Tom Tunguz

JULY 10, 2024

If buyers act rationally & reduce headcount by 50% 1 which we know is probably not true, then to maintain the same revenue per customer, price would need to double. Instead of hiring a sales development rep, hire a robot. This initial pricing has anchored the market at least for now in that range. This is for copilots.

AI 277

AI Pricing Sales Hiring Strategy 277

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 16, 2024

Today, IT budgets are roughly broken down into: ~50% headcount / personnel, ~25% software, ~15% hardware, and ~10% outsourcing / consultants. As software grows as a percentage, I think we see headcount / outsourcing shrinking. I’m certainly not the first (or thousandth.) to have this view, but I wanted to flesh out why.

Outsourcing Services 274

Outsourcing Services Cloud Software Outsourced Development 274

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2021

Bryan shares his learnings, from media sales and heading up the sales development function to Aircall, to his top learnings at SaaStr Inc. But it hindered our support and growth by being behind on headcount. “I You can buy your tickets at SaaStr Annual and use promo code: “Poya30” to receive 30% off. .

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Headcount Sales Branding 274

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Involve sales in product development to ensure alignment between customer needs and product roadmap. Unlike building a product team, there is no efficiency when building a sales org: half of your headcount will be in sales at $10m, $50m, or $100m in revenue. This means building a sales org requires a different approach.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 284

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2025

Expertise depth : Specialized teams can develop deeper expertise on specific products and competitors. Sales Organization Structure Conrad reveals his preference for dedicated sales teams for each product, despite internal disagreement. His rationale: Training capacity : Sales teams can only absorb so much product knowledge.

Startup 157

Startup Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Cloud 157

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Without headcount planning for the support team, the company’s response time and customer satisfaction scores dipped. Forecasting can help define revenue numbers, the support you need to provide, headcounts, and opportunities to tap into new businesses. Data is the foundation for developing efficient strategies.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 274

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2022

Like GitLab and other enterprise leaders for developing software, a lot still runs on private clouds, servers, and more. But they need the headcount to grow this quickly. #8. Confluent is still sticking with its developer-focused, self-serve and PLG motions to get going. Not free-cash positive yet. That’s good to see.

Scale 61

Scale Cloud Headcount Scaling 61

SaaStr

DECEMBER 18, 2023

Things like code assist and automating the code design help you use your developer organization more wisely. Ai made it possible to engage with students, teachers, and others within the platform, save on customer service headcount, and scale the company. The challenge was connecting the dots between 60k signups and multiple schools.

AI 299

AI Technology Scale Startup 299

The Angel VC

MARCH 23, 2016

If you have a SaaS startup with a higher-touch sales model where revenue growth is largely driven by sales headcount, the plan needs to be modified accordingly. With the exception of the VP of Sales role, sales staff headcount planning is done on the separate "Sales Team Hiring Plan" tab (re-using a model that I've built for this post ).

SaaS Payments 217

SaaS Payments Headcount SaaS Payment Methods 217

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2024

They’ve built four AI tools, three without writing code, and have developed an AI-first culture at Runway where everyone can develop and utilize these AI tools without a formal engineering background. Before you open up a headcount and add more people, think about what you can automate. Automate before hiring.

AI 275

AI Engineering Sales Hiring ChatGPT 275

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2022

Instead of celebrating headcount, focus on growing efficiently in scalable ways.” . Develop impactful messaging to tell your product story and embed that into your outbound strategy. Develop a laser-sharp ideal sales profile and hire for it, but don’t compromise on efficiency. Unconventional scaling ideas to accelerate growth.

Outsourcing Services 282

Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 282

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 4, 2024

Whatever the reason, the challenge is the same facing a hiring manager : difficult recruitment to maintain or grow headcount. For example, accounting graduates have fallen approximately 18% since 2016. or too few applicants for a particular role like customer support. Last, margin pressure.

AI 203

AI Software Review Marketing Systems Review 203

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2024

Until recently, founders would describe their growth rate by how fast they were growing their company headcount. What’s the #1 bit of advice you’d give to SaaS founders today? My advice is to keep the bar high. In addition, recent advancements in automation are making it possible to keep the bar higher for longer when scaling teams. #4.

