SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2025

You need to learn to become a parallel recruiter. To constantly, painfully, boring-ly be recruiting the next level of management and managers all the time. By $2m in ARR, you need a VP of Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Product and Engineering (if you can afford them all). You need them all. "We

Scale 156

Scale Sales Recruiting B2B Sales Hiring 156

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

Enough to invest, but not enough to go crazy with. More on that here and a great video discussion below: You’ll probably be ready for your first VP of Sales by $1m in ARR. You’ll need a VP of Engineering by $8m-$10m ARR. 90% of CTOs and founders struggle to hire engineers 10-100. ARR VPS: $1-$1.5m

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

From $1m in ARR, and Then Forever After: Recruiting Great VPs. You need to learn to become great at recruiting. Why do I need 50 engineers to do what 3 engineers use to do? Why is my sales team less efficient at $20m ARR than at $2m in ARR? This challenge never ends. It never ends. And tenacious at it.

Sales Recruiting 284

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 284

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

The most successful entrepreneurs I’ve invested in (6+ unicorns, 3 billion+ exits) are very different in many ways. Some engineers by training, others in sales or product originally. But a few uniting characteristics of the very best: Relentless Recruiters. You have to be constantly recruiting the best. No Excuses.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling Engineering 246

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. Great at engineering. If you hire someone to do the first sales, you’ll never understand it yourself. When you go to hire your first sales rep, hire 2. 50% of the job for a VP is recruiting. A bit more here.

Sales Hiring 313

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 313

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2020

There’s a common thinking that sales teams should be relatively high churn. That the bottom 15-20% of the sales team almost has to churn each year, because it’s survival of the fittest. At Salesforce, at Box, the bottom end of the sales team churns out each year. First, do sales reps really compete with each other?

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 293

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2020

When I catch up with founders on the march from $1m to $10m in ARR, the number one topic has always shifted to recruiting. Where do i find a great VP of Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Product, Customer Success, etc.? Some times, it seems like simply building a management team is all you have time for. This is true.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Management Engineering Customer Success 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

I probably will pass on investing in you if I don’t know you want money. We recently did a New New in Venture event and I asked the question of many top VCs including David Sacks, Keith Rabois, Aileen Lee and more. “Give the VP of Sales More Time” This is always terrible advice. In one sales cycle, or less.

Part-Time VPE 348

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 348

SaaStr

JULY 4, 2019

Matt Schatz is SVP of Sales at WPEngine, responsible for defining and executing the global sales strategy. Matt has nearly two decades of senior leadership experience in sales and customer growth, specifically for technology companies with customers around the world including Bazaarvoice, CityVoice and Rackspace. It is hard.

Sales Hiring 209

Sales Hiring Scale Engineering Sales Recruiting 209

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

I’ve had the privilege to invest one way or another in about 35 SaaS companies, both as a VC and as angel. They understand why they got “No”s in the early, pre-traction days, and even, in the early-ish days when they had a handful of customers but wasn’t really taking off yet (my favorite time to invest).

Scale 343

Scale Sales Recruiting Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 343

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

DECEMBER 28, 2019

Enough with the excuses for not having hired your real VP of Sales, or that VP of Engineering, or whatever. Hire a real recruiter. Hire more sales reps in the areas where they are profitable. Hire more engineers that can build features that help you close six figure deals. Not in April. Not by June. Get it Done.

Part-Time VPE 325

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 325

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Think about it — who else is so invested in your long-term success? If they’ve bought 7%, 10%, 20% of your company (with no exit on the horizon) … they’re pretty invested personally. They have a good incentive to recruit almost as hard as you do, and network a lot to help you. Your VCs are. More Money.

Sales Hiring 288

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Investment Acquisition 288

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 17, 2024

As the co-founder and CEO of Intellimize (acquired by Webflow), Guy brings a unique perspective from his journey through iconic companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Twitter, as well as his background in aerospace engineering. It includes a breakdown of the Sales AI landscape, adoption of GenAI and Sales software across buyer groups.

Scale 97

Scale Engineering Acquisition Scaling 97

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

David Sacks: SaaS Background and Investments. In 2008, he founded Yammer, an enterprise software company that David grew to 500 employees and $60 million in sales. David Sacks has invested in over 20 unicorn companies, including Airbnb, Bird, ClickUp, Facebook, Slack, and Uber. Head of Sales. VP Sales (45 Employees).

CTO Hire 284

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 284

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2021

In fact, many founders and CEOs struggle with simply talking to their engineers and communicating their needs. The mysterious nature of engineers is also their superpower as they build products that make the seemingly impossible possible. He knows both sides of the executive & engineering equation intimately.

Sales Recruiting 231

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 231

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2023

Recruit diverse leaders The goal of hiring a revenue leader is to put gasoline on finding product market fit success. For a team of dozen people, mostly concentrated on product and engineering, they all had their hands full with customer calls. CROs should focus on capturing that unrealized demand which is not a sales-led effort.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 261

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

I really appreciate you coming to talk about how to attract, hire, and build a more diverse sales team in your organization. So I’ve been building top-producing sales teams for a really, really long time. So over the years, I’ve watched many sales leaders go out and say, “Brian’s my top producer.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 261

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. 20 VCs do come to me to invest in the company now. Jyoti Bansal: Let’s switch topics to sales.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 261

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

The team is typically highly cross-functional, working together with sales, product, engineering, and marketing, and the goal is to help the other teams make better decisions through data and financial modeling. This role can be recruited through headhunters or your network. Invest in next-gen finance tooling.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

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. Their first step to achieving this was hiring a sales leader to build a sales team. Outbound: including Account Based Marketing (ABM).

