SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

2021 will be the year SaaS sales evolves the most since the Appexchange ecosystem started to take off ~15 years ago, which spawned the entire notion of a true sales app stack. The permanent move to distributed sales teams. Almost every SaaS VP of Sales and CRO I’ve talked to in the past few months isn’t going back.

Sales Recruiting 350

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review Sales 350

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 236

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 236

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 199

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 199

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 280

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 280

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

Ah the VP of Sales. The first post is What a Great VP of Sales Actually Does. The second post is a script for you to use (and modify as you see fit) – 10 Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales Candidate. Just so you know, there are 48 Different Types of VP Sales. The toughest hire. Such a high failure rate.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

As an engineer by training, in pressure situations he tends to “lean to the quant.” 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.

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

JUNE 23, 2020

Q: What’s the number one challenge for scale-up founders? In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. You’ll need more than 5–6 core engineers to go big.

Part-Time VPE 235

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 235

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 231

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 231

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

However, continuing this way isn’t the path to huge scale. To recruit 100 people. 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. Eventually the team hews the right product. To have built a brand.

Scale 228

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Startup 228

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 217

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 217

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2021

In the past, we’ve touched on several different ideas to help you scale, to do Even Better: Imagine capital doesn’t matter. A new edition, new services, an outbound sales team, an account management / upsell team. And also — to understand where you can’t let it all go. Add a layer.

Part-Time VPE 273

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 273

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2021

The other day, I met with a great founder who talked with me about how he was about to top his VP of Sales. in ARR in pretty short order, recruiting a great small team of reps under her, and had really nailed the formula. Our top Director of Engineering was just an A+ from Day 1. This VP had gotten him from $0 to $1.5m

Sales Hiring 292

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale SMB 292

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 268

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 268

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

Still, an overall deep-dive on lessons learned the second and third time around: Not Easier : Recruiting – Not Easier. You might think after (goodness) the best part of 20 years of working in tech, 18 as an executive or CEO, and 13 as a founder … I’d be pretty good at recruiting at this point. I’m not.

Sales Recruiting 325

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 325

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2022

Or drives the engineering team to ship more features per quarter. A great VP of Customer Success in just a quarter or so decreases churn and increases account revenue growth. It’s hard enough just to maintain KPIs and metrics as you scale. Sales growth slowly declines as she struggles to bring in enough reps. And quickly.

Sales Recruiting 192

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Churn 192

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

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 355

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Engineering 355

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2021

Some investors bet on the best engineering teams. If I wouldn’t work for you … then I can’t help you recruit folks that will. You’re in sales. Recruit the VPs? CEO Doesn’t like Sales — and The Hunt. Apologies for the title of this post, and perhaps the post entirely.

Sales Recruiting 336

Sales Recruiting Scale AWS Investment 336

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

But now they are back to picking the types of risk they like to take: Lack of A+ Engineering Team Risk. In SaaS, VCs seem to split two ways on the engineering team. They see it as a key differentiator to win as you scale. You never have a perfect management team until you are at $10m+ ARR, at the earliest, in 98/100 cases.

Scale 339

Scale Sales Recruiting Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 339

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 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2019

If you must choose a long term headquarters for your startup, call an executive recruiter who focuses in that city. VP Engineering, VP Product, VP Sales, VP Customer Success, VP Marketing, or VP Operations. After establishing product market fit, the startups grow their management team to scale.

Sales Recruiting 215

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 215

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 4, 2022

One of the joys of an engineering career is how varied it can be – the size, industry and above all culture of any company entirely determines what an engineering job actually looks like on a day to day basis. I’ve been a Product Engineer at Intercom for just over two years. Joining Intercom.

Engineering 118

Engineering Scale Sales Hiring Company Culture 118

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2020

So to keep the engine going, the leaders have to be asking themselves if they can leverage the SaaS / application layer to win overall in Cloud. For example, Google put a lot of work into Google Hire, its recruiting SaaS product. If you buy Salesforce, you get several benefits: Scale. But then shut it down. Maybe not today.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Cloud 246

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

On top of that, founders are full of excuses preventing them from scaling. 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. The best VPs of Sales hit the ground running. It never works, folks!

Part-Time VPE 185

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 185

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 273

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Recruiting 273

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.” Hacking just does not scale.

Part-Time VPE 302

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 302

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 128

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 128

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2022

For 2 days, more than 50+ sessions and 75 expert speakers will be sharing their best practices in Barcelona on scaling, revenue, recruiting, expansion and so much more. The Secrets to Hiring Top Engineers with Jean-Baptiste Coger, Co-Founder, and COO at Plato , and Jenilee Deal, VP of Talent at Netflix.

Sales Recruiting 215

Sales Recruiting Cloud Sales Hiring Scale 215

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2021

“Lessons in Scaling a Low Code Platform with Airtable’s CEO Howie Liu” How did Airtable remake a cateogy? 5. “How to Build a Unicorn in 8 Simple Charts with SafeGraph” Just a great session on how to scale faster and easier with Safegraph CEO Auren Hoffman. #6. Learn from CEO Howie Liu here! #3.

Sales Recruiting 143

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Scaling 143

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 163

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 163

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. Of Engineering.

Sales Hiring 358

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 358

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. Manual processes first. Names stick.

Scale 152

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Scaling 152

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 249

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 249

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

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

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 178

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 178