Scale 271

Scale Headcount Travel B2B 271

Sales Hacker

JULY 24, 2018

Decreased revenue per rep, High turnover as you scale headcount. We made our machine more efficient even as we scaled, grew headcount, and skyrocketed our revenue. In the first six months of the year, our team’s headcount grew by almost 60%, yet our revenue outpaced that, growing by 142%. 5) Hire Intelligently.

Scale 76

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Scaling 76

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

Having a predictable pipeline enables more effective decision-making, from headcount planning to strategic investments in technology and beyond. At the top of the funnel, AE’s rely on business development reps to fill their pipeline and create earlier-stage opportunities. They need support from pre and post-sales partners.

Forecasting 284

Forecasting SMB Sales Technical Review 284

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2023

Some define it by headcount, typically around 200-2000 employees, and others by revenue, generally $10M to $1B annual recurring revenue. In rapidly growing companies, the headcount can go from 500-3000 in a matter of months. Develop a killer discovery process to impose order in the chaos of a fast-growing company.

Scale 243

Scale Enterprise Scaling SMB 243

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 7, 2022

Increase your leads without increasing your headcount. But one of the major benefits of live chat for sales is that it allows you to capture and qualify more leads without needing to increase headcount. Envoy accelerated lead volume through Intercom. Leads generated by Intercom now make up 33% of Envoy’s leads. Learn more ?.

Sales Funnel 245

Sales Funnel Sales Headcount Payment Features 245

SaaStr

DECEMBER 19, 2022

Lots of SaaS founders are preoccupied with employee headcount as an important growth metric, but this indicator is not always true. Focus on developing your leaders in-house. What does successful company growth look like? Everyone is constantly questioning the value of what they’re doing because no one has time for busy work.

Compensation 261

Compensation Leadership Company Culture Headcount 261

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 13, 2018

In this article, you’ll learn how to structure your sales development (SDR) team for maximum efficiency and scalability. Of course, headcount is always a sensitive topic, so start small to show your executives what is possible. If executed right, the headcount is truly an investment. Sales leaders, read on! Navy SEALs.

Scale 104

Scale Development Headcount Sales 104

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

AI is likely the next platform, dev tools are strategic given the scarcity of developers, cybersecurity is front and center for enterprises, and the data stack is still going strong. Often, founders are unsure about the headcount split between India and the US. For developer tools and infra, it is skewed towards brand and community.

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Cybersecurity 293

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 1, 2021

Over the past year, many support teams have struggled with budget cuts, reduced headcount, and less bandwidth – while the volume and complexity of customer queries has only risen. So how can you manage a larger volume of queries without needing to add headcount? Challenge #1: Limited team bandwidth, resources, and budget.

Underperforming Technical Team 232

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Scale Headcount 232

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2021

Support leaders looking to expand their support offering will often seek to answer questions like “How can I scale my support without increasing headcount or budget?” Saving valuable time with automatic answers. or “Phone and email support are inefficient and causing my team to get swamped with inbound conversation volume, how can I fix this?”

Headcount 239

Headcount Customer Support Scaling Mobile 239

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

Ryan Johnston, Head of Customer Success at Tanda, explains that as their customer base has grown in recent years, the team has been able to scale their support without dramatically increasing headcount, which has been a big benefit to the team. Here’s how they’re doing it.

Scale 237

Scale Headcount Mobile Communication 237

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 20, 2019

At the time I didn’t fully value the SDR experience or the skill set I was developing. Sarah Affleck, Director of Sales Development at Rigor , said that, “What we’ve learned is that when a new SDR starts at Rigor, it’s important to tell them not just the responsibilities of the job, but why they were hired in the first place. .

Sales Hiring 35

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Headcount 35

Sales Hacker

MAY 17, 2019

Have you noticed the disconnect between how executives talk about Sales Development and how they treat Sales Development leaders? Companies are beginning to understand the vital role SDRs play in building pipeline , but Sales Development leaders rarely have a seat at the proverbial table. The Reason? Standardizing bandwidth.

