OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 2, 2019

Headcount Planning. But headcount planning is often a useful place to start because the inputs required to make decisions are the least dependent on factors outside of the sales organization. This decision will drive many of your other headcount decisions. Marketing bookings are often the most difficult to scale with headcount, as “low-hanging fruit” may already be captured by current marketing efforts, and additional paid digital advertising, content marketing, etc.

Headcount 52

Headcount Finance Management Retention 52

Sales Hacker

JULY 24, 2018

Decreased revenue per rep, High turnover as you scale headcount. “It’s We made our machine more efficient even as we scaled, grew headcount, and skyrocketed our revenue. In the first six months of the year, our team’s headcount grew by almost 60%, yet our revenue outpaced that, growing by 142%. The post 5 Ways to Keep Your Sales Machine Efficient While Scaling Headcount appeared first on Sales Hacker.

Headcount 65

Headcount Scaling Acquisition Development 65

Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2017

Above, I’ve charted the headcount growth rate for 10 of the fastest growing software companies in recent history. I’ve normalized the years for when all the businesses were roughly at the same headcount - fewer than 50 people. What does the “average” hyper growth software company look like in terms of headcount growth? How quickly do the fastest growing software companies build their teams? The answer is incredibly quickly.

Headcount 63

Headcount Scaling Software Management 63

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2019

But let me suggest one reason I learned when I was an exec in a F500 tech company: Headcount was most fixed for a year. Our group had a fixed headcount of about 800 to manage about $800m in revenue. Getting even a single additional headcount was incredibly difficult. Especially allocated headcount. Even if your “headcount” is fixed, capped and frozen. There are probably a multitude of reasons.

Headcount 141

Headcount Management Revenue Sales 141

SaaStock

MARCH 27, 2019

In the last three years, it has grown from 60 to 225 in headcount, 10x in revenue and now serves 4 different verticals. Tune in for an extra bonus episode of the podcast, hosting SaaStock LatAm speaker André Baldini, CEO of Superlógica who tell us how the company grew revenue 10x. Superlógica was started back in 2001 as an ERP software for condominiums. André Baldini started out as VP of Sales In 2017 he was promoted to CEO.

Pricing 167

Pricing Headcount Banking Revenue 167

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

Hence, Twilio has a very high level of sales efficiency (and relatively small headcount). The lure of freemium (like The Force) is strong. No headaches. Customers try and buy all on their own. Like magic. No salespeople. Well, that can work. For a while.

Sales 236

Sales Headcount Enterprise Revenue 236

Tomasz Tunguz

APRIL 5, 2020

But starting that week, startups began reducing headcount by about 700 per day. ClassPass, one of the fitness startups to reduce headcount, reported a 95% drop in sales in 10 days. Which startup sectors are most affected by coronavirus? Roger Lee is maintaining Layoffs.fyi , which is a table of all the startups who have unfortunately cut staff. On the brighter side, it is a resource for startups looking to hire as they grow.

Headcount 86

Headcount Transportation Government Travel 86

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Hoping headcount (alone) will drive revenue. At some point, every SaaS company gets big enough where headcount does drive revenue. We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how to hire a Great VP of Sales.

Sales 277

Sales Headcount Revenue Management 277

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2020

Last year, the company doubled its headcount, tripled revenue and landed on G2’s Top 100 Global Software list. . Tom Taulli. Behind the Round with SaaStr: Chorus.ai Raises $45 Million. This week Chorus announced its Series C round for $45 million, which was led by Georgian Partners.

AI 255

AI Headcount Technology Leadership 255

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2021

Your sales headcount. Ok you’ve finally crossed $1m, $2m, $4m ARR. Now — you just want to get there faster. And that’s where you’ll make a lot of mistakes. The most important thing is not to chase the shiny penny, assuming you are growing at least 60% Year-over-Year.

Headcount 234

Headcount Pricing Metrics Branding 234

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

Because headcount is often fixed in BigCos. Because overall headcount might be fixed at say 15,000. Q: What are some of the most overlooked details or challenges when integrating two companies post-acquisition? I can make a long list of challenges and overlooked details in acquisitions, but I think they all stem from 1 issue: not being honest about what things will look like in 24 months: Does the CEO really want to stay?

Acquisition 142

Acquisition Headcount Business 142

InsightSquared

DECEMBER 28, 2020

Are you prepared to make critical business decisions such as new headcount, market expansion or product development? . Ready to improve your HubSpot Forecast accuracy? . Do you have confidence in your sales forecast?

