Valerian Tech

DECEMBER 30, 2022

The role of a Fractional Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is to provide technical expertise and leadership to a company on a part-time or temporary basis. This can be a useful option for startups or small businesses that may not have the resources to hire a full-time CTO or may not need one on a permanent basis.

Fractional CTO 52

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Part-Time CTO CTO 52

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you’re running a smaller digital business, you may find it challenging to hire great talent. In this episode of Growth Stage, we interview Lizzie Mintus Founder and CEO of Here’s Waldo Recruiting and host of The Heres Waldo Podcast about her thoughts on: The most effective recruiting strategies for SMBs.

SMB 107

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 107

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. As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself.

CTO Hire 321

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 321

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.” Hiring someone too junior. Ask for money when you want advice.”

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

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.

Sales Hiring 258

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 258

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. The best ways he found to learn leadership skills was to hire a management coach to meet him once per month, to talk through the issues facing him at Optimizely.

CTO Coach 113

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 113

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

That includes all of our cloud strategy, cloud operations, backend engineering, IT and security. Some of the things we talked about were operational overhead and cost of various data stores we were running, along with whether or not we needed to hire dedicated database administrators for various different technologies.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

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 283

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 283

OpenView Labs

APRIL 12, 2019

Getting hiring right is absolutely critical. I’d like to talk about two different companies with two very different approaches to hiring post-seed raise. To get the team started we hired several junior developers. There is a binary feeling that comes from making those first few technical hires. We needed a CTO.

CTO Hire 69

CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 69

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 18, 2025

Before that, he was the first non-founder seller at three startups, turning early traction into a repeatable sales motion. If you missed GTM 134, check it out here: Build your AI Outbound Machine with ChatGPT | Jordan Crawford Highlights: 05:03 When to hire your first sales reps. 31:55 Hiring for grit, curiosity & determination.

Sales Hiring 92

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale VP of Engineering 92

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

In part, my shift in thinking could pertain to not being the “front man” handling the pitch. But thanks to our VP of Business Development, I realize team-based selling for an early-stage startup or company is still likely a necessity, and far outweighs specialization when your sales org is fewer than five people or so.

Underperforming Technical Team 130

Underperforming Technical Team CTO Hire CTO Coach Technical Review 130

OpenView Labs

JULY 2, 2020

Nailing your SaaS pricing strategy requires more than just picking the optimal price and forgetting about it. Why You Need to Review Your Pricing Strategy Today (and How to do it Right). Patrick Campbell of Price Intelligently lays out the case for why a focus on pricing strategy is vital to almost every company’s bottom line.

Pricing 138

Pricing SaaS Payments Payments SaaS 138

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Along the way, we’ve interviewed trailblazers, business leaders, makers and doers to share their experience and insights on all things startup strategy, product management, design, marketing, customer experience, and much, much more. And so we hired somebody who had a lot of experience and could recommend ways to build the team.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

Upscope

JANUARY 5, 2020

Related : 10 Companies Show you their Go-to-Market Strategies Also see : 3 Copywriting Secrets for Ranking on Google And : Using Jobs to be Done Method to Explain What Your Company Does Contents Skip this blog post and just read the book Why positioning matters What is positioning? Why positioning matters? Product positioning matters!

Strategy 128

Strategy Marketing Sales Hiring Engineering 128

Scytale

OCTOBER 21, 2024

Regardless of whether you’re running a startup or a more established business, this certification is the key to unlocking deals you once thought were out of reach. Streamlining the Sales Process: Ever been knee-deep in contract negotiations when the client suddenly asks, “Are you SOC 2 certified?” Uh-oh, now what?

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Scale compliance CTO Hire 52

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

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 no credible timing event. All right guys, welcome to the Sales Hacker’s Success Summit presentation, How To Close The Enterprise When You Are Just A Startup. What You’ll Learn.

Enterprise 79

Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 79

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. 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. Sam’s Corner [28:45]. Show Introduction [00:10]. What is LinkSquares?

Scale 117

Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach Scaling 117

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 164

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 164

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

Since 2010 we’ve seen more startups, funds, and capital than ever before, but with this drastic increase, investors are seeing unexpected new trends reshaping the future of the industry. So the actions are define and design the funding strategy seed extremely well. You can underfund the company, much mistake.

New CTO 174

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 174

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. Chief Technical Officer : Responsible for outlining the company’s technological vision, implementing technology strategies, and ensuring that the technological resources are aligned with the company’s business needs. Average salary: $196,172/yr.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

In this framework, you’ll learn how to design a scoring system that aligns to your growth strategy, brainstorm and select leader indicators of success, and operationalize the system across your startup. You’ll need someone familiar with your data—perhaps a CTO or someone responsible for business operations. Get it done faster.

