SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Finding and recruiting top talent is consistently ranked as one of the biggest challenges for growing SaaS companies. SaaStr Annual attracts thousands of high-quality SaaS professionals across functions like engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success. Meet and Find Your Next VP / CXO!

Sales Recruiting 193

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 193

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2025

In our most recent episode of CRO Confidential , hosted by Sam Blond , Graham Moreno , VP of Worldwide Sales at Codium, shared invaluable insights on what drove this growth, the challenges they faced, and how other SaaS companies can replicate this success. Key Growth Drivers 1.

Sales Hiring 178

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting AI 178

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

Ryan’s previous company, ImportGenius , was the largest provider of business intelligence to the import-export industry, which gave them access to an extremely valuable list of customers, trade data, and understanding of the international trade market. Very early on it’s weighted towards product vision and sales.

Sales Recruiting 317

Sales Recruiting Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring 317

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2024

Sam Blond, the former CRO at Brex with 15 years in tech sales, took the stage at SaaStr Europa 2024 to share nine easy sales concepts that so many get wrong. Sam got his first job in tech sales as an SDR for Jason Lemkin’s company, EchoSign, which later sold to Adobe and launched his career. They did this right at Brex.

Sales Recruiting 284

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 284

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

Justin Welsh, former SVP of Sales at PatientPop explains how he started in SaaS in 2009 as the second sales hire at Zocdoc. Justin used Sales Culture to grow a successful PatientPop team to 140 employees and 55 million in revenue. Justin Welsh | SVP Sales @ PatientPop. I was a local sales manager or regional manager.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 331

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

2021 will be the year SaaS sales evolves the most since the Appexchange ecosystem started to take off ~15 years ago, which spawned the entire notion of a true sales app stack. The permanent move to distributed sales teams. Almost every SaaS VP of Sales and CRO I’ve talked to in the past few months isn’t going back.

Sales Recruiting 353

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review Sales 353

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 5, 2020

Over the weekend, I analyzed Roger’s data to answer this question. However, there doesn’t yet seem to be a daily or weekly increase in the data. If we tally the reductions by category, travel, retail, fitness, real estate, transportation, and recruiting constitute the top 6 categories.

Sales Recruiting 357

Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 357

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. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2025

billion valuation after 175M round Scale AI : $29 billion valuation / “sale” with Meta’s $14.3 The company later clarified it didn’t actually “replace” Salesforce with pure AI — it consolidated data onto its own tech stack using tools like Neo4j and built new interfaces. billion in funding xAI : $6.4

AI Search 283

AI Search Artificial Intelligence AI CTO Hire 283

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2022

Having learned from thousands of customers and prospects, Sarah Lash, Envoy’s head of enterprise sales, will talk about what it takes to guide and scale enterprise sales programs during an uncertain future. In my first six months at Envoy , I grew the sales team from six to 17. Combine Strategies To Drive Sales.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

In SaaS, #1 most common misfire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” or variants thereof. Because in SaaS start-ups, it seems like the majority of first VP Sales fail.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

In the latest episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with Ashley Kelly, VP of Global Sales Development at Rippling. For context – Ashley had previously helped Sam scale Brex’s outbound sales from $2M to over $300M in ARR as Senior Director of SDR.

Sales Hiring 305

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 305

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

Emboldened by this seeming endorsement, I dashed off what turned into a lengthy email on interviewing and recruiting, a topic about which I am passionate not because I think I am good it, but because I think I am not. Thoughts on The Recruiting Process. For a CFO, do you require a accounting or finance background?

Sales Recruiting 110

Sales Recruiting Interviewing Sales Hiring Finance 110

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2024

Dedicated Slack Channel For Every Metric From the early days at Secureframe, they have had a dedicated Slack channel for every metric: every net new sale, every expansion, every churn, and every expense. Work with Great Executive Recruiters ”The first time I saw an invoice for an executive search, I think I had a heart attack,” Shrav joked.

Sales Recruiting 292

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 292

Sales Hacker

MAY 18, 2021

On today’s episode of Sales Hacker podcast, we have Mike Levy of TitahHouse, a transparent and effective platform, loaded with in-depth career and job intelligence, exclusively designed to connect tech-focused sales professionals with their next great position. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Special Announcement.

Sales Recruiting 102

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Data Sales 102

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

Rather than seeing this as a liability, Wiz leveraged it as a strategic advantage — even in its sales team. This simple yet powerful signal helped Wiz respond to market opportunities more quickly than competitors relying on processed data that might be weeks old.

Scale 178

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 178

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2021

A ways back, I asked Brendon Cassidy, VP of Sales at LinkedIn, Adobe Sign / EchoSign, and Talkdesk to put together his playbook for double sales. … How We Increased Sales Nearly 100% In One Quarter at HackerRank – Brendon Cassidy. You don’t have enough data. As importantly, he was truly a good guy.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 278

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 3, 2017

Every startup’s sales commission plan is different. But it’s key to understand the theory and the benchmark data that governs the creation of sales commission plans to create a good one for your business. Sales compensation is communicated in OTE, On Target Earnings. At the upper end, they spent 11.5%

Sales Recruiting 160

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Data Sales 160

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

I thought it would be worth drilling down deeper into each of them, and sharing the learnings and mistakes: 1/ Spending less time fixing things, more time recruiting senior folks to own them. No one spends enough time recruiting as it is, after $1m ARR or so. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. You can do this.

Part-Time VPE 286

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 286

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2024

Kyle Norton CRO of Owner is kicking off a new podcast for Pavillion with revenue leaders, and we were lucky enough to be guest #001 here: It’s a great convo on many SaaStr themes — but from the perspective of a VP Sales / CRO. Never play the blame game As a revenue leader, it’s crucial we take accountability for sales performance.

