SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

There’s a slide I see again and again from start-ups: 2 of the early sales reps are at 100% of quota, sometimes 150%-200%. So why so often, do only 2 of the first 8-10 sales reps perform? The first 2 scaled reps you hire that hit plan (some may churn before then) get special training. They get CTO training.

Scale 339

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 339

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

They’ll revolt when you make a senior or mid-level hire that as a group, they simply cannot suffer one day longer. It’s happened to me, and I think for whatever my faults, I have a pretty high EQ and am a half-decent manager. In my first start-up, there was one engineer we had no choice about. Everyone hated him.

Part-Time VPE 273

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 273

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. Average salary: $95,566/yr. Average salary: $46,035/yr.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

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 it was much easier to do more in order to keep that customer than to get a new “top” customer.

CTO Hire 275

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 275

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

We had Lew Cirne, Founder & CEO of New Relic, Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot and for the first time at Annual, we added office hours with the top VCs in SaaS. total attendees, e.g., a CEO + a VP of Sales and a VP of Customer Success, or two Co-Founders, or CEO + CTO, etc.

Scale 277

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 277

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. Mixmax isn’t the only company that tries to talk new employees out of staying. Zappos famously pays new employees to leave after the first month.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

Outseta

APRIL 11, 2019

Why most SaaS companies are blind to some of the best talent on the market By Geoff Roberts 9 min read I believe that most SaaS companies are missing out of a major opportunity when hiring—the opportunity to hire more part-time help, where the employee acts as a fully integrated (albeit part-time) member of the team on an ongoing basis.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Sales Hiring B2B New CTO 52

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 172

Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 172

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. As for Sam, prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce following their acquisition of Quip, a startup Salesforce acquired for $750M where Sam was also the 1st sales leader.

Scale 172

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 172

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 11, 2019

At Hired, we started out with a transactional model that was—at the time—a super disruptive approach and one of our key differentiators. I’ve had roles in almost every function from sales to product to customer success. At Hired , we help top R&D, engineering, and tech talent find jobs they love. Customers called us.

Sales Hiring 40

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Technical Review 40

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

They have service and all this, but the second cloud for them was sales. They wanted to sell the Amplitude product, I forget, to sales or somebody else, and that was their mistake. Jason Lemkin: I think I noticed a pattern, and I wrote it up a couple of years ago and refreshed it, and then I’ll add a new anecdote.

Outsourcing Services 184

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 184

OPEXEngine

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

A Couple SaaS Generations Ago… Traditional software companies managed sales, product development, finance and HR in siloed organizations by function. Cross functional management was attempted but often not effective. In the early SaaS days, management structure was essentially the same. Chief Performance Officer.

Part-Time CTO 69

Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire Management 69

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Building a sales team that can go from $0-$50M (Video + Transcript). Gaetan Gachet | SVP of Sales @Algolia. It’s an honor to be here with this mythical creature, this sales leader that goes from zero to 50 million in the same job. He has a whole French sales team and office that only speaks English in Paris.

Scale 136

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 136

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 22, 2022

Continuous risk management. Hiring and cultivating incredible talent on our Information Security team. Understanding the guardrails we need to build means closely tracking meaningful change across Intercom and making sure we’re on top of new initiatives”. Shipping quickly and securely. Evolving security landscape.

Data 118

Data CTO Hire Technical Review compliance 118

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.

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

DECEMBER 20, 2023

In the latest installment of SaaStr’s What’s New series – where we sit down with the leaders in SaaS and Cloud for the inside scoop on what’s top of mind and what’s new, SaaStr CEO and Jason Lemkin chats with the CEO of ZoomInfo , Henry Schuck. So, what’s new at ZoomInfo? ” And there can be some truth to that, right?

New CTO 248

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring AWS 248

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. Don’t overextend your resources when testing new SaaS growth ideas. Here is what he writes: Kieran Flanagan , VP of marketing at HubSpot, shared some interesting insights on approaching new ideas for scaling up your business.

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2021

With that in mind, before we welcome the new year and all the good things to come, we’ve gathered our favorite insights and nuggets of wisdom from 2021 in a special wrap-up episode. Will Larson , CTO of Calm. Maggie Hott , Director of Sales at Webflow. Des Traynor , Co-founder and CTO of Intercom.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Scale Technical Review Outsourcing Services 118

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. You’re not building a product or getting any new customers. You can’t hire a magician Head of Product.