Scale 245

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 245

Incredo

MARCH 11, 2020

Even industries that found it too informal or unprofessional to use a couple of years ago, are now heavily investing in it. It can also be used to communicate very effectively on an individual level. There are many tools available that make social media management very simple and easy. Its benefits aren’t felt right away.

Strategy 257

Strategy Social Media Sales Recruiting Marketing 257

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2021

I want to come be your VP of sales and, you’re going to meet me for the first time. Spencer : For me, the key things for a VP of sales is, “OK, tell me about your best reps. It’s not can they be the best engineer or the best salesperson. You hire a search firm. How do you hire?” We got to up level.

VP of Engineering 293

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 293

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

So the other day I looked back at about 25 SaaS seed investments I’d made that had scaled well past $10m-$20m and reflected on the top themes. They are all avoidable : #1: Stepping Out of Sales Ok really this is mistake #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5. Instead, how they spend time in sales changes. And so sales goes down.

Sales Hiring 312

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling 312

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2019

Keith Rabois is an investment partner at Khosla Ventures where he focuses on consumer Internet, education, enterprise, financial services, and digital health investments. Or it can be an engineering co-founder or hardware co-founder or a business co-founder even. I probably invested in 80 or so, maybe 85 companies.

Merchant Services 274

Merchant Services Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 274

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

For example, sending a kickoff gift tailored to a customer’s recent experiences or interests shows you’re paying attention and invested in their journey. 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.

Scale 108

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 108

The Angel VC

APRIL 1, 2017

At the excellent SaaStr Annual 2016 conference about a year ago, a very experienced SaaS CEO said on stage that an internal recruiter can be a startup CEO’s secret superpower. Being willing to invest in an internal recruiter or talent manager (or more broadly, an HR person) early on requires pretty big balls a lot of confidence.

Sales Hiring 168

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Software Review 168

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2022

We took the series A, interesting enough, the first executive hired by, thanks to the sales coaching, actually was marketing. Luciana: I had been telling people that the inflection point came when Accel invested, but I guess it was market and product and all that good stuff. We do have a network of recruiters. Luciana: Right.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 274

How To Buy Saas

MAY 21, 2025

Whether youre a startup , an SMB , or a global enterprise , the right ATS can streamline your recruitment process, save time, and help attract top talent in a competitive market. Recruitee Best Collaborative Recruiting ATS Pricing: Key Features: Ideal Use Case: 4. Whats the difference between an ATS and a recruitment CRM?

Systems Review 52

Systems Review Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review 52

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2024

1: How Sales and Marketing Have Shifted Since 2020 Expectations and the types of people working in SaaS have shifted over the past few years, and much more in sales, marketing, and customer success. . #1: A senior engineer posted on LinkedIn that they worked at Spotify for four years and quit on the spot. I’m out of here.”

Sales Hiring 302

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Scale 302

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2019

Come and hear about the typical pitfalls (and how to avoid them) from Pat Poels, an executive with over seven years under his belt leading Eventbrite’s now 300+ strong engineering team that sits across North America, South America, and Europe. I started right at the end of 2011, and I started in the role of VP of engineering.

Engineering 184

Engineering Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 184

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Co-founder and CEO at Greenhouse, Daniel Chait, sits down with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin to share what’s new at Greenhouse, a successful recruiting software company at $200M in ARR today. The swing nature is true for where to invest marketing dollars, so founders need to be thoughtful when running a portfolio of bets.

Sales Hiring 281

Sales Hiring AI SMB Scale 281

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2019

Keith Rabois is a General Partner at Founders Fund where he focuses on consumer Internet, education, enterprise, financial services, and digital health investments. Or it can be an engineering co-founder or hardware co-founder or a business co-founder even. Because you’ve done a lot of angel investments in your time as well.

Merchant Services 213

Merchant Services Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 213

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” You can’t always expect a great VP of Sales to double sales in 30-60-90 days. But you have to see progress in one sales cycle. If, in one sales cycle, things aren’t improving on several core metrics, they never will. The best VPs of Sales hit the ground running.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2020

What Nobody Tells You About Seed Investing with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Cowboy Ventures Founder and Partner Aileen Lee. I think it gives us a perspective that maybe we don’t get in some other places, in addition to many great investments over the years. You have two partners and one or two other investing?

Investment 199

Investment Technical Review Part-Time VPE Development Team Review 199

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

I started a software company in college to make it easy to update websites called Content Management Software Now, and I had this idea for Pardot, I wanted to make it easy for marketers to run campaigns online and measure their results. SalesLoft, why was that Pardot, I tried to recruit this guy, Kyle Porter, to come run sales at Pardot.

Sales Recruiting 192

Sales Recruiting Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring 192

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 13, 2014

Nor the management class on having difficult conversations with colleagues, among countless others. Returning to Google reminded me that great companies constantly invest in their people, helping them to understand the world inside the company and outside the company. The loyalty engendered is hard to overstate.

Investment 100

Investment Startup Sales Recruiting Scale 100