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. Definition.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Enterprise 130

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Back then, remote first was a recruiting advantage. It’s definitely harder, but if you’re remote-first, you can build a culture that’s purpose-built to be remote. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team. They believed talent was global, and the co-founders loved to travel. Today, not so much.

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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.

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Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 253

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. Yet in Mark’s experience working with and mentoring startups, he’s found that many entrepreneurs go with intuition over information.

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Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 226

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2019

Lloyed : Startup-. There might be some Venn diagram overlap there, but there’s definitely some differences in the ideal composition of the team. Let’s shift now to the dynamics, or rather the stages of the startup, right? Lloyed : Definitely. Lloyed : Awesome. Keith : Started Opendoor. Keith : From scratch.

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Merchant Services Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 274

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 8, 2018

In a time where buyer behavior has rendered cold calling nearly obsolete, successful sales prospecting begins with using tools like live chat and social media to build relationships. He’d go on to become the VP of Sales at Sprinklr, guiding the company through its own high growth period, before striking out on his own.

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Social Media Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 186

SaaStr

APRIL 23, 2019

Opening video: Hey, all these startups, they have a lot of trouble getting corporate credit cards. Anu: So, without further ado, Henrique, I know that when you first applied to YC, you actually applied with a VR startup idea, but the video showed all about credit card. Expense management was something people care about.

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Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency. Then, the sales team went to work. In his opinion, the hiring process is a preview of their sales technique.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

OpenView Labs

AUGUST 19, 2021

Sales recruiting is broken. The sad truth is that VP of Sales are turning over within 19 months —and that timeline is shrinking. . Not only that, the market has heated way back up and the VP of Sales is one of the most sought after roles. Image from First Round’s State of Startups Report. Therein lies the dilemma.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Scale 98

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 25, 2019

If you’re reading this, you might be familiar with Paul Graham’s famous article “ Startup=Growth ,” where he lays out the difference between traditional businesses and startups. Paul Graham puts it like this: “A startup is a company designed to grow fast”. Making sure culture scales as you grow.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 136

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2019

Lloyed : Startup-. There might be some Venn diagram overlap there, but there’s definitely some differences in the ideal composition of the team. Let’s shift now to the dynamics, or rather the stages of the startup, right? Lloyed : Definitely. Lloyed : Awesome. Keith : Started Opendoor. Keith : From scratch.

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Merchant Services Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 222

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

With the rise of AI, new sales technology and automation at the forefront of the sales echo chamber these days, we thought we’d take a moment to bring it back to BASICS – that’s why we’ve rounded up this complete glossary of sales terms and definitions to help you remember where it all started.

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Scale Payment Methods Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments 105

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 17, 2024

The challenges and rewards of founding and growing a startup for nine years. 15:41) Scaling Twitter’s ad business and managing hyper-growth. (26:54) 26:54) The existential dread of being a startup founder. (37:56) 45:40) Debunking the myth of sacrificing personal life for startup success. (49:07) Youre not alone.

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Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

In this episode of the Sales Hacker Podcast, we have Hakim Myers , Business Recruiter at Nextdoor , where he recruits for people, finance, and legal functions for startups. Join us for a revealing conversation on sales and talent from the perspective of a recruiter in an executive search firm.

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SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2019

How to Design a Sales Comp Plan to Get You to $100M with Work-Bench, Movable Ink, MongoDB and Concert Finance. This panel will speak tactically to various comp design options as a way for management to determine and promote ideal behavior in their front-line teams. Meghan Gill | VP of Sales Ops @ MongoDB. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 150

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

Companies were growing their sales organizations and bringing in more revenue. Companies everywhere have frozen their hiring and laid off workers — with sales reps often among the first to go. I’ll be honest: as the leader of a sales-focused recruiting company, this has been tough for me and my team.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 121

Sales Hacker

JUNE 3, 2025

Over his 15-year career at Meta, Rick was instrumental in driving international expansion, especially across Europe, the Middle East, and Africahelping to localize strategy, scale high-performing sales teams, and bring new ad products to market. Rick is the former managing director of Meta Ireland. Rick Kelley: You’re right.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 85

OpenView Labs

JUNE 3, 2021

Anyone who’s ever worked at a startup knows it’s a “get the job done” environment where your title means little and what you do means a lot. Engineering manages IT. Hiring managers take on HR responsibilities. Specifically, I’m talking about product management and product marketing. CEOs “hit the streets” and sell.

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Product Marketing Sales Hiring Startup Sales Recruiting 98

Incredo

OCTOBER 17, 2019

common software sales comp plans, 2. what factors to consider before defining your SaaS sales commission percentage. We will share 8 ideas on how to increase your sales team’s productivity and help them close more deals. We will share 8 ideas on how to increase your sales team’s productivity and help them close more deals.

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SaaS Payments Compensation Payment Services Sales Recruiting 150

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 7, 2021

Having a clear mission and strong company values not only helps with recruiting but, more importantly, it unites everyone and helps them feel invested in the future of the company. Liam: Samira Alamudi is a Sales Development Manager in our Sydney office as part of the Asia Pacific or APAC team. A collaborative culture.

