Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

Whether you manage a team of engineers, a team of regional sales managers, or the company, your first responsibility is to hire and successfully manage the seven people who will form your leadership team. First, as a company grows, the most important thing is recruiting.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Management Leadership 263

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 159

Scale Sales Recruiting B2B Sales Hiring 159

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2021

Someone has to be the #1 engineer. But one of you has to lead on Customers/Sales/Marketing and the other likely on Product/Engineering for it really to work. Better recruiter than you. Better recruiter than you. If your co-founder is a better recruiter than you, this is an immediate upgrade.

Sales Recruiting 278

Sales Recruiting Engineering Product Marketing Marketing 278

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. At least a little bit.

Scale 285

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 285

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

This happens with some regularity in SaaS, I’ve learned (and to be clear: I’m not talking about any company I’ve invested in, am an advisor to, board member of, etc – Because when it’s still a very small team, with no true management team … co-founders can kind of hack it to $1m-$2m in ARR together.

Sales Recruiting 269

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 269

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. How to manage customer success. About recruiting and helping you scale. When to hire her (more here ).

Sales Hiring 357

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Engineering 357

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

A head of sales that doesn’t recruit at least one strong rep in the first 90 days. A head of product that doesn’t take over the roadmap, and redirect the engineering team to do something better, faster and bigger. But the top VPs of Sales know you have to get it going soon. Never will. Never will.

Sales Recruiting 348

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring SMB Engineering 348

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 98

Scale Engineering Acquisition Scaling 98

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

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. We’ve talked about this a lot on SaaStr, but hiring a true VP of Sales before you have 2 reps hitting quota (and thus a repeatable, if not yet fully repeating process) is too early. Plan for it.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

I thought it would be worth drilling down deeper into each of them, and sharing the learnings and mistakes: 1/ Spending less time fixing things, more time recruiting senior folks to own them. No one spends enough time recruiting as it is, after $1m ARR or so. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. You can do this.

Part-Time VPE 286

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 286

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

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. The best founders usually spend at least 20% of their time recruiting. Some extroverts, some introverts. No Excuses.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling Engineering 246

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 278

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 278

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2022

The role of a VP is to own everything required to hit the goals for a functional area – Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Finance, or Customer Success. This includes: Recruiting the team. While the answer may sound obvious, I’m not sure it always is in early-ish stage start-ups. This can be hard.

Sales Recruiting 286

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Finance Engineering 286

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.

Sales Hiring 214

Sales Hiring Scale Engineering Sales Recruiting 214

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

You need engineering, product in all start-ups — but in SaaS, even in the very early days, you also need sales, client success, true support, demand gen marketing, etc. Routine Sales. You gotta hire 2 great sales reps as soon as you can. This didn’t work well until I had a Great VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 286

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 286

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

“Give the VP of Sales More Time” This is always terrible advice. If a VP of Sales can’t improve things in one sales cycle or less — she never will. In one sales cycle, or less. “The Leads are There, the Problem is the Sales Team.” And you are better off without her.

Part-Time VPE 347

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 347

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

Your best sales reps can close so much more than your average rep. Move the bottom 10% out and give the best leads to your top performer, and watch sales go up 20%. The best VPs of Sales design comp plans so the team never wants to leave. You should be striving for zero voluntary attrition on your sales team.

Sales Recruiting 275

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 275

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.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Management Engineering Customer Success 363

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

So an amazing founder CEO often can also be the VP of Sales, VP of Product, hack Marketing, fly across the globe as the VP of Customer Success, and sometimes, even continue to write some code. Engineering. A great VP of Engineering that can just ship the product from spec with no drama, etc. That’s great.

Part-Time VPE 312

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Finance 312

SaaStr

AUGUST 23, 2022

My general learnings: By 20-30 employees, you should have 1-2 good managers in place such that at least 50% of the company can run based only on weekly staff meetings, 1-on-1s, and “grab me when you need me-s” E.g., a great first VP of Sales that can just handle sales. management team by 50 employees or so.

Part-Time VPE 261

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 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. Recruiting is easier, but the things that don’t change are customers don’t care.

Sales Recruiting 258

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 258

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

Examples include: Thought Leadership : Actively source and share opportunities for customers to showcase their expertise. 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 109

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 109

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 234

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 234

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. Self-service.

Scale 245

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 245

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

They are all avoidable : #1: Stepping Out of Sales Ok really this is mistake #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5. I see way too many founders, in the transition from founder-led sales to their first (or second) VP of Sales, look to get that time back. Instead, how they spend time in sales changes. And so sales goes down.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling 306

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 258

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 258

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

379: From how many reps to hire, to compensation models, here are the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales teams and how to avoid them. Announcer: In today’s SaaStr Insider, SaaStr CEO and founder, Jason Lemkin, shared the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales team.

Sales Hiring 240

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 240

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

In 2008, he founded Yammer, an enterprise software company that David grew to 500 employees and $60 million in sales. Head of Sales. Positions Needed: Enterprise AEs, Mid-Market & SMB AEs, SDRs, Sales Ops, Sales Engineer. Positions Needed: Demand Gen, Product Marketing, Sales Enablement, Events/Community.

CTO Hire 278

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 278

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

A Rockstar engineer really is 10x better than the next tier. If you don’t think you need a great VP of Sales, Product, Marketing, Customer Success, and Engineering — then all that all that means is you’ve never worked with a great one. He or she doesn’t have to jump start the engine.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Recruiting 278

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 286

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 286

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Back then, remote first was a recruiting advantage. The way the co-founders looked at the stages in the early days of no funding and a community-focus were: Step 1 – No sales or customers, only building freely available open-source software. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team. Today, not so much.

Scale 284

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 284

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.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

Sales Hacker

MAY 6, 2021

What’s the difference between a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)? The VP of Sales. Great VPs of sales have gravitas and tact, command the room and hold their end of the table regardless of who is on the other side. Singular focus on sales. As the title would hint at, the VP of Sales should focus on sales.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 118

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

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

You’ll never have to explain the importance of your discipline, nor explain what it is you do, to anyone in the leadership team. Leadership doesn’t understand what it is you do. Process overly favors either Engineering or Design to the detriment of the other. Leadership don’t talk about the mission. At Intercom.

Sales Recruiting 188

Sales Recruiting Technical Review Leadership Systems Review 188

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2019

Or it can be an engineering co-founder or hardware co-founder or a business co-founder even. So if you’re an engineer and you need more engineers, having a network of engineers is an awesome thing. So from those 30,000 investments that I’m more interested in, let’s reverse-engineer a unicorn.

Merchant Services 274

Merchant Services Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 274

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 20, 2024

As Upland’s Chief Revenue Officer, Matt Breslin oversees customer success, demand generation and communications, sales, revenue enablement, and revenue analysis, supporting our Shared Services Organization. Prior to that, he held senior leadership positions at SAP and Oracle, driving incredible results across the board.

Sales Recruiting 118

Sales Recruiting Software Review Software Sales 118