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. Budgets will shift to higher priority tools as finance demands managers rationalize their spend.

Sales Hiring 139

Sales Hiring Headcount Software Finance 139

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

If you’ve not been tracking this, here a list of next-generation planning startups … Since that post, I’ve received feedback with several more startups to add to the list and a request for a little more color on each one. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel financing and has over 30 employees.

Finance 87

Finance Forecasting Software Review Systems Review 87

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

Jeff is the co-founder of a new stealth startup, a previous CMO at Snyk, and an operator at Elastic, Zuora, and Salesforce. 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.

Headcount 191

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 191

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.

Finance 85

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 85

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2022

Rippling positioned itself as an all-in-one solution for employee management across HR, IT, and finance. The first week at any SaaS startup is about doing everything you can to acquire leads. Instead of celebrating headcount, focus on growing efficiently in scalable ways.” . Unconventional scaling ideas to accelerate growth.

Outsourcing Services 202

Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 202

ChurnZero

MARCH 22, 2023

As a CS leader, these tools help keep your team lean, standardize your operations, and give your C-suite visibility into decisions about headcount and tooling. Customer experience: Segmenting your customer base is important once you have moved beyond the early startup phase. You might have customers who are more tech-savvy than others.

Customer Success 97

Customer Success Headcount Finance Leadership 97

The Angel VC

MARCH 23, 2016

Almost exactly four years ago I published a financial plan template for SaaS startups based on a model that I had created for Zendesk a few years earlier. The original v1 model was a very simple plan for early-stage SaaS startups with a low-touch sales model. Everything else is calculated, mostly using data from subsequent tabs.

SaaS Payments 217

SaaS Payments Headcount SaaS Payment Methods 217

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

As a Customer Success leader, do you get anxious at the thought of asking your CFO or CEO for additional headcount? Using these models, you too can learn how to go toe-to-toe with your Finance team by presenting trade-offs to get the headcount you need. How to Build a Customer Success Budget for Headcount. Discovery Call.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Benchmarks 98

OpenView Labs

JUNE 3, 2021

Anyone who’s ever worked at a startup knows it’s a “get the job done” environment where your title means little and what you do means a lot. For example, only Finance manages the books, and only Engineering actually writes the code for the product. Alternatively, some startups resort to defining the roles by their deliverables.

Product Marketing 93

Product Marketing Sales Hiring Startup Scale 93

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 31, 2021

It’s February 1st and many software startups herald the new fiscal year with Sales Kick Off (SKO). During the past few weeks, finance and management teams will have been busy developing the financial plan for this year. consideration for both account executive and sales manager turnover of around 20-25% annually.

Forecasting 145

Forecasting Sales Hiring Headcount Finance 145

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.

Finance 52

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 52

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 29, 2019

For example, our Finance team is now able to confirm whether new customer growth is up in our target segments. Sales: Be able to route prospects to our self-service flow or the most appropriate team within Sales, e.g. startups, SMB, MME, based on well-defined customer segments. Assessing progress on our strategy.

Business 184

Business B2C Scale Headcount 184

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Here’s how it works: Rather than having each function of a SaaS startup (sales, finance, product, and marketing) run on a 3-month sequential basis, Vichich’s teams ran on a quarterly cycle. These cycles were offset by 45 days, with product/engineering and marketing on one calendar, and sales and finance on the other.

Banking 90

Banking Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 90

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

Enterprise has a budget owner, influencer, decisionmaker, and finance person to sign off. In the quest for making quick decisions and moving fast, which is the DNA of all good startups, folks tend to oversimplify this complexity. What kind of headcount do you have? Instead, ask these five questions.

Scale 184

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 184

SaaSX

JULY 26, 2020

But, I’ve found when you actually look at the work to be done inside of high-growth startups there are some gaps that don’t always fit into a common org chart. . There are a handful of less obvious roles that can make an immediate positive impact on almost any high-growth startup. ” or “Can I wire payment?”

Sales Recruiting 64

Sales Recruiting Technical Review Scale Startup 64

ChurnZero

MARCH 22, 2023

As a CS leader, these tools help keep your team lean, standardize your operations, and give your C-suite visibility into decisions about headcount and tooling. Customer experience: Segmenting your customer base is important once you have moved beyond the early startup phase. You might have customers who are more tech-savvy than others.

Customer Success 59

Customer Success Headcount Finance Leadership 59

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

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

With capital scarce and expensive, with companies increasingly trapped in Schrödinger’s startup paradox , and with more startups than ever focused on positive cashflow and The Rule of 40 , it’s safe to say that Silicon Valley is still very much in a cost-cutting mood. It’s been a tough year. No backfill policy.

VP of Engineering 106

VP of Engineering Travel Underperforming Technical Team Headcount 106

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 20, 2022

Not too long ago, when Intercom turned 10 , we dedicated an entire episode to speed , or why startups should always strive to keep momentum as they scale. I think both myself and you, Paul, at the very least, and I’d argue all 300 folks in R&D would all agree, speed is a huge ingredient of a successful startup.

Underperforming Technical Team 249

Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Sales Hiring Scale 249

OpenView Labs

MAY 20, 2019

This begs the question: how much room is left for emerging startups? More and more startups are vying for traction against extremely well capitalized SaaS powerhouses. The median growth rate of startups with $1-2.5M Not surprisingly, most struggle to break through. in ARR fell from 100% to 64% in just the last year.

