SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2021

Let’s say you are at $10m ARR and decently funded, you’ll probably have 100 headcount by this point, or at least, by $15m ARR. You’ll probably want to add field sales (for Big Deals) by $10m ARR or so, another 2-3 headcount here, minimum. Let’s assume that takes 5 headcount, minimum, ideally 6. >>

Sales Hiring 344

Sales Hiring Headcount Scale Engineering 344

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

By freezing headcount for a year. Mathematically, if you keep the headcount flat and continue growing 50% like Monday or 30% at $2B like Hubspot, you get wildly more efficient. Companies are waiting too long to hire a CFO or VP of Finance. On the one hand, startups are much worse at finance and controls.

Sales Hiring 208

Sales Hiring Headcount Finance Technical Review 208

Baremetrics

NOVEMBER 1, 2021

It would be an understatement to say that we’re a fan of Flightpath Finance. We’re excited to announce that Baremetrics has acquired Flightpath Finance. Flightpath finance is our new (now not-so-secret) weapon. The post Introducing Flightpath Finance: Our New Secret Weapon appeared first on Baremetrics.

Finance 96

Finance Outsourced Development Sales Hiring Forecasting 96

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2024

They did layoffs and froze headcount. The customer financing is there. That they had to get to cash-flow positive, because no more money was coming. And while many couldn’t pull it off, and will go under, a lot actually got there. They cut marketing spend to $0. They raised prices. So now they are, in essence, NRR Zombies.

Headcount 202

Headcount Finance Startup Trends 202

Tom Tunguz

JULY 21, 2022

Finance told us our budget is decreasing by 20%.” Management teams expect to reduce operating expense by 20% predominantly through headcount reductions or hiring freezes - everyone from sardine startups to public megalodons. Software automates manual work, provides leverage, and the total cost is often less than a headcount.

Sales Hiring 131

Sales Hiring Headcount Software Finance 131

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

They promise, among other things, to “make finance beautiful” and the whole thing strikes me as a product-led growth strategy for a new tool to build financial models outside of traditional spreadsheets. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel financing and has over 30 employees. They tell their story well.

Finance 87

Finance Forecasting Software Review Systems Review 87

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 31, 2023

The BTC ETF drives a resurgence in interest in web3 financing. Companies & startups in particular begin to report meaningful improvements in productivity from AI, reducing their headcount growth, butn growing revenue just as much as projected. We see the first broadly successful tokens with dividends (likely outside the US).

AI Search 208

AI Search AI Scale Headcount 208

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 2, 2019

This time every year, sales and sales operations teams work with their business partners in finance, marketing and other functions to set their annual sales plan for the coming year. Headcount Planning. This decision will drive many of your other headcount decisions. How many sales managers per AE or AM? Quota Setting.

Headcount 41

Headcount Sales Hiring Scale Sales 41

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

While many of these mistakes or potential issue items are likely to be more prevalent in a business with a lean (or essentially non-existent) finance team, we’ve seen large businesses deal with many of these same challenges. This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. Sales & Marketing Expenses (S&M).

Finance 52

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 52

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

1: Capital As an operator, your job is to take money and add headcount and programs to drive the growth engine for your company, You might think of capital as fundraising and budget. Finance partners set budget and work with you to identify requisitions around the people you hire. You have people partners and recruiting partners.

Headcount 186

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 186

Chart Mogul

AUGUST 15, 2019

Revenue-based financing is quickly becoming a popular way for startups to raise funds without sacrificing equity. New investment structures are gaining traction in the early-stage SaaS financing market. A high-level look at Revenue-based financing (RBF). This is how it works. What is RBF? Simplified RBF. We require $450k (1.5x

Finance 85

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 85

SaaStr

JUNE 6, 2021

Oftentimes, it’s determined many marketing, finance and sometimes sales professionals are redundant. Even if the decision is made to invest more, future headcount is often sourced from internal team members and processes. There are roughly 3 phases: Right after the acquistion.

