SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What happens to employees after your startup gets acquired? But as a rule: Top engineers will all be given retention packages, extra money / RSUs / options designed to keep them for 2-4 years. All engineers and product people will want to be kept. It varies — a lot. Do what you can to make sure it is.

Startup 210

Startup Sales Hiring Finance Acquisition 210

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What is The Biggest Difference Between Running a 10 Person Startup and a 100 Person Startup? You won’t be able to scale this far without a full management team — VPs of Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Customer Success at least. But the toughest personal challenge for many CEOs is letting go. (VP

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Startup Scale Scaling 265

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Why Do VC Backed Startups Seem To Almost Always Be Running Out of Money? An engineer that can’t ship a core feature or upgrade on time-ish = cash drain. The best engineers are so cheap. The #1 issue I see is not understanding what investments really are accretive — and which aren’t. The rest? So expensive.

Sales Hiring 186

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Venture Capital 186

Tom Tunguz

MAY 16, 2023

What percent of headcount is in product & engineering? R&D, which includes engineering, IT, & product management, dominates early companies’ headcount as they build product. Startups operate with a broader variance with commercial teams : Canva & Databricks should paint the ends of the spectrum.

Headcount 301

Headcount Startup Scale Engineering 301

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 19, 2024

The confluence of new biological methods like CRISPR, virtually unlimited computational capacity, and machine learning has fundamentally transformed our ability to engineer biology for wide-ranging applications.”

Software Engineering 75

Software Engineering Engineering Software Healthcare 75

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Is A Good Demo Conversion Rate for a SaaS Startup? If you have a good engine running, you’ll want 20% or more of demos converting. A related post here: 7 Simple Ideas to Immediately Improve Your Conversion Rates in SaaS The post Dear SaaStr: What Is A Good Demo Conversion Rate for a SaaS Startup?

Scale 222

Scale Startup Sales Hiring SaaS 222

Tom Tunguz

MAY 1, 2023

When a startup is born, founders lead sales. Design partners, pilots, or founder-led sales - they have many names - these customers work with a startup to solve a problem. Said another way, founder-led sales are sales engineering sales, not account executive sales.

Scale 203

Scale Engineering Outsourced Development Sales 203

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2024

It’s sort of a death spiral: High churn, but no burn = struggle, but the engine self-perpetuates to an extent. They weren’t a 3H startup. The burn was at a stunning $2m a month, and the churn had spiked. True NRR had probably fallen to 80% or so. Look, this is tough. Those two are tough but founders find a way.

Churn 218

Churn Startup SaaS Payments Venture Capital 218

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Biggest Problems You Face as a Startup Founder? Later, once you have a brand, you’ll be competing with Hot Startups nipping at your heals for top VPs. Why do I need 50 engineers to do what 3 engineers use to do? From $1m in ARR, and Then Forever After: Recruiting Great VPs. It never ends.

Sales Recruiting 245

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 245

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 18, 2022

When you reach senior level on an engineering track, you’re expected to be optimal in your hard skill set. Despite not having a formal education in engineering, Sarah landed a job as a developer in the French consultant Grand Manitou. Then, four years ago, in 2018, she got a job at Algolia as a software engineer.

Engineering 204

Engineering Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review 204

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

Q: Dear SaaStr: Why Are So Many SaaS CEOs Former Engineers? I’ve come to almost exclusively invest in founder-CEOs that are or were engineers. You need to recruit a great engineering team. You don’t need to be an engineer to do this, but most “salespeople” CEOs can’t pull this off. I’ve found that works equally well.

Outsourcing Services 179

Outsourcing Services Engineering CTO SaaS 179

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 17, 2021

From time to time, I chart the fastest growing categories of startup investment in the US for seed through Series C. I analyzed Crunchbase data and looked for the startup categories that grew fastest in terms of funding rounds year-over-year, provided there were at least 10 rounds in that category.

Startup 362

Startup Software Engineering Finance Engineering 362

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

At this year’s SaaStr Annual, Mark Roberge, co-founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital, takes the stage to have a bake-off between startups and incumbents when it comes to who will win the AI Go-to-Market race. So, consider what the innovator’s dilemma is today as you rethink your startup in an AI-first world in a hyper cycle.

