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

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Specifically, she champions a metrics-based approach for developing world class recruiting teams. Because of her position, Maia has observed recruiting patterns in hundreds of companies, and has developed best practices for startups. Maia reports these five strategic recruiting metrics to the executive team each quarter.

Sales Recruiting 113

Sales Recruiting Startup Sales Hiring Data Analysis 113

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Recently, Redpoint Office Hours welcomed Allison Pickens to clarify the COO role and when startups should consider recruiting one. Whereas a decade ago, a board might have hired a professional CEO to scale the operations of a startup, today, more boards seek COOs. A few hypotheses underpin this trend. The Four COO Archetypes.

Sales Recruiting 212

Sales Recruiting Startup Sales Hiring Scale 212

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

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 179

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 179

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. Just an FYI: I’ve done some iteration of this 4 times in early stage startups.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 278

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 9, 2013

One number investors use to benchmark SaaS startups across sectors and industries is sales efficiency. There are a handful of variants of this metric, sometimes called the magic number, but ultimately they all aim to provide some sense of the incremental revenue returned by sales and marketing investment. The raw data is here.

Benchmarks 160

Benchmarks Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 160

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

Tom Tunguz

JULY 6, 2017

They are scouts, trying to match an external startup and an internal business owner in a beneficial merger. Once a business owner is interested in a potential target, the corporate development team manages the process. Does the acquisition target have a team with unique skills that would be difficult/expensive to recruit?

Startup 186

Startup Sales Recruiting Acquisition Development 186

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

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 9, 2025

So read on, and hopefully, your SaaS sales journey will be less about trial and error and more about steady progress toward success. Whats important to note is that each model targets a distinct customer persona and, therefore, has a unique approach to the customer journeyfrom brand awareness to sales and, ultimately, conversion.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Sales Recruiting 52

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

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

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

The Angel VC

JUNE 25, 2015

For most SaaS startups, the VP of Sales (along with the VP of Marketing) is one of the most crucial hires they need to make. Unless you have a no/low touch sales model and you're growing virally (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a.

Sales Hiring 185

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 185

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 14, 2019

Since writing The AI Agency: A Novel GTM for Machine Learning Startups , I’ve been meeting many companies who operate this way. These startups use machine learning to disrupt an industry traditionally dominated by agencies: law, accounting, recruiting, translation, debt collection, marketing…the list is long.

AI 203

AI Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Artificial Intelligence 203

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 18, 2024

Areas with the greatest data are those that are furthest developed” – Mike Levy (CRO of SalesIntel) Mike’s comment underscores the fact that while AI is rapidly advancing, there’s still much to learn, and the most progress is happening where data is abundant. “Lots of interesting things, but nobody has figured it out.

Sales Recruiting 101

Sales Recruiting Software Review Scale AI 101

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. What ATS is best for small businesses or startups?

Systems Review 52

Systems Review Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review 52

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 9, 2015

As a startup scales and surpasses its first organizational breaking point of 8 employees, it’s time to start thinking about organizational design. The strategy a startup chooses in their market should determine their organizational design. People spans recruiting, training and development. Google is a good example.

Sales Recruiting 113

Sales Recruiting Startup Scale Systems Review 113

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 29, 2019

Have you ever wondered how other sales professionals are tackling their roles? Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on the day-to-day for a sales recruiting firm owner, and for that, we talked to Amy Volas. We’re hoping MI becomes a hotbed for startups. Sales Cycle Timeline: N/A. Structuring their days?

Sales Recruiting 66

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 66

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2021

“The 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds with Michael Seibel, CEO of Y Combinator” A SaaStr classic from the last SaaStr Annual. #4. “Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data” Gorgias crossed 6,000 customer this week. Learn from CEO Howie Liu here! #3.

Sales Recruiting 184

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Engineering 184

The Angel VC

AUGUST 10, 2011

Today I'd like to tell you a bit more about what we at Point Nine Capital are looking for in SaaS startups (other sectors are something for another blog post). One could almost say that CAC and CLTV are for a SaaS company what wholesale price and sales price are for a retailer. along the way. along the way.