Scale 100

Scale Sales Hiring Development Sales 100

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

I was a software developer, a product person. There’s revenue drive headcount or does headcount drive revenue, and it’s sounds like you’re squarely in the former camp, that you derive headcount from revenue. I actually drive revenue from headcount, but I make sure I have enough stocked away.

Sales Hiring 339

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 339

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 8, 2020

It can also guide your hiring process if increasing headcount is required to guarantee 24/7 coverage for customers. A disconnect between your tickets opened and tickets completed may indicate a need for better training of support reps, increased headcount, or the introduction of automation to help reduce the strain on your team.

Customer Support 211

Customer Support Metrics Technical Review Scale 211

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

will quotas for SDRs & BDRs increase but headcount remain the same? We’ll need to watch the impact to funnel conversion through many sales cycles to develop confidence that any changes are statistically significant.

Artificial Intelligence 154

Artificial Intelligence Scale Headcount Scaling 154

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 20, 2021

“These are the kinds of things that help our support org to function more smoothly and impactfully so we can support our customers at scale, without needing to increase budget or headcount”. Starting to build out a support operations function doesn’t necessarily mean adding headcount straight away. Baby steps, for sure.”.

Scale 156

Scale Customer Support Scaling Headcount 156

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 20, 2020

How would David Heinemeier Hansson ( DHH ) make time to talk smack on Twitter or go off the grid for three months if he was the sole developer on Rails? To give a flavor, here are some of the questions that managers regularly need to find answers to: What is the ideal headcount for this team? He wouldn’t. Six months?

Engineering 221

Engineering Management Headcount Development 221

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 31, 2021

During the past few weeks, finance and management teams will have been busy developing the financial plan for this year. funnel analysis tying sales performance to lead generation and marketing budget for program spend and headcount. The key number is the new bookings which implies the growth rate for next year.

Forecasting 168

Forecasting Sales Hiring Headcount Finance 168

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 4, 2018

While it’s true you may need to incrementally add capacity for this new channel, the impact we’ve seen on our conversion rates has more than paid for the additional headcount. Not only are the leads coming in through live chat of higher quality, they’re also 82% more likely to convert.

Sales Funnel 220

Sales Funnel Sales Headcount B2B 220

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2024

His first company was Personify and he went on to be a VP of Developer Relations at Salesforce, then hire number 11 at Dropbox, CEO at Heroku, and an investor and on many boards before landing as the current CEO at Vimeo. Do you see massive disruption in workforces and marketing headcounts shrinking because of AI? “I’m

AI Search 273

AI Search SaaS Advertising Sales Hiring 273

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 4, 2019

’ “The first thing we did was to try to understand where buying behaviors changed, and develop customer segments that were predominantly based on size. Despite the exponential growth they’ve gone through, Stripe have been refreshingly conservative about how quickly they grown the company from a headcount perspective.

Scale 162

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Payment Services 162

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2022

Their offerings have expanded over the years from personal use to Grammarly Business, Grammarly for Non-Profits, and the recently launched Grammarly for Developers. But as you expand and start productizing everything in your journey, it’s easy to get under the assumption that more headcount equals better performance.

Scale 246

Scale SMB Enterprise Sales Hiring 246

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 27, 2022

As companies and their headcounts grow, so do their tech stacks. We make it as straightforward as possible for developers to build on top of Intercom, allowing you to customize our platform to suit your company’s specific needs. On top of that, our developer hub and robust API documentation mean you’ll be guided through every step. .

Enterprise 205

Enterprise Headcount Engineering Cloud 205

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 13, 2019

As the head of our Support Ops team, I work daily with my teammates to develop automated solutions that don’t frustrate customers, but empower them. When implemented well, automated customer service allows businesses to help more customers at scale without drastically growing headcount. These factors include: Message keywords.

Underperforming Technical Team 279

Underperforming Technical Team Customer Support AI Headcount 279