SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

In 2019, the founding team at Storyblok set out to create a content marketing solution that worked for everyone—developers and marketers alike. 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.

Scale 202

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 202

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. If you can hire 2–3 great ones, you can likely scale and hire 20–30. Do the diligence here to make sure she’s really been able to recruit at least a few successful reps. That takes years to learn.

Sales Hiring 256

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Development Team Review 256

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. A data-driven framework for scaling. Mark’s latest ebook, The Science of Scaling , outlines a precise framework for success.

Scale 226

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 226

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

And for Intercom’s VP of Sales EMEA, Sanj Bhayro , scaling is just what you need to invest in to ensure growth becomes as constant and linear as it can be. Sanj has plenty of experience scaling sales teams at growing businesses, and that’s precisely why, as of November of last year, he‘s overseeing EMEA sales at Intercom.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

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 293

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 293

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2023

So one recent survey we did really brought out a healthy debate: does your VP of Sales really need to be a product expert? Many of the comments said it was more important a VP of Sales understand process and leadership more than the product itself. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. Not just with buzzwords.

Scale 234

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 234

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2021

Maybe you think developers are weird beasts that type on a keyboard pushing out code, and then as soon as they become indispensable, they quit. At his core, Jeff Lawson is a software developer first, and the CEO of Twilio second. In turn, developers need to adapt. You may ask, “When can we ship this?”

Sales Recruiting 164

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 164

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2022

When you think of scaling up, many things may come to mind, like hiring, culture, marketing, and sales. But what are the essentials of scaling up, and how do you navigate obstacles along the way to function as a high-impact organization? Does PLG really help scale by a large amount? The go-to-market playbook.

Scale 183

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 183

Totango

MARCH 15, 2022

Efforts to scale customer success team activity often fall short because of failure to avoid common mistakes. Your human resources practices, your project management procedures and your technology strategy all need to come together in order for you to scale up without overextending yourself.

Sales Recruiting 95

Sales Recruiting Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 95

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

However, continuing this way isn’t the path to huge scale. To recruit 100 people. To have developed a longer term product roadmap. To answer these questions, the team must look beyond this today’s one-on-ones and this month’s engineering milestones this quarter’s sales pipeline.

Scale 228

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Startup 228

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. And now it’s all about like, can you really scale and execute? Dev Ittycheria : Thank you.

Sales Recruiting 251

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 251

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2021

Bansal felt passionate about enhanced software delivery, the need that Harness meets for developers. Recruitment: Getting the right talent onboard is a critical step. Sales: You must understand how to grow your sales machine, and it isn’t easy. Sales: You must understand how to grow your sales machine, and it isn’t easy.

Sales Recruiting 202

Sales Recruiting Scale Software Delivery Travel 202

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2019

Join Anish Shivdasani, CEO of Giraffe, as he provides unique African experiences learned from scaling to 1M users. Giraffe is a mobile job matching platform that helps medium skilled workers get access to opportunities and helps businesses to recruit staff faster, and easier, and more affordably than any other way. How’s it guys?

Scale 163

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling SaaS Payments 163

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 30, 2023

The first goal of sales at a startup isn’t to bring in revenue — it’s to get customer feedback. I’ve used our sales process to iterate our way to product market-fit and wanted to share what I’ve learned along the way. Use sales conversations as a tool to get product feedback. So how do you get there?

Sales Recruiting 88

Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 88

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 20, 2022

Strong sales reps are the lifeblood of your business and how you choose to invest in them matters. For frontline sales managers, attributes like competency, quality of work, ease of execution, and length of contribution indicate reps’ overall job success, but you can’t rely on those inputs to tell you if they are personally satisfied.

Sales Recruiting 98

Sales Recruiting Scale Retention Sales 98

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2019

Scaling the company’s employee base, sales teams, marketing, and operations—all while preserving its culture—has required a laser focus on first principles, smart processes, and effective hiring. In this talk, Claire will share these and other lessons for scaling high-growth organizations. They were self taught developers.

Scale 152

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Scaling 152

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

I’ve never created LinkedIn content with the “goal” of lead generation or immediate-term sales. Another cool example I really like is Tito Bohrt — he stands out with the pseudo, “ Sales Mad Scientist ” — which demonstrates confidence and a unique identity online.

Sales Recruiting 125

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 125

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2020

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. You can’t scale after that without one. The Benefits of Hiring a Stretch VP of Sales (and The Risks).

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS 226

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. in ARR, get to Initial Traction , we then realize we have to scale. With less drama.

Sales Hiring 359

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 359

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

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Welcome to Sales Hacker’s first-ever Influential Women in Sales list! In this exclusive list, we wanted to honor not just female leaders that promote their own sales platform (no shame in that!) They say “You can’t be what you can’t see,” and the sales floor is no exception.