Acquisition 163

Acquisition Technical Review Headcount Finance 163

ChurnZero

JANUARY 11, 2024

Most company budgets that earmark dollars for customer success intend for it to go towards headcount. ChurnZero refers to that portion of the budget as the “non-headcount budget.” 2023 non-headcount customer success budgets as a percentage of revenue: Most non-headcount customer success budgets range from 0.08% of revenue to 0.2%

Headcount 52

Headcount SaaS Leadership Benchmarks 52

Chart Mogul

AUGUST 15, 2019

Revenue-based financing is quickly becoming a popular way for startups to raise funds without sacrificing equity. New investment structures are gaining traction in the early-stage SaaS financing market. A high-level look at Revenue-based financing (RBF). This is how it works. What is RBF? Simplified RBF. We require $450k (1.5x

Finance 52

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 52

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2022

Rippling positioned itself as an all-in-one solution for employee management across HR, IT, and finance. Instead of celebrating headcount, focus on growing efficiently in scalable ways.” . Recognizing that no single player managed every aspect of human capital management, it sought to fill that gap.

Outsourcing Services 196

Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 196

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 18, 2022

We worked with an independent research firm to survey over 1,200 global support leaders across a range of sectors, such as tech, e-commerce, and finance. Increased team burnout and attrition heightened by reduced headcount, an influx of queries from stressed-out customers, and the dawn of the “Great Resignation.”

Customer Support 138

Customer Support Trends Headcount Finance 138

The Angel VC

MARCH 23, 2016

If you have a SaaS startup with a higher-touch sales model where revenue growth is largely driven by sales headcount, the plan needs to be modified accordingly. Summary" tab The "Summary" tab contains only two types of input cells: Your starting bank balance and cash injections from financings.

SaaS Payments 217

SaaS Payments Headcount SaaS Payment Methods 217

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 31, 2021

During the past few weeks, finance and management teams will have been busy developing the financial plan for this year. funnel analysis tying sales performance to lead generation and marketing budget for program spend and headcount. The key number is the new bookings which implies the growth rate for next year.

Forecasting 144

Forecasting Sales Hiring Headcount Finance 144

SaaSOptics

MAY 2, 2022

If you observe the average sales headcount of early-stage product-led companies, you’ll find that many have already laid the foundation of a hybrid model because (in most cases) a strong sales team is what ultimately allows them to scale and maintain their hold on the market. How a Hybrid Approach Affects Finance Teams.

Scale 97

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales 97

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

This is something that I’m doing with fractional headcount allocation. The pilot programs aren’t meant to be these big bells and whistles, not even after you launch an official full-time headcount on something. It’s going to be the growth team, and we’re going to put three to four headcount on it.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 98

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

Enterprise has a budget owner, influencer, decisionmaker, and finance person to sign off. What kind of headcount do you have? Especially for Enterprise software, there is no single persona in the buying journey. If you’re self-serve appealing to SMBs, you have a budget owner and decision maker. What is the unifying framework?

Scale 180

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 180

BetterCloud

JUNE 22, 2023

For example, during the roaring 2021/2022 IT investment boom, IT has more latitude to invest without the strong involvement of finance leadership. Most finance leaders expect to increase IT budgets, and Gartner agrees. Now, those days are gone. In addition, more than a third of those are expected to be “significantly” more involved.

Operational efficiency. 52

Operational efficiency. Business Finance Technical Review 52

OPEXEngine

MARCH 9, 2022

How can Finance and Engineering management work together to diagnose weak areas, and shift R&D resources to produce better outcomes for the company? For over a decade, we have been benchmarking R&D expenses and headcounts. Share our newsletter with your colleagues in Finance and R&D management.

Software Review 59

Software Review Development Team Review Technical Review Outsourced Development 59

OPEXEngine

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Take this example of working with Sales on how many account executives to add in the upcoming year: “Our current sales headcount is 30% higher than the sales headcount benchmark for SaaS companies our size and growth rate, and our ARR per sales rep is 30% lower than the benchmark.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Sales Hiring Headcount Customer Lifetime Value 52

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 31, 2019

Over the past decade benchmarking software and SaaS companies , I’ve had the chance at OPEXEngine to work with hundreds of amazing Finance execs who work incredibly hard at getting the right data to support their company’s goals. SaaS Finance Benchmarks. Finance skill sets. Skills & Experience.