Forecasting 170

Forecasting Machine Learning Sales Headcount 170

InsightSquared

DECEMBER 28, 2020

Are you prepared to make critical business decisions such as new headcount, market expansion or product development? . HubSpot users: Do you have confidence in your sales forecast?

Forecasting 156

Forecasting Machine Learning Sales Headcount 156

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2020

No headcount limits. Who should you hire, with limited budget? A VP of Sales? A Director of Demand Gen? Or A Head of Product? The answer is Yes. A truly great hire is >always< accretive. At least within just a few months. Hire anyone truly great you can find. Find a way.

Headcount 264

Headcount Engineering Banking Revenue 264

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 24, 2020

Marketing teams spend 5-10% of ARR on programs (non-headcount expenses), and this is pretty consistent across ARR. Engineering:Account Executive headcount ratios scale from about 3:1 down to 1:1 as a company scales revenue. Yesterday, we shared the Top 10 Learnings from the 2020 Redpoint GTM Survey at SaaS Office Hours. The presentation is embedded below.

Headcount 87

Headcount Benchmarks Retention Metrics 87

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s). these figures are going to be WRONG because you haven’t properly accounted for your headcount costs in Sales & Marketing.

Finance 73

Finance Headcount Revenue Churn 73

InsightSquared

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

If you have open headcount for Q1 be interviewing in Q4. Behind headcount equals behind plan. It’s two weeks until December. Holiday music is already playing in every store you set foot into, your weekends are starting to fill with egg-nog and apple pie induced festivities and every morning you find yourself layering up with an extra hat or scarf before you step outside. Tis’ the season! December around the corner also means your sales year is coming to an end.

Sales 171

Sales Headcount Compensation B2B 171

OPEXEngine

AUGUST 25, 2020

adding headcount, reducing production time, expanding sales territories) to see likely outcomes. Robust models should let you model everything, everywhere—expenses, capital, headcount, revenue, projects, grants, quotas, and territories—across any department, entity, or function.

Headcount 52

Headcount Benchmarks Forecasting Finance 52

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s).

Finance 52

Finance Headcount Revenue Churn 52

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). Sales is the Growth Engine. Sales is the engine driving SaaS company value. Top and bottom line performance are totally dependent on the sales organization and its performance. And sales expense is typically the largest expense item on a growth SaaS company’s income statement.

Metrics 210

Metrics Sales SaaS Benchmarks 210

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 23, 2020

Massive headcount growth presages large software purchases and expansion. Demand generation limits growth. To scale, a company must find customers in ever larger numbers. The ideal scenario is one where purely external signals confer a prospect’s propensity to buy. A prospect experiences hypergrowth is perfect example. A company anoints a new department head catalyzing change. The more external the signal of lead quality, the easier the demand generation task will be.

Headcount 62

Headcount Metrics Data Technology 62

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2020

We can derive the table above if we look over the entire respondent base and bucket headcount by ARR. This post is part of a series leading up to SaaS Office GTM Edition on June 24 in which we’re reviewing the results of the 2020 Redpoint GTM survey. Today, we’re answering the question: how do teams grow as a startup scales? The median startup with between 1-5M in ARR will have 12 engineers, 6 in sales and 3 in marketing.

Scaling 87

Scaling Headcount Engineering Customer Success 87

Sales Hacker

JUNE 1, 2020

Sales still makes up 25% of their headcount on average. Sales and business development headcount increased by 45% year-on-year versus just 33% in non-sales roles (the full data is available here ). Flash forward to 2019, and the company grew sales headcount by 66% year-on-year, which is twice the rate of other roles (31%). Many of today’s fastest-growing software companies have something in common — their products can sell themselves.

Headcount 64

Headcount Enterprise Software Acquisition 64

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 7, 2020

Employee productivity is up for the moment, as companies reduced headcount. We are currently conducting a 2020 Flash for the SaaS benchmarking community, looking at 2020 end of year forecasts for revenue, ARR, growth rates, and departmental expenses and headcount.

Trends 56

Trends Headcount Benchmarks Travel 56

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2020

And they have five times the headcount and have raised $25 million. (Note; an update of a classic SaaStr post, with 2020+ learnings.). A little while ago, I Zoomed with a good friend running a SaaS company doing about $4 million in ARR. A really good SaaS company. And he was beside himself. First, he was just plain exhausted. He was in that zone from $1 to $10m in ARR when it all just gets so hard. Too much to do with too few people. We’ve talked about how The Cavalry Was Coming.

