SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2024

If you are sales-driven, youll usually stall out at $1.5m-$2m in ARR or so if you dont start growing the team to the next level, The First 50. Theres just physics here to get to $10m in ARR in a sales-led model, even a partially sales-led model: After $1.5m Youll need another sales rep at least per every $500k in new ARR.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS AI 261

SaaStr

APRIL 6, 2025

A little ways back Databricks VP of Sales Heather Akuiyibo joined SaaStr to share unexpected things that work well at Databricks GTM organization as well as some things that havent worked as well. Deep Dive: Unexpected Learnings Time Management as Competitive Advantage Most sales organizations guess how reps should spend their time. .”

Scale 197

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development 197

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2025

At SaaStr + AI Summit 2025, Jason Lemkin and Kyle Norton CRO of $1B+ vertical SaaS leader Owner (where Jason is on the board) did a deep dive on AI in Sales today. This isn’t about being an AI expertit’s about demonstrating active engagement with AI tools and genuine interest in how they can transform sales outcomes.

Sales Hiring 234

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team AI Scale 234

SaaStr

MARCH 11, 2024

So you’re hiring your first few sales reps in the early days? Before you have a great VP of Sales? So you need a very certain type of sales rep. Don’t make the hire. If they just show up at 2:05 onto the Zoom though, don’t make the hire. #2. Not during founder-led sales.

Sales Hiring 303

Sales Hiring Sales Interviewing compliance 303

TechEmpower SaaS

DECEMBER 11, 2023

million software developers worldwide. Given this diversity, it's important to be selective in the development services company with whom you choose to partner. You'll discover firms that are prolific in design/interface and light on development, and vice versa. How do they verify the ongoing progress of development?

Software Development 443

Software Development Development Software Review Software 443

SaaStr

OCTOBER 1, 2022

What almost never works, somewhat surprisingly, is hiring a Director of Outbound as your first outbound hire. And especially, a new VP of Sales comes in without real outbound experience. So they naturally look for a leader to start, a Director of Outbound that has built and managed an outbound team before.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Startup 306

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2021

For the past 10 years, I’ve been a sales advisor for the portfolio companies of early stage venture capital firm True Ventures. It’s fascinating work for a sales mind like mine that’s focused on helping brilliant people turn ideas into revenue-driving businesses. . In his piece, Jason recommends hiring VPs in a certain order.

Sales Hiring 239

Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital Sales 239

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2021

We’ve talked a lot about hiring a great VP of Sales at SaaStr, and I’ve relinked to some of the most popular posts below. But after 5+ years of SaaStr.com, I think we can almost boil it all down to 2 things to look for when you make the hire — and 2 things not to look for as much. That takes years to learn.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Development Team Review 274

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

That when you make a mis-hire, you'll always look back and say you should have made a change 3-4 month earlier? When to hire them. Some classics here: How My VP, Sales Doubled Our Sales in 90 Days. If Your VP Sales Isn’t Going to Work Out — You’ll Know in 30 Days. Your VP of Sales Shouldn’t Be Perfect.

Sales Hiring 269

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Underperforming Technical Team 269

Tom Tunguz

JULY 13, 2022

Yesterday, Office Hours welcomed Lars Nilsson, VP Sales Development from Snowflake to talk about his learnings across 5 companies he helped take public. Throughout the hour, Lars provided insightful perspectives on how to build sales organizations. Then, many founders opt to hire an AE. Hire for hunger.

Scale 324

Scale Sales Hiring Development Sales 324

Predictable Revenue

JANUARY 17, 2023

Learn how to transition from founder-led sales to making your first hire, including the four outbound funnels your sales team should focus on. The post From Founder-Led Sales to Hiring Your First AE appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Sales Revenue Development 257

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Acquisition 299

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

Market challenger sales are very different. In fact, this is where the name challenger sale originates. So, salespeople must find different techniques to succeed and develop trust. Sales cycles lengthen, demand more work, and consumer more time. This is an important mental model to use when hiring salespeople.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Interviewing 261

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

His view is your sales team teaches your customers how to get value out of your product. Ron explains: “Wehire mostly technical backgrounds, but as our customers get larger and larger, you start to get global account managers, and they’re going to have much more business strategic account management experience.

Scale 176

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 176

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2025

And thus — hiring more. They they are doubling down and hiring even more to keep these gains going. but close enough) AND they then double their hiring … now they are moving 4x as quickly. But what if your competitor gets the same gains, and then goes around and reinvests that output into even more great developers?

AI 282

AI Sales Hiring Scale B2B 282

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2020

To hire 3-4 folks to do what you used to do mostly yourself. To want a head of sales operations and a director of sales to help carry the load not later … but on Day 1. To not have to manage any customers yourself in customer success, and instead be a strategist. Or at least, with just 1 or 2 key hires.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS 299

SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2020

A VP of Sales and Success A VP of Sales and Marketing A VP of Sales and Anything Else. Is usually not really a VP of Sales. Sales managers back when I never managed sales. For signs the prospective hire just won’t work out, no matter how strong they might look on paper.

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 257

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

Look for an innovative enterprise customer who: Is willing to be a development partner Has clear needs you can solve today Will give you access to testing environments Can help shape your roadmap The goal isn’t to build custom features – it’s to deeply understand enterprise requirements and bake them into your core product.

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2024

Cloudinary VP of Developer Experience Sanjay Sarathy shares his journey to more than $100M and the lessons he learned along the way for building a PLG motion and an Enterprise sales motion. It was founded by three developers who owned a consulting firm previously, helping startups come to market. It wasn’t the focus.