AI 246

AI Technical Review Startup Management 246

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 21, 2023

Each helped, but one “secret” weapon accelerated revenue and customers at an outsized rate: our highly technical Solutions Engineering team. I partnered with Basia Sudol , who joined Stytch as its first Solutions Engineer and now leads the SE team at Stytch.

Engineering 97

Engineering Technical Review Scale Software Review 97

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

OCTOBER 16, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What Percentage of Startups That Are Acquired Remain Successful? They have massive resources, after all, and tons of smart engineers. The post Dear SaaStr: What Percentage of Startups That Are Acquired Remain Successful? If it’s truly critical to the CEO or a top SVP. So we grew impressively.

Startup 251

Startup Acquisition Cloud Engineering 251

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2022

Can you imagine a site reliability engineer managing 15 to 20 tokens, coordinating with finance teams to ensure proper treasury management, while ensuring high uptime? Third, software engineers decentralize only a subset of the app. It’s too much complexity for a simple static blog.

Payment Solutions 268

Payment Solutions GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup Payment Features 268

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Is It Normal to Feel Like a Pest When Prospecting for Customers for a Startup? Yes, once you have a brand, and inbound leads, the engine gets more established. The post Dear SaaStr: Is It Normal to Feel Like a Pest When Prospecting for Customers for a Startup? Yes — at least at first. Boy sales is hard.

Startup 244

Startup Engineering Branding Sales 244

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 12, 2021

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is a curious book. Richard Hamming, the author, was a professor of science and engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School and researcher at Bell Labs. He knew quite a bit about science and engineering. Startups are nothing if not chasers of exponential growth.

Engineering 191

Engineering Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Consulting 191

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

… 10 Rules to Being a VP of Sales in a Startup. It isn’t going to work in a startup. I went to a startup once where the prior VP of Sales had 13 opportunity stages with an average deal size of 6K. In a startup, million dollar deals are few and far between. Sales is important but the engineers are just as important.

Sales Hiring 286

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 286

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

They absolutely have 10, 20, 40 extra, pretty darn good engineers to allocate to a new project, product or initiative. Even if a group at a BigCo has 500 engineers, that may be all they get for now. So they have to pick where to put those 20, 40, 100 “extra” engineers. That can build whatever you are building.

Startup 225

Startup Engineering Innovation Trends 225

SaaStr

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Happens if One Founder Wants to Quit When the Startup Has Just Raised VC Funding? Return the capital (or I guess, try to engineer an acqui-hire). see ya later image from here ) The post Dear SaaStr: What Happens if One Founder Wants to Quit When the Startup Has Just Raised VC Funding? Basically, you have 2.5

Startup 223

Startup Banking Leadership Engineering 223

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 6, 2023

There are 4 questions a startup should ask themselves about building a startup that uses generative AI. There are 4 questions startups should ask themselves about building with generative AI. Startups have negative time to launch in many markets with Adobe, Microsoft, & Salesforce launching Gen AI enabled software in weeks.

Generative AI 228

Generative AI AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup 228

SaaStr

JULY 26, 2021

Q: Dear SaaStr: Should a Startup Founder Handle Sales Themself When First Getting Started? The “best” sequence for building a repeatable sales engine is roughly: The CEO/founder should close at least the first 10 (or 20 or whatever) customers. It’s to scale a tiny engine into something bigger. That way, she knows.

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Scale Startup AWS 265

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

This showcases a narrow segment of a niche market, and it’s missing a lot of startups. Any startup in any reasonable category likely has dozens of competitors, and Altman believes the best strategy to compete in 2023 and beyond is multi-product. Startups are no longer fringe. How can a startup compete with a big company?

Scale 221

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 221

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2022

The 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds with Michael Seibel, CEO of Y Combinator. From Burn-Out to $100M in ARR with Jason Cohen, Founder of WP Engine. The post Top SaaStr Content for the Week: Podium EVP of Sales, Hubspot VP of Products, GP of Iconiq, WP Engine Founder, and More! appeared first on SaaStr.

