engineering and product.

Outsourcing Services 199

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 199

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

297: Bob Moore is the Founder & CEO @ Crossbeam, the startup that helps companies find overlapping prospects and customers while keeping the rest of their data private and secure. Does Bob agree with the notion that channel sales have completely died in the world of SaaS? 298: Startup success is not exclusive to Silicon Valley.

Sales Hiring 133

Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 133

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. The Gold: these are very rare and hard to achieve at the scale-up stage, so you’ll mostly encounter them with startups. Hire Game Changers to Propel Growth. Covering all ground won’t be easy. Full post. . Full post. .

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

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. Lead generation tools do change, but the basic motions of sales and marketing haven’t changed much.

Scale 251

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 251

Kellblog

APRIL 4, 2021

The CEO said to the CTO as we were leaving, “spend the $9M anyway.” To investors [4], advisors, and startup execs as a reminder that founders are not managers, even though sometimes we might like them to act more as if they were. Manager response: “Well, I know a CAC of 1.7 I was aghast, dumbfounded.

CTO Coach 99

CTO Coach CTO Hire Sales Hiring CTO 99

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2020

. * What are the biggest green lights for CIOs when startups are pitching them? What are the biggest red flags CIOs see when startups are pitching them? What must startups always remember when pitching CIOs? * What must startups remember about how CIOs think about price? Where do founders make mistakes in negotiation?

CTO Hire 134

CTO Hire compliance Scale Startup 134

User Pilot

MARCH 7, 2024

This could be explained by the fact that it was women, more often than men, who had to step down and work part-time to take care of stay-at-home children during the pandemic. It was an iPad interactive brochure and sales tool for sales centres. Sima Banijamali – Sr. I knew nothing about tech.

Technical Review 105

Technical Review CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire 105

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2021

Will Larson , CTO of Calm. Maggie Hott , Director of Sales at Webflow. Des Traynor , Co-founder and CTO of Intercom. Webflow’s Maggie Hott on building a scalable sales team from the ground up. Scaling a sales team is not for the faint of heart – for one, it’s not even that much about selling.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Scale Technical Review Outsourcing Services 118

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: Where Should SDRs Report — Marketing or Sales?

CTO Hire 192

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 192

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 5, 2022

Suddenly, the team got to know SOC 2 Reports all too well and realized just how burdensome and unscalable it could become, especially for high-growth startups. Evernote’s CTO on Your Biggest Security Worries From 3 to 300 Employees. Liam: I’ve read a lot about difficulties in startups becoming SOC 2 Compliant.

Scale 211

Scale Software Review compliance Technical Review 211

Point Nine Land

APRIL 9, 2021

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. In general, European rounds tend to be slightly smaller and valuations slightly lower than they are in the US.

Marketplace as a Service 59

Marketplace as a Service Payments B2B SaaS Payments 59

SaaStr

JULY 28, 2021

One of the most popular sessions at SaaStr Annual, Busting the Myths About Startup Success with BlackLine CEO and Founder Therese Tucker is up at the top of our must-watch list. I retired from SunGard Treasury Systems as their CTO. We see that guy all the time down in LA. Don’t be that guy with your startup.

Startup 271

Startup CTO Hire Sales Hiring CTO Coach 271

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2021

There are roughly 2 types of start-up management teams. The first type is the kind of management team hired by second+ time founders. They often staff up their teams with folks they already know and have been successful with at their last startup. But most of us are first-time founders, or close to it.

Part-Time VPE 235

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 235

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

The 90-Day Rule , which argues that new managers need to be decisive about who stays on the teams they inherit. Startup CEOs generally fall into one of two categories and the category is likely to predict how they will approach the ownership issue. Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Venture Capital Technical Advisors 59

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

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. So, what’s new at ZoomInfo?

New CTO 260

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring AWS 260

ProfitWell

JANUARY 24, 2020

The Athletic 's strategy for the past three years has been to hire top-talent journalists in the sports space, getting people to pay for high-quality journalistic content. The waitlist is free and open to anyone, and includes a gamification situation that other startups and traditional automakers haven’t yet dabbled in.

Sales Recruiting 40

Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO Sales Hiring 40

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

I was working with a company that … Because people will write big checks today into early stage companies, where someone came in very early and gave an early startup $50 million too early, and just started telling them how to raise the company, immediately told them to go buy competitors, which they’re not ready for.

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 245

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

. * How does one know when we need to hire generalists vs specialists? Karl has been in every interview for every new hire for the first 6 years of the business, why? * Karl has been in every interview for every new hire for the first 6 years of the business, why? How does Karl structure the hiring process today?

Sales Hiring 216

Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach 216

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

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Michael Seibel, YC Partner and CEO of YC’s Startup Accelerator @ Y Combinator. Amy Appleyard, VP Sales @ VMWare. Michelle Benfer, VP, Head of North America Sales @ HubSpot. Christine Spang, Co-Founder and CTO @ Nylas. Dave Walters, CTO @ Hired. Christa Diaz, Senior Director, Customer Success @ Hired.

VP of Engineering 270

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder CTO Coach CTO Hire 270

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2019

As for Erica, under her CRO role, she leads all go-to-market functions including Marketing, Sales, Operations, Customer Success, Services, and Support. How does the move to enterprise fundamentally impact the sales team? How does the structure of the sales team change with the move? Where do many go wrong?

Scale 177

Scale Enterprise Scaling Sales Hiring 177

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

Today on the show, we’ve got Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares, a company that applies AI to your contract. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Sam Jacobs: Today on the show, we’ve got Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares, a company that applies AI to your contract. We’re on iTunes.

Scale 107

Scale CTO Hire Scaling CTO Coach 107

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 125

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 125

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2021

Devon Rutherford, Managed Services Program Manager & Pre-Sales Manager @ Leaseweb. Jules Costa, Content Manager @ BEE. Michael Seibel, YC Partner and CEO of YC’s Startup Accelerator @ Y Combinator. Amy Appleyard, VP Sales @ VMWare. Michelle Benfer, VP, Head of North America Sales @ HubSpot.

VP of Engineering 263

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder CTO Coach CTO Hire 263

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

This video training was originally presented at the 2019 Sales Hacker Success Summit. 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 limited sales support. How to overcome limited sales support (06:15). ? What You’ll Learn.

Enterprise 69

Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 69