SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

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. Great Companies Attract Great Talent Blond and Braverman have enjoyed successful careers as sales leaders in high-performing companies.

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 244

Tom Tunguz

JULY 25, 2020

In interviewing great CMOs , the product marketing leader is the first marketer most startups should recruit, and often the first key mishire. Product marketing is the vital work of developing a customer lifecycle journey, pricing, sales support materials, analyst relations, and press. This makes sense.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 246

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

Justin Welsh, former SVP of Sales at PatientPop explains how he started in SaaS in 2009 as the second sales hire at Zocdoc. Justin used Sales Culture to grow a successful PatientPop team to 140 employees and 55 million in revenue. Justin Welsh | SVP Sales @ PatientPop. I was a local sales manager or regional manager.

Sales Recruiting 332

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 332

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. Let’s look at five tips to consider for successful recruiting.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 273

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. To stick with founder-led sales longer than most folks do, i.e. past $1.5m-$2m ARR or so.

Sales Hiring 326

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 326

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2022

Having learned from thousands of customers and prospects, Sarah Lash, Envoy’s head of enterprise sales, will talk about what it takes to guide and scale enterprise sales programs during an uncertain future. In my first six months at Envoy , I grew the sales team from six to 17. Combine Strategies To Drive Sales.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 246

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? Do the diligence here to make sure she’s really been able to recruit at least a few successful reps. This is a tough skill to develop. More here: [link].

Sales Recruiting 284

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Development Team Review 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Finding and recruiting top talent is consistently ranked as one of the biggest challenges for growing SaaS companies. SaaStr Annual attracts thousands of high-quality SaaS professionals across functions like engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success. Meet and Find Your Next VP / CXO!

Sales Recruiting 193

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 193

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

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

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. Do the diligence here to make sure she’s really been able to recruit at least a few successful reps. This is a tough skill to develop. Has she built at least a small team before?

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Development Team Review 274

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 184

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 184

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 291

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 291

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 16, 2025

While competitors invested in huge sales teams, Atlassian actually restricted direct customer interaction. Instead of treating feature requests as a liability, they used them as market research for third-party developers. Each rejected feature request became a potential business opportunity for partners.

Sales Recruiting 207

Sales Recruiting Marketplace as a Service Underperforming Technical Team Scale 207

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 238

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 238

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 Revenue 299

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

In this post, we’re featuring our Recruiting Manager, Elizabeth Faddis! Priority projects are focused on enhancing the company’s recruiting strategy, processes, and programs to deliver on current and future talent needs. You recently started your Recruiting Manager role at FastSpring, how are you liking it so far?

Sales Recruiting 129

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Management Technical Review 129

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2023

They hired their first VP of Sales with a wonderful pedigree and experience at some of the hottest startups. After three months, this talented guy came to Harbaugh with the recognition that LaunchDarkly’s customers were developers. He didn’t like to sell to developers, so he quit. because they needed to rebuild the sales team.

Sales Recruiting 293

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 293

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 21, 2020

The founders have built three companies in the domain, sold their last one to Salesforce, and developed Kustomer with all the knowledge and insights from those experiences. The founders developed chaos engineering and resiliency testing at Netflix and Amazon, which increased those services’ uptime from three nines to four nines.

Sales Recruiting 347

Sales Recruiting Banking Engineering Customer Support 347

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. Lead generation tools do change, but the basic motions of sales and marketing haven’t changed much.

Scale 284

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 284

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 275

Sales Recruiting Scale Software Delivery Travel 275

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 259

Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 259

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 195

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 195

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. To get to $5m-$10m ARR and beyond, we’ll need a real VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

In this episode of Growth Stage, we interview Lizzie Mintus Founder and CEO of Here’s Waldo Recruiting and host of The Heres Waldo Podcast about her thoughts on: The most effective recruiting strategies for SMBs. So during the intro, I kind of talked about how you run here’s Waldo recruiting.

SMB 108

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 108

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. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to recruit a lot of types of folks over the years where my domain knowledge was limited. I’ve had to recruit Ph.Ds. Architects.

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 257

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. The Benefits of Hiring a Stretch VP of Sales (and The Risks). as you race past $10m+ in ARR.

Sales Hiring 302

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS 302

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2021

Often folks they convince to once again be a VP of Eng or VP of Sales. The sales leader that did well, but their startup still didn’t quite make it. The best ones find a way to recruit strong Directors and others under them with more experience than them. Even though they already did that before.

Part-Time VPE 282

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 282

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 172

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 172

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. Recruiting is easier, but the things that don’t change are customers don’t care.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 261

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2022

Imagine a coverage model, from end to end, for the full customer life cycle: from demand generation to sales to post-sales. In addition to marketing, do you also need business development representatives (BDR)? Sales Cycle. This includes everything from inside sales to account executives to strategic asset allocation.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 273

Tom Tunguz

MAY 28, 2019

They are are among the best engineers to recruit to the team and the first to join. Sometimes, management spins up new offices to start a functional team like support or success or sales development. This is different from starting a sales office with an AE covering a region.)

Sales Recruiting 278

Sales Recruiting Startup Sales Hiring Engineering 278

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 11, 2020

Recently, we welcomed Hollie Wegman to SaaS Office Hours to talk about marketing to developers. A recruiter in the audience submitted a question often discussed in startup boardrooms. I have this concept that I talk about called “The Developer Duplex.”. It was our first virtual event, and we had hundreds of people attend.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Startup 263

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 284

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 284

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Hiring a VP of Sales isn’t new, but the conversations have evolved as the world has. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive.

Sales Hiring 157

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 157

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

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. He currently leads Atrium, makers of sales performance management software to help organizations measure and improve sales performance.

Scale 110

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 110

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

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. To have built a brand. To have raised capital. They must expand their time horizon.

Scale 257

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Startup 257