Sales Recruiting 111

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale Sales Hiring 111

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

You might have a few account executives and a sales leader in place; maybe some revenue and a handful of customers. The sales team costs real money, and the question before the company is: how do you know what quota plan to assign to the account executives? Stage 1: Management by Objectives.

Compensation 153

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 153

OpenView Labs

MARCH 8, 2021

B2B sales involves one business selling its product to another business. Those with experience in both B2B and B2C sales know that B2B is a lot tougher—the deals are bigger, there’s often more than one decision-maker, and the competition is intense. For all those reasons, hiring and management must be on point.

Sales Hiring 80

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting B2B 80

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Accordingly, the recruiting of beta customers and roadmap selling happen earlier, providing for customer quotes as part of the launch. Now organizations can customize demos at scale even easier. It forces messaging, ideal customer persona, and go-to-market planning to advance earlier, providing more timing and feedback to nail it.

Sales Recruiting 99

Sales Recruiting Generative AI AI AWS 99

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

The question facing founders recruiting marketers is: which is the most important to prioritize? Brand marketers are the third type of marketer who develops the market’s awareness of a company. After achieving product market fit, it’s a natural time to scale lead generation. Which should you hire first? Why is this?

Scale 215

Scale Startup Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 215

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 31, 2022

Want to write sales emails like a pro? Manager, Outbound Growth Marketing at Greenhouse) and Will Allred (Co-Founder & COO at Lavender) to get TWO perspectives and TWO approaches on real sales emails, every week on Sales Hacker. Take 1: Scale? Subject: Developer Hiring Plan. Join Kristina Finseth (Sr.

Sales Recruiting 77

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 77

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 23, 2023

P9 Panel on Hiring Sales Leaders — Founders Summit 2023 “You are going to fire your first sales manager!” — A lesson too many founders learn the hard way. The Founder isn’t willing to be the first salesperson Many of the best founders we work with don’t have a sales background and are either product or engineering focused.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

In 2008, he founded Yammer, an enterprise software company that David grew to 500 employees and $60 million in sales. Positions Needed: Developers (Front-End and Back-End), Client Applications, Core Services/Platform, Analytics, and DevOps. Head of Sales. Positions Needed: FP&A Analyst, Accountant, HR, Ops, Recruiter.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 252

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 7, 2021

In 2018, it became clear we needed to scale, and fast – our APAC customer base had increased more than 900%, and about 10 to 12% of the company’s revenue was already there. Few things are better for employee retention than career development. Liam: Sam Hoare leads our sales team in APAC. Offices come later.

Sales Recruiting 118

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Customer Support 118

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2021

Because at this scale, there will be room at the bottom. But then the leaders break through, achieve Scale, and the outlines become clear. And at a sales perspective, they’ll move to optimizing revenue per lead, over closing every possibly lead. Harder to Recruit. He said this competitor was cheaper. Not usually.

Scale 240

Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 240

InsightSquared

MAY 15, 2019

It’s one of my favorite questions to ask a fellow professional in sales operations. Insurance sales rep. Account Manager. Sales Operations is Still Developing. Sales operations as a profession is growing, yet it is a comparatively new function in businesses. Sales Ops is Many Disciplines in One.

Sales Recruiting 110

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review Sales 110

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2019

Scaling the company’s employee base, sales teams, marketing, and operations—all while preserving its culture—has required a laser focus on first principles, smart processes, and effective hiring. Here’s what Claire talks about: How to avoid trapdoor decisions when scaling. Lessons for scaling high-growth organizations.

Scale 117

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Sales Hiring 117

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Your sales team is integral to your business’s success: not only do your salespeople bring in the big deals, but they also represent your company and culture to every new and potential prospect. So why is sales team culture still an afterthought for so many organizations? People all across the company are so proud of our sales team.

Sales Hiring 143

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 143

Tom Tunguz

MAY 15, 2017

It’s another thing altogether to have the sales team staffed to close that amount of business. The bookings capacity of the business is the amount of business a sales team should book in a certain period. They build a pipeline, learn the sales motion, and close a few accounts in the first few months.

Sales Hiring 120

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 120

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Account Managers: They serve as the lead point of contact for all customer account management matters. Product Marketing Manager: This person is tasked with developing product marketing campaigns , crafting compelling marketing messages, and coming up with ideas to retain customers.

Sales Hiring 92

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 92

User Pilot

APRIL 19, 2024

Applying insights from market research to product development and marketing strategies can significantly enhance business growth. Sharper marketing messages, savvy product development strategies, and an intimate grasp of both prospective buyers and existing customers’ preferences and needs. Organizational scale. The outcome?

Market Research 52

Market Research Sales Recruiting Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 52

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 29, 2018

In this blueprint, we provide insights on how to structure your sales organization. The changes in SaaS require that we no longer look at salespeople as individual contributors, but rather a team that crosses disciplines, not just within sales but also across other parts of the organization such as marketing and product.

Sales Recruiting 74

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Sales 74