Sales Recruiting 155

Sales Recruiting Startup Customer Lifetime Value SaaS 155

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

It’s an approach that’s served him well along the road to building the HubSpot sales team, where he was CRO for nine years. That experience led to his bestselling book, The Sales Acceleration Formula. This has created large amounts of data for running teams. . This has created large amounts of data for running teams. .

Scale 226

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 226

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Back then, remote first was a recruiting advantage. The way the co-founders looked at the stages in the early days of no funding and a community-focus were: Step 1 – No sales or customers, only building freely available open-source software. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team. Today, not so much.

Scale 284

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 284

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

Kellblog

MAY 10, 2021

In this post, I’ll present what I view as the minimum sales management framework for an enterprise SaaS startup — i.e., the basics you should have covered as you seek to build and scale your sales organization [1]. Pipeline management rules, with an optional stage matrix. Management rules (e.g.,

Sales Hiring 130

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Enterprise 130

Kellblog

JULY 17, 2022

In general, I think branding is a potential marketing rathole for startups, particularly early-stage ones. Some startups put the cart in front of the horse. In this post, I’ll use a six-point branding framework and share my thoughts on how each element applies (or doesn’t) to startups. For startups, fewer is better.

Branding 145

Branding Startup Software Sales Recruiting 145

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 1, 2013

Startups, you are doing data science wrong. Weald echoes DJ Patil’s idea : “product-focused data science is different than the current business intelligence style of data science.”. I don’t think there is one type of data scientist, but five. This is the group of data scientists Weald writes about.

Sales Recruiting 100

Sales Recruiting Startup Data Sales Hiring 100

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 15, 2024

That’s why HG Insights created The Next Generation of Sales AI report — to calm the FOMO and help you bring AI to your GTM teams. It includes a breakdown of the Sales AI landscape, adoption of GenAI and Sales software across buyer groups. Plus, an analysis of the top 75 trending sales AI tools. You’re not alone.

Scale 110

Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting Technical Review 110

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2021

There’s a time and a place for it, but a startup, the lifeblood, is getting s**t done. I want to come be your VP of sales and, you’re going to meet me for the first time. Spencer : For me, the key things for a VP of sales is, “OK, tell me about your best reps. We are all builders. Talk is cheap.

VP of Engineering 286

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 286

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2019

Lloyed : Startup-. Keith : The other thing someone said to me that really resonated and has become an important lesson is you can raise the odds of success at any startup from the very early days from something like the proverbial one to 10 percent that people talk about to probably 30 to 40 percent just by changing the team composition.

Merchant Services 274

Merchant Services Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 274

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Sales reps were hosting 4-6 calls daily but most of these calls were early demos or top-of-funnel discovery calls Sales was closing really small deals on one end while talking to really large companies with hundreds of thousands of people on the other. As a startup, it’s tempting to try and do everything.

Scale 268

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 268

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 4, 2015

The prevailing wisdom for hiring the first VP of Sales is roughly $1M in ARR, or whenever the company has figured out some repeatable sales process. The rationale behind this advice is, at this point, the company needs someone to build recruit, incentivize, coach and manage the team that will grow to acquire more and more business.

Sales Hiring 100

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Startup 100

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2022

We tell every CFO up that if you have an employee in finance that’s not doing data driven analytics, that’s what a robot should be doing. We took the series A, interesting enough, the first executive hired by, thanks to the sales coaching, actually was marketing. We do have a network of recruiters.

Sales Hiring 269

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 269

SaaStock

FEBRUARY 13, 2019

Talkpush is a conversational recruiting CRM that allows employers and job seekers to connect in new ways across the globe. It also gives recruiters a faster process through its chatbot and application management tool. It is a platform for inventory and order management that helps owners and distributors. Founded : 2012.

SaaS Payments 225

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Payment Methods 225

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Chuck is the co-founder of Blueprint Expansion , a GTM roles recruiting firm that has helped over 50 VC-backed companies make amazing Sales, Marketing, & Customer Success hires. By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase.

Sales Hiring 124

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 124