Scale 70

Scale Startup Technical Review Software Review 70

Kellblog

JANUARY 2, 2024

Per LinkedIn , headcount is up 240% over the past two years. A Slow Bounceback in Startup Land. There’s 3200 startups failed in 2023. On the financing side, VC funding was down to pre-pandemic levels. So, what will happen in startup land in 2024? This will happen more quickly on the startup side.

AI Search 108

AI Search Technical Review Technical Advisors ChatGPT 108

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Along the way, we’ve interviewed trailblazers, business leaders, makers and doers to share their experience and insights on all things startup strategy, product management, design, marketing, customer experience, and much, much more. Slack has obviously raised a lot of money, so we weren’t hampered by budgets as long as the ROI was there.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency. But I couldn’t raise the money for the startup; this was 2009, right after the recession.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 23, 2022

I’ve been CEO of two startups and on the board of about ten. Finance types on the board might view these as simple canapes served before the meal. The next block focuses on headcount: Total employees, at end of period. That means I’ve presented a lot of operating plans to boards. A laundry list of goals. OKRs are great.

Technical Review 115

Technical Review Software Review Forecasting Churn 115

OpenView Labs

MAY 20, 2019

This begs the question: how much room is left for emerging startups? More and more startups are vying for traction against extremely well capitalized SaaS powerhouses. The median growth rate of startups with $1-2.5M Not surprisingly, most struggle to break through. in ARR fell from 100% to 64% in just the last year.

Scale 51

Scale Startup Technical Review Software Review 51

OpenView Labs

MAY 20, 2019

This begs the question: how much room is left for emerging startups? More and more startups are vying for traction against extremely well capitalized SaaS powerhouses. The median growth rate of startups with $1-2.5M Not surprisingly, most struggle to break through. in ARR fell from 100% to 64% in just the last year.

Scale 40

Scale Startup Technical Review Software Review 40

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 11, 2019

You might say it’s one of the strongest advantages a startup has. Taking HubSpot or maybe Intercom even for example: relatively well funded companies with a relatively happy history when it comes to financing and stuff like that. But where else can you be investing outside of headcount to maintain that customer centricity?

Scale 188

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team 188

Kellblog

MAY 27, 2022

Startups need to make it easy to find great answers to three basic questions on their websites. Some early-stage startups excessively agonize over the category name, believing that the ideal name will propel the creation of the category. Planning headcount. What is it? What do people do with it? Who is the company behind it?

AI Search 120

AI Search Technical Review Forecasting Software Review 120

Sales Hacker

MAY 26, 2021

The focus is on things like reporting, territory management and later stage tasks such as contract negotiations and finance approvals. A startup sales operations manager will handle all of these dimensions. Help drive annual planning and modeling projects with a focus on revenue and headcount. Director of Sales Operations.

Scale 60

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development 60

Kellblog

JUNE 17, 2023

I’ve never heard of SaaS quick ratio before, but from finance class I remember that the quick ratio is a liquidity metric, so I’m curious. Sales headcount as % of total headcount. It’s not measuring efficiency. It’s not measuring return. It’s measuring time to payback [2]. See my post.

Scale 102

Scale Sales Benchmarks Metrics 102

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 9, 2018

It’s easy when R&D, Marketing, Sales and Finance all fit in a single room and two pizzas are sufficient to feed everyone. It’s simple math: if everyone has to be involved in every decision, doubling your headcount quadruples the distinct conversations needed. Everyone wears a bunch of hats, and it all just works.

Scale 182

Scale Sales Hiring Headcount Scaling 182

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 28, 2021

For many startup software companies (and their founders), an early capital-efficient approach to growth can make a huge difference in the long run. Today, I have a more nuanced perspective of capital efficiency and how it can be important to a startup’s growth path. It doesn’t really apply to startups.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Software Review Software Payments 52

Sales Hacker

JUNE 16, 2021

Startup hurdle: headcount. Everyone working at a new startup that has aggressive scaling plans wears multiple hats. Select a vendor: Work with your finance and legal teams to make sure the contract terms are acceptable. Your GTM teams are made up of people, and people are resistant to change how they learn and sell.

Sales Enablement 100

Sales Enablement Scale Sales Hiring Technical Review 100

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 29, 2021

If there’s anything we’ve learned when it comes to working in hypergrowth startups is that you’re not really supposed to have it all figured out on the first try. So your goals in terms of headcount remained stable from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic? Iterate, iterate, iterate. Kieron: Interesting. How did that process work for you?

Sales Hiring 223

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 223

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

In August of 2016, Rachel Hepworth embarked on a unique challenge: start a growth marketing team at one of the most successful startups of this generation – one that had long relied heavily on word of mouth. The role that started me on this path was joining a very small startup a little over a decade ago, Climate Corp.

Growth Marketing 174

Growth Marketing Scale Marketing Outsourcing Services 174

Chart Mogul

DECEMBER 22, 2021

This year, we added 17 new members to our team, growing our headcount from 43 at the start of the year to 60 now (up 39% YoY). We even did a collaborative video with Slidebean discussing “Why Startups have booths at Trade Shows?”. To add to that, our uptime for 2021 (for both the App and the API) was an impressive 99.95%. and $50M.

Software Review 52

Software Review Systems Review Payment Features PayPal 52

OpenView Labs

JUNE 10, 2019

90% of startups fail. Tommi Forsström uncovers how improving your understanding of finance and economics can propel you from a good product manager to a great product manager. According to Kyle Poyar from OpenView it is “It’s a rough time to be a startup.” Building your startup is hard. OV BUILD Podcast.

Management 55

Management SaaS Scale Sales Recruiting 55