Finance 40

Finance CTO Hire Headcount SaaS 40

SaaSOptics

JANUARY 9, 2020

What if I told you that we have 1 full-time finance team member managing revenue operations with over 80 employees and 650+ customers? It makes it easy for reps to view what they can expect to see in their check each month and they don’t have to hound finance each time a sale closes. – Charles Dye, Finance Manager.

Payment Features 77

Payment Features Deferred Revenue Scale Finance 77

OPEXEngine

AUGUST 25, 2020

adding headcount, reducing production time, expanding sales territories) to see likely outcomes. According to an Adaptive Insights CFO Indicator Report, 71% of finance teams manage data from at least three sources. In other words, dynamic financial models show you the probable results of pulling various levers (e.g.,

Headcount 52

Headcount Forecasting Finance Business Model 52

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

That includes deciding when to accelerate recovery spending and what financing the business needs to execute its plan. . As companies work with investors and lenders, clearly outlining cash runway and financing requirements is imperative to prepare for different scenarios. Include sufficient detail.

Forecasting 52

Forecasting Finance Headcount Communication 52

SaaSOptics

JUNE 24, 2021

Generally speaking, FinOps sits in its own department, sometimes called Finance or Accounting, and usually reporting directly to the CFO or CEO. . Only finance can hold the line on the true calculation. . In contrast to RevOps, where FinOps lives in the business is not as hotly contested as RevOps has been.

Scale 72

Scale Headcount Finance Churn 72

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

You’re investing resources in hiring and training the right people, tracking different metrics at different stages, adding more and more complexity with each increase in headcount, use cases, and customers. And I don’t necessarily mean 10X in terms of headcount – I mean 10X in terms of efficiency.

Scale 206

Scale Software Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring 206

CustomerSuccessBox

DECEMBER 30, 2021

Finance Team has to sign off on your ratio. Before a budget is formulated according to the ratio you build, have a trade-off conversation with Finance to approve it. Reviewing it beforehand with Finance will ensure that you aren’t dealt a blow in a later stage of budget approval. Send your Customers something special.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Finance Headcount Innovation 52

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

A mindless policy that basically says the C-suite can’t be bothered with headcount resource allocation and will effectively leave it to chance. No backfill policy. And create perverse incentives to not terminate weak employees in the process. Little or no travel budget.

VP of Engineering 109

VP of Engineering Travel Underperforming Technical Team Headcount 109

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 6, 2022

Enhanced service with tailored benchmark models for go-to-market, cost management, and headcount analytics. New R&D benchmarking solution extends the rigor of OPEXEngine to this critical function for technology organizations, with 85+ of the most essential metrics. .

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Development Team Review Benchmarks Headcount 40

Valuize Consulting

MAY 4, 2022

Once you’ve selected your Scale strategy, finalize the headcount , technology and other investments you require to meet your coverage model and forecast your projected growth. A critical element of this forecast is aligning with your Finance team. Determine Coverage & Forecast Growth For Your Scale Strategy.

Scale 52

Scale Customer Success Scaling Strategy 52

OpenView Labs

JUNE 3, 2021

For example, only Finance manages the books, and only Engineering actually writes the code for the product. There’s often no shortage of needs to fill, so it’s common that formal product marketing headcount is typically added when a company reaches an inflection point. And why should it be any other way?

Product Marketing 93

Product Marketing Sales Hiring Startup Scale 93

InsightSquared

MAY 7, 2019

At the highest level, SaaS companies look at sales expense, headcount, sales productivity and SaaS metrics like: The cost of new customer acquisition (CAC). To learn more about SaaS sales benchmarks from OPEXEnginge, a confidential SaaS benchmarking platform and Finance community, reach out at info@opexengine.com.

Scale 102

Scale Sales Hiring Metrics Sales 102

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 28, 2021

How do I structure a budget for headcount?”. How do I get the Finance team to support my Customer Success budget?”. “How much ARR or customers should a CSM manage?”. What percentage of company revenue should be spent on Customer Success?”. If you’ve ever asked yourself or others these questions, then this article is for you.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring Headcount Customer Success Outsourced Development 52