Startup 91

Startup Scale Systems Review Technical Review 91

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. Channing Ferrer , VP of Sales Operations and Strategy at HubSpot. Building the right tech stack. Partner ecosystem and integrations. Compensation plans. No, seriously.

Scale 119

Scale Technical Cofounder Technical Advisors Sales Hiring 119

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. Established in 2010, Buffer hardly needs an introduction.

Payment Solutions 113

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

The Gold: these are very rare and hard to achieve at the scale-up stage, so you’ll mostly encounter them with startups. That’s the advice, Petri Hollmén picked up on the more technical side of things from the opening session on Day 2 with Cal Henderson, CTO of Slack. The best part? Hire Game Changers to Propel Growth.

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2021

Will Larson , CTO of Calm. Des Traynor , Co-founder and CTO of Intercom. Productboard founder and CEO Hubert Palan on mastering product strategy. Far too many businesses rely on early-on hunches to inform their product strategies. Later’s Farhan Virji on adapting B2C support strategies for B2B teams.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Technical Review Scale Outsourcing Services 118

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

Sales Hacker

MARCH 25, 2019

Simmone talks about her experience building Gilt City and Kidpass as a woman of color and how she advises companies to build diversity and inclusion into their hiring practices and sales teams. How to build diversity into your hiring practices. It really starts in how you’re hiring. Unconscious bias is a part of all of us.

Sales Hiring 89

Sales Hiring Revenue CTO Coach CTO Hire 89

Natalia Luneva

APRIL 30, 2021

Of course, our team is involved to an extent, and we have an external part-time moderator for support. 5 Sebastian Schaeffer, CTO at dofollow.io (B2B PR SaaS) says: “ Our community is primarily on Facebook and Linkedin and it has been live for over a year. We use the community from time to time to promote our services.

Marketing 98

Marketing Social Media SaaS New CTO 98

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. Established in 2010, Buffer hardly needs an introduction.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Payment Features Outsourcing Services Payments 52

Chart Mogul

JULY 1, 2020

After missing the mark on product/market fit for their first startup, the founders decided to find a new business idea and validate it with potential customers. We tend to believe that the technical aspects of our product are the most important differentiator because that’s what our CTO says.

Interviewing 76

Interviewing B2B Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 76

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2025

China Is Playing a Different Game Entirely The Models Youve Barely Heard Of: DeepSeek R1: 93% performance of OpenAI’s o3-mini at fraction of training cost Alibaba Qwen 2.5-Max: As Andrew Bosworth (Meta CTO) noted: “This is our space race…there’s very few secrets. 80% cheaper than predecessor, costs 0.2%

AI Search 259

AI Search AI CTO Hire ChatGPT 259

Chart Mogul

JULY 1, 2020

After missing the mark on product/market fit for their first startup, the founders decided to find a new business idea and validate it with potential customers. We tend to believe that the technical aspects of our product are the most important differentiator because that’s what our CTO says.

Interviewing 52

Interviewing B2B Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 52

Natalia Luneva

APRIL 30, 2021

Of course, our team is involved to an extent, and we have an external part-time moderator for support. 5 Sebastian Schaeffer, CTO at dofollow.io (B2B PR SaaS) says: Our community is primarily on Facebook and Linkedin and it has been live for over a year. We use the community from time to time to promote our services.

Marketing 40

Marketing Social Media SaaS New CTO 40

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Just prior to Sapper, my job was basically to go in and be the head of sales at a different startup. I am the head of sales for a startup company in a basement office in the Silicon Prairie of St. We brought in this brilliant CTO who’s got a PhD in informatics. I see this online all the time. I took a job.

Scale 87

Scale Artificial Intelligence Sales Recruiting Consulting 87

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. May 13-15 in SF Bay!

Scale 187

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Scaling 187

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2024

Public valuations are still at a fraction of their 2021 peaks, but seed rounds are more expensive than ever. There is more capital available to startups than ever before. The influx of capital has made it easier for startups to raise money, but it has also led to higher valuations and more competition. Is it sustainable?

CTO Hire 285

CTO Hire Development Team Review Software Review Technical Review 285

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

Know the best strategies to enhance your SaaS career Make use of key insights from leaders, companies, and communities Engineer your SaaS marketing strategy based on their expertise. Many others have adopted his strategies at Box to create scalable products. His strategies and tips in SaaS have helped many users.

VP of Engineering 10

VP of Engineering Scale SaaS Venture Capital 10