Scale 220

Scale Engineering Payment Features Sales 220

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2022

Dear SaaStr: Is it Bad to Leave a Failing Startup? If you’re a critical resource and leave a struggling startup — would that increase the odds it fails? The beauty to startups is its OK if they fail and it won’t hurt your resume, not usually. How much runway does the startup have? It can be a tough situation.

Startup 192

Startup Engineering Data 192

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2020

4: “The 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds with Michael Seibel, CEO of Y Combinator” This session from SaaStr Annual 2020 was so good, the office shut down and just watched it. #5: 6: “The Cadence: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup into an Army” with Craft Ventures General Partner David Sacks. . #5:

Engineering 244

Engineering CTO Leadership Churn 244

SaaStr

AUGUST 3, 2022

Dear SaaStr: When Is the Best Time for a Co-Founder to Leave a Startup? What isn’t clear often is whether an abrupt change, a gradual change, or something in the middle is the best: Sometimes, engineering or other expertise is critical to keep on for a while. This also generally is the right way to go if your startup is acquired.

Startup 247

Startup Acquisition Engineering Company Culture 247

SaaStr

MAY 13, 2022

Tracy Kraft, VP of Global Revenue Marketing at Demandbase, breaks down her strategy for building successful revenue marketing engines for large multinational companies and small startups. ” Sample team structure: Mid-size, fast-growing startup at $50M+ ARR. What is revenue marketing? Marketing is not a cost center.

Revenue 214

Revenue Scale Engineering Marketing 214

Tom Tunguz

JULY 8, 2019

When I shared the Redpoint SaaS Metrics Template, I wrote about the difficulty I had identifying key engineering metrics. I was grateful for all the responses from leaders at many startups to share their expertise. I think these three metrics provide a sense of engineering efforts for boards and executives to discuss.

Metrics 193

Metrics Engineering SaaS Startup 193

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

Dear SaaStr: When should a bootstrapped startup hire a (CFO, COO, CMO)? But after that, you’ve built an engine. The post Dear SaaStr: When should a bootstrapped startup hire a (CFO, COO, CMO)? How can a CEO hire those C-level positions for the first time as a CEO and entrepreneur? What skills should he or she look for?

Sales Hiring 197

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Startup 197

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 18, 2018

Startups are business machines engineered to grow quickly. Every lead hired today, whether marketing , sales, engineering or product, will have a very different job nine months from now, much less two years from now. Imagine you work at a startup that is growing headcount 125% year over year. And ship code on time.

Sales Recruiting 270

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Headcount 270

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Dear SaaStr: The Startup I’m Working At is Getting Acquired. all engineers). The post Dear SaaStr: The Startup I’m Working At is Getting Acquired. How Much Can I Negotiate? Unfortunately, as a non-CEO, non-founder of an acquired start-up … you have almost no ability to really negotiate. Need to keep as a group.

Startup 214

Startup Sales Hiring Compensation Finance 214

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 21, 2022

In addition, Lee shared his view on usage-based pricing and defending a startup’s great asset, talent, from poaching during the next recovery. During the Office Hours, we talked about startups repricing their equity with new 409a valuations. Startups must prepare for the inevitable economic rebound. Usage-Based Pricing.

Startup 196

Startup Outsourced Development Sales Hiring Compensation 196

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

” Unstructured data is the growth engine : 17x growth y/y suggests a small number last year, but phenomenal interest. ” For startups operating within data, which tops buyers’ lists , this news further signals a stronger market in 2024. “I don’t even hear the words AI and budget in the same sentence.”

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 169

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure Data Startup 169

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

There are a lot of subtle pros and cons and issues, but for most Big Tech Companies, the pro to buying a startup is time and scale: Being able to enter a space or category quicker. Paying $50m, $100m or even $2000m for a start-up is a lot more that the engineers you’d pay to build a clone.

Technical Review 159

Technical Review Startup Software Review Acquisition 159