Scale 312

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Development 312

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

As the past few years have demonstrated, it’s wise to expect the unexpected, especially when it comes to hiring. In particular, hiring for your sales team is critical in an uncertain economic outlook. Additionally, sales professionals looking for a new role should choose their next company wisely.

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 244

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2025

Recently valued at over $1 billion , Codium is proving that AI-driven software development is not just the futureits the present. Before hiring their first sales reps, the founders personally closed millions in revenue. Their strategy? The real impact?

Sales Hiring 180

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting AI 180

Predictable Revenue

MAY 23, 2022

One of the most common startup questions is when to begin hiring SDRs. The answer comes down to product market fit, and whether you’re in a product or sales motion. The post When’s the Right Time to Start Hiring SDRs? appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Sales Hiring 232

Sales Hiring Startup Product Marketing Revenue 232

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2025

The 4 Things Most Founders Get Wrong About Marketing: “We’re a product company, not a marketing company” – The hard truth is that 9 out of 10 B2B companies spend more on sales and marketing than R&D. Better to hire for your specific needs and stage. These “five-five” CMOs barely exist.

Sales Hiring 197

Sales Hiring Marketing Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 197

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

The Journey: From WiFi to IoT Fleet Management Sekar’s journey began unexpectedly when he joined Meraki (founded by MIT researchers Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket) to help them figure out marketing and sales “from first principles.” This cross-pollination effect accelerated product development in unexpected ways.

Scale 260

Scale Transportation Scaling SMB 260

Predictable Revenue

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Poor hiring processes play a big role in the inability to hire timely or correctly. We’d love to show you our hiring process so you have the right tools at the tip of your hands to start hiring for success. The post How To Hire Top Performing SDRs appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Sales Hiring 214

Sales Hiring Revenue Development Strategy 214

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

Product marketing can be difficult, and managing product launches and rollouts can be complex. Your sales rise to a very high level You may realize that your sales are reaching high levels, but at the same time, you may encounter a situation where there needs to be more structure or control in your sales process.

Sales Hiring 260

Sales Hiring Product Marketing Scale Marketing 260

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

A Philadelphia native, Colin started his professional career as a Business Development Representative (BDR) 14 years ago and worked his way up to his current role as CRO. Rather than seeing this as a liability, Wiz leveraged it as a strategic advantage — even in its sales team.

Scale 180

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 180

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 20, 2024

GitHub, founded in 2008, is a leading platform for software development and version control that has made waves since 2018 with its AI Copilot. Copilot is a code completion tool so developers utilize it by starting to type code, and the copilot offers the rest of that coding suggestion based on the prompt.

Scale 261

Scale AI Scaling Marketing 261

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

“The hardest part of closing any deal is finding it,” says Lars Nilsson, VP of Global Sales Development at Snowflake. Over his 35+ year career, Nilsson has managed 100+ Sales Development Representatives (SDR) across four continents, six countries, and ten cities. Hire for fire in the belly.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Development Technical Review Management 246

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2025

Dear SaaStr: How Can I Crush a VP of Sales Interview? To nail a VP Sales interview, you need to demonstrate that youre not just a smooth talker with a great LinkedIn profileyou need to show youre the real deal. Too many VPs of Sales and CROs show up to interviews knowing almost nothing about the product.

Sales Recruiting 197

Sales Recruiting Interviewing Sales Hiring Scale 197

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2020

Founder-led sales generally stops scaling around $1m-$2m ARR. A sign to hire a real sales leader. Over the years at SaaStr we’ve talked a lot about hiring a great VP of Sales, when it works, when it does, and how it moves the needle. The distraction of building a real sales team isn’t worth it yet.

Sales Hiring 326

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 326

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2025

Companies are discovering that hiring AI talent or upskilling existing teams takes much longer than anticipated. Why the Slowdown Might Be Illusory Enterprise Sales Cycles Are Finally Kicking In The most compelling explanation for the apparent plateau has nothing to do with demand and everything to do with procurement realities.

AI 281

AI Payment Services Payments Scale 281

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2024

How much more could you accomplish with your sales organization? Justworks CRO, Robert Lopez, and Director of Sales, Valeria Avila, show you how to create longevity in your sales organization and why it matters. Theme 2: Invest in Team Development Team development can happen in two powerful ways. They’ll step up.

Sales Hiring 287

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Education 287

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2023

At SaaStr APAC 2023, Scott Pugh, VP of Sales at Figma, shared how to scale these two sales teams while building culture. Pugh’s strategy is simple, albeit not always easy: Recruitment — how to hire the best talent to scale your sales organization. Define your hiring profile. Focus on the hiring profile.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 273

SaaStr

JULY 2, 2021

I’ve written a lot about this, but for most start-ups, you can boil it down to two criteria any first VP of Sales just has to meet: Has she built at least a small team before? Have they hired at least 2–3 reps that have performed well? If you can hire 2–3 great ones, you can likely scale and hire 20–30. More here: [link].

Sales Recruiting 284

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Development Team Review 284

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 311

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 311

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2024

So just a little while back, Lenny Rachintsky had me on his hyper-popular podcast to talk about scaling sales, from the perspective of a founder who hasn’t really done sales. They really are a great checklist when you are starting to scale sales in SaaS: #1. And sales go down, not up. #2. It’s a tough job.

Sales Hiring 311

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 311