Scale 239

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

Does Bob agree with the notion that channel sales have completely died in the world of SaaS? How does Bob think about when is the right time to hire a Head of Partnerships? Where do most startups go wrong both in hiring for partnerships and in the engagements themselves? Why is this? What are the drivers of its death?

Sales Hiring 132

Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 132

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 154

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 154

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 13, 2018

OpenView is thrilled to announce our recent $9M Series A investment in Loopio , a software platform that helps sales teams respond to RFPs, RFIs, and security questionnaires seamlessly with up-to-date, accurate, and approved content. Loopio co-founders from left to right: Matt York, CTO; Jafar Owainati, COO; Zakir Hemraj, CEO.

Investment 40

Investment CTO Hire New CTO Sales Hiring 40

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 9, 2022

Additionally, “leapfrog” candidates—those who come from a level below the C-suite, such as senior vice presidents—now make up roughly 5% of new chief execs. More and more people are hiring leaders, not for past experience, but for capability and capacity. We hire a third-party firm.

CTO Coach 52

CTO Coach Customer Success VP of Engineering CTO Hire 52

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 18, 2022

Lead pitches to cross-sell and upsell new channels and features that meet client needs to achieve client KPIs. Coordinate resource management and allocation and control activities leading a cross-functional team to ensure projects are delivered and clients are delighted. Cross-sell and upsell the products to drive customer growth.

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO 19

Kellblog

JANUARY 29, 2020

Unless you are solving a brand-new problem (e.g., Unless you are solving a brand-new problem (e.g., If they are already solving the problem in some way, your new solution more likely represents an optimization than a breakthrough. That takes a lot of hiring and on-boarding risk off the table. Be realistic about this.

Startup 99

Startup Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO 99

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 6, 2019

That’s what David Apple—customer success and sales guru at Notion— is asking. Along with: What’s the ROI of your customer success manager? How many CSMs should you hire? What’s the return on investment of your mom? What about the ROI of spending time with your family, friends, or kids? What is their ROI? Weekend Wisdom.

Scale 43

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 43

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

ProfitWell

JANUARY 24, 2020

The Athletic , a subscription-based digital sports media company, has officially raised $50 million in a Series D funding round led by Bedrock Capital, now apparently valued at $500 million after this new raise. Brendan Schwartz , Co-Founder and CTO over at Wistia, has spent a lot of time learning to trust his instincts.

Sales Recruiting 40

Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO Sales Hiring 40

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 5, 2022

And then, in the 50s, they introduced this new thing, and there was resistance. Evernote’s CTO on Your Biggest Security Worries From 3 to 300 Employees. It allows companies to prove their real-time security posture just about any day of the year, so it accelerates their sales cycles and security reviews. New year, new job.

Scale 211

Scale Software Review compliance Technical Review 211

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 178

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 178

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2019

In the last two years there have been so many new services around security, around machine learning that literally did not exist. But they are actually accompanying us in the sales cycle and it’s certainly something that’s accelerated our time-to-market but also our success as well. So the conversation is changing.

Cloud 168

Cloud Scale Trends Machine Learning 168

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2021

But what they don’t have is a good enough founding team: Sometimes, if the prospective founder isn’t super technical, then the CTO/VPE isn’t really great. They’ve got a rent-a-CTO. Or sometimes they are great, but the team members are just not great enough for their new C-level roles (CEO, CTO, CMO, CSO, CBO, C?O).

Part-Time VPE 201

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire New CTO CTO 201

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

This all relates to a core Kellblog theme of ownership — who owns what — that I’ve explored in some of my most popular posts: What It Really Means to be a Manager, Director, or VP , which touches on the real differences between people operating at different levels. 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

MARCH 12, 2019

Erica Schultz is Chief Revenue Officer @ New Relic, the company that gives you the real time insights your software driven business needs to innovate faster. As for Erica, under her CRO role, she leads all go-to-market functions including Marketing, Sales, Operations, Customer Success, Services, and Support. Transcript.

Scale 166

Scale Enterprise Scaling Sales Hiring 166

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2020

What can they do to enforce a sense of urgency when signing new clients? 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. Where do founders make mistakes in negotiation?

CTO Hire 133

CTO Hire compliance Scale Startup 133

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. Which brings me to sales and marketing.

Part-Time VPE 218

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 218