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Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Investment 118

Incredo

OCTOBER 17, 2019

common software sales comp plans, 2. what factors to consider before defining your SaaS sales commission percentage 4. and finally figure out how much that SaaS sales salary should be. In the end, a bonus section is waiting for you! What are 5 common SaaS sales compensation models? We will write about: 1.

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SaaS Payments Compensation Payment Services Sales Recruiting 144

Sales Hacker

MARCH 12, 2020

Like most things in life, hiring sales talent is a matter of timing. Especially since the best candidates with strong sales skills are usually snatched up within 10 days. That’s why it’s critical to overcome indecision and move quickly when recruiting sales talent. Is it unrealistic sales quotas?

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Incredo

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

If sounds like this topic can help you generate more SaaS sales with less risk, we are starting! But most SaaS startups don’t realize that. In reality, creating collateral for affiliates, recruiting, training and motivating affiliates takes a lot of effort. We provide sales copy, banners, keywords, etc.

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SaaS Payments Payment Methods Merchant Services Sales Recruiting 139

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2022

As a tiny startup who might be commercializing its first product, are there any general guidelines that you can stick to that would prevent the massive companies out there from crushing the baby? And you can build that in a way with the startup that you can’t in a bigger company. But even the CEO of a four-person startup.

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Tom Tunguz

MARCH 3, 2013

From Netflix to Facebook, Twitter to Google, successful startups build great management teams. But it isn’t easy to hire an executive of any sort (CEO, VP Marketing, VP of Sales, etc) because the executive hiring process is radically different from every previous hire in the startup’s life. The Perfect Process.

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Intercom, Inc.

JULY 24, 2018

Together we felt like we were growing something from scratch, everything from our work processes to our team identity contributed to a strong sense of being part of “a startup within a startup”, related to but distinct from the broader Intercom family. There are definitely pros and cons on both sides. Team building.

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Sales Hiring Company Culture Scale Customer Support 149

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 5, 2021

Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. How the role of sales development has changed [13:10]. Keeping new sales professionals focused on the mission [18:44]. Sam Jacobs: This week on the show, we’ve got Kata Nyitrai , head of global sales development for Meero, a fast-growing company in Europe. We’re on iTunes.

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Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Review Outsourced Development 113

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 24, 2021

This is a program where we invite luminaries from the startup world to share their insights. And then from 2004 to 2014, she was at Google and managed lots of different things, including the self-driving cars project, global sales and operations, and the business teams for checkout in Google Apps. It’s been a huge success.

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Sales Hacker

JUNE 27, 2019

I typically see this happen for one main reason: Startups often think (consciously or subconsciously) that scaling or building a sales team is as simple as “getting bodies in the door yesterday.”. The reality is not all salespeople are created equal (and neither are startups). Nothing could be further from the truth!

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outsourcing Services 71

Kellblog

JULY 18, 2019

So, you’re thinking of taking a job at a startup, but are nervous about the risk, perhaps having trouble telling one from another, and unsure about knowing what’s really important in startup success. Startups are about people. Great core/founding team. We live in a founder-friendly VC era. Clean cap table.

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Underperforming Technical Team Startup Software Technical Cofounder 86

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

When it comes to launching sales teams in hyper-growth startups, few people have walked the walk as much as Maggie Hott. She “stumbled” into it, as she told us, first as one of the earliest sales hires of Eventbrite, where she stayed for four years, and then into Slack in early 2015 as the first sales rep in the Bay Area.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 118

FastSpring

MARCH 16, 2023

You know, of course, like, startups are young and hungry and full of passion, and they have their reason for being and it’s vibrant. So we were working on a recruitment piece recently for a fortune 500 Equipment Company. That’s what customers recruits. If you’re having a one on one sales conversation.

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Sales Recruiting Scale Social Media Interviewing 137

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 28, 2018

The best sales conferences enrich your team, build knowledge, and offer plenty of networking opportunities (and fun)! Bad sales conferences just feel like a huge waste of time away from you prospects. Unleash is the ultimate Sales Engagement conference. Go ahead and add these to your calendar now. March 10-12 | San Diego, CA.

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Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Underperforming Technical Team 87

Kellblog

MARCH 13, 2020

In days of yore, chief revenue officer (CRO) was just a gussied-up title for VP of Sales. If someone was particularly good, particularly senior, or particularly hard to recruit you might call them CRO. Chief revenue officer meant chief sales officer meant VP of Sales. Frank, the head of Sales, had a $1B number.

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VP of Engineering Customer Success Sales Recruiting Acquisition 98

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

If you haven’t read the book…well, you are definitely missing out. What is actually the “product role” in a startup? If used effectively, it can significantly reduce the money spent on marketing and sales activities. You can make it simpler by just automating the recruiting process.

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Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

He brought up a very interesting topic that many GTM leaders / founders face as a challenge when scaling a startup; highlighting the 3 stages of executive hires as you scale and what to look out for qualitatively. First bullet is definitely creative grinders. There’s a lot of managing up/managing sideways/managing down, etc.,

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Sales Hiring Technical Cofounder Scale Sales Recruiting 116

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

Then we needed to hire a sales guy who had experience selling to enterprise. We got the guy who ran enterprise sales at Rackspace. This is my third startup. UberConference started as this freemium, kind of funnel builder for later sales product. Dan : We’d start it with sales. Now, we go to the next.”

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