Technical Review 291

Technical Review Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Revenue 291

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

I really appreciate you coming to talk about how to attract, hire, and build a more diverse sales team in your organization. So I’ve been building top-producing sales teams for a really, really long time. So over the years, I’ve watched many sales leaders go out and say, “Brian’s my top producer.

Sales Hiring 258

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 258

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2022

Sales growth slowly declines as she struggles to bring in enough reps. Take say 100 leads a month spread across 2 great reps, then bring in a new VP of Sales that hires 4 weak reps. At least, don’t move on from that VP without doing an honest, data-driven root cause analysis. Then, manage a small team. And quickly.

Sales Recruiting 253

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Churn 253

SaaStr

AUGUST 29, 2023

So I was on a group Zoom with a number of CROs and VPs of Sales the other day and a consistent theme came up: everyone was surprised how high OTEs (On Target Earnings) had held up in the current environment. You can see this in third party data, in RepVue and other places, but some of the root cause is less well understood.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Venture Capital Enterprise Sales 246

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Recently, Redpoint Office Hours welcomed Allison Pickens to clarify the COO role and when startups should consider recruiting one. Chief of Staff - a founder recruits a CoS to combat an increasing workload of project work. The CoS doesn’t manage anyone. This archetype oversees all GTM including marketing, sales, and post-sales.

Sales Recruiting 212

Sales Recruiting Startup Sales Hiring Scale 212

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

The Accounting Team Responsibilities: Financial recording and reporting Compliance, Audits Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable Tax, Treasury Your accounting team makes sure every financial transaction is recorded correctly and categorized. They will also take charge during an audit if the situation arises.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2022

Imagine a coverage model, from end to end, for the full customer life cycle: from demand generation to sales to post-sales. Sales Cycle. This includes everything from inside sales to account executives to strategic asset allocation. Post Sales. Execution is not just a sales process. Demand Generation.

Scale 268

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 268

Sales Hacker

JUNE 20, 2025

Get as specific as you can Stage: Get clear on what stage to focus on Sales Model (optional): Personalize or add a different line relevant to your function Sectors:See our thinking on sectors but have fun with this Target Companies: A target list is a powerful accelerant in your search. And you send the wrong signal to recruiters.

Sales Hiring 95

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI Search Scale 95

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2023

How do you win with a high-velocity sales strategy in a fast-moving, competitive market? In a special session of Workshop Wednesday, Gorgias Founder & CEO Romain Lapeyre and Gorgias VP of Sales & Partnerships Aasif Osmany share their learnings, advice, and hacks for optimizing your sales process. Sign up for free.

Sales Hiring 198

Sales Hiring SMB Sales Recruiting Payment Methods 198

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2019

Enough with the excuses for not having hired your real VP of Sales, or that VP of Engineering, or whatever. Hire a real recruiter. Hire more sales reps in the areas where they are profitable. Figure out what you can do with data. Pick a few that work for you: Get That Key VP Hire Done in Q1. Not in April. Not by June.

Part-Time VPE 321

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 321

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

Data-driven optimization Use data to measure success at every step. GTM 120: Avoid the AI Sales Skills Atrophy Trap with Peter Kazanjy Pete Kazanjy is a serial founder, and seasoned early stage Saas executive, advisor, and investor. Nine lessons from going multi-product, drawing on examples from both Stripe and Watershed.

Scale 109

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 109

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 12, 2019

A little over a year ago, I got the opportunity to start a new team within our sales organization – a team of Relationship Managers dedicated to growing our current customers at scale. The opportunity emerged out of a shift in how we practice sales. Starting a new sales team is not unlike doing improv.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Storyblok started with a leadership-first hiring plan and a recruitment strategy that involved the following: A test to know how candidates handle different tasks and their expertise level. Their first step to achieving this was hiring a sales leader to build a sales team. With time, the bigger picture will unfold.

Scale 245

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 245

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Signal can come from many places (sales team notes, customer support tickets, etc) IT Incident Management: Similar to the security alert example. Generally you need to aggregate data from a number of places to “group.” Group related incidents or tickets by severity to help prioritize. The list goes on.

Systems Review 144

Systems Review Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence 144

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2020

An open discussion with Sam Blond, CSO at Brex, and Kristen Habacht, VPS at Atlassian, about adjusting their sales process during Covid-19. Kristen Habacht runs EDR sales at Atlassian, which I got a check today, $40 billion-$50 billion company. She manages a huge global team. Four, people in the sale? Jason Lemkin: None.

Merchant Services 253

Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 253

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

I’m 100% OK taking a lot of risk here because I know I can help them recruit a local team as much as necessary or desired. Network effects in your product, a marketplace element, or at least some tech/product/non-sales driven reason your app automatically gets more and more dominant as it scales. It just varies.

Scale 342

Scale Sales Recruiting Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning 342

How To Buy Saas

MAY 21, 2025

Whether youre a startup , an SMB , or a global enterprise , the right ATS can streamline your recruitment process, save time, and help attract top talent in a competitive market. Recruitee Best Collaborative Recruiting ATS Pricing: Key Features: Ideal Use Case: 4. Whats the difference between an ATS and a recruitment CRM?

Systems Review 52

Systems Review Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review 52

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2024

At the same time, you want to give trust and power to people who recruit, and you do that by ensuring they understand what the culture is. So that support person, Mafalda, started doing sales, too. Job always thought he’d hire a sales leader and be done with it forever. Your culture can’t be ephemeral, where only the CEO knows.

Scale 257

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 257