Headcount 211

Headcount SaaS Retention Revenue 211

InsightSquared

JULY 8, 2020

It enables your company to set a budget, make headcount decisions, fund marketing and product investments, determine expansion timelines and much more. Most companies miss the mark when it comes to sales forecasting — in more ways than you think. The chronic inaccuracy of sales forecasting is well-documented by SiriusDecisions , noting that nearly 80% of sales organizations miss their mark by more than 10%.

Forecasting 120

Forecasting AI Machine Learning Sales 120

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. Costs" tab In order to adjust headcount planning in the G&A, R&D and marketing departments, change the assumptions for start date, base salary and bonus in the grey "Assumptions" area.

SaaS 169

SaaS Headcount Enterprise Finance 169

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2019

Not that much given the overall headcount I nominally had assigned to me. A common VC-ism is that You Always Have Competition. This probably is mostly true, especially since 70% of the top SaaS companies are really just new versions of old, established categories. About 70% of SaaS Unicorns Are New Versions of Existing Categories of Software. But sometimes, you really are something new. Or so different, that it’s basically new.

Headcount 204

Headcount Enterprise Onboarding Pricing 204

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2019

With precise headcount and budget needs. A few seasons back, we wrote a post on hitting how in SaaS, you have to be putting the resources in place by Q3 to hit the plan for the next year. We update this post a bit annually as we head into next year’s planning procress. I still see most startups way behind on their 2020 planning, and most importantly, hiring, at this point in the year. I’m not sure we’ve gotten that much better at our resource planning in SaaS.

Headcount 190

Headcount Revenue Churn Acquisition 190

Hitenism

JANUARY 16, 2017

In 2014, Mixpanel’s Series B pitch deck spelled out the company’s expansion plans over the next two years: 3x sales headcount and rapidly race towards distribution. Double headcount every 6-9 months. Reduce sales ramp time by 30-50% via sales enablement. Double down on marketing to widen our lead flow to lower cost per acq. long-term. They raised $65 million dollars with that plan.

Venture Capital 134

Venture Capital Headcount SaaS Customer Lifetime Value 134

Tomasz Tunguz

APRIL 1, 2020

The rule says that all employees of affiliated companies must be considered headcount. What’s going on in Startupland? Venture rounds are closing. We’ve seen seeds, As, Bs, and growth rounds in the past few weeks. And round announcements continue. Valuations are coming down a bit, but they are all over the map. It’s too early to draw any conclusions about pacing, however. In fundraising conversations, founders are candid.

Headcount 75

Headcount Government Innovation Startup 75

SaaSOptics

JULY 20, 2020

They had to take out 7-8 headcount in order to get their burn rate down. 5 SaaS Metrics You’re Calculating Incorrectly . SaaS metrics : the performance indicators that startups love to hate. Whether you’re the CEO or an analyst at your company, SaaS metrics play a huge role in your day to day.

Metrics 60

Metrics Deferred Revenue Headcount SaaS 60

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

But specializing across the sales process will take more headcount. When a great SaaS business starts to come together, and crosses Initial Traction ($1-$1.5m), growing nicely (8-10%+ Month-over-Month Growth) … often times, the founders start to see the first bit of real economic returns on the model. It finally starts to make sense, this SaaS stuff.

Sales 211

Sales Headcount Venture Capital Growth Marketing 211

InsightSquared

FEBRUARY 22, 2018

As headcount surges, what specific fields mean, why they are useful, and when the business requires that information can be lost in the shuffle. Boston’s Trident Booksellers and Cafe thrums on a Saturday morning. The place is packed — Busboys bustle past waiting patrons to drop off clean glasses for the bartenders, only to be coaxed out of the way by a waiter looking for their next order, or a host seating a table.

Sales 177

Sales Headcount SMB Customer Success 177

OPEXEngine

JANUARY 5, 2021

CAC includes things related directly to bringing customers in the door — like marketing campaigns, sales outreach, and onboarding processes — as well as more indirect expenses like company headcount and resource costs.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Acquisition Headcount Customer Lifetime Value 52

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

This section covers employee satisfaction, headcount, and recruiting metrics. Over the last decade or so, I’ve compiled a metrics sheet to summarise a SaaS business. While no living document like this is ever perfect, this is currently the best board-level summary of the overall health of a business I have found. I’m sharing it so that others may benefit and improve it. If you have suggestions, please email me. Redpoint SaaS Metrics Template.

Metrics 79

Metrics Headcount Startup Acquisition 79

OpenView Labs

JUNE 9, 2020

“In any downtown, a leader has a number of tools at their disposal to maintain the health of the organization and keep costs under control if needed: Headcount, programs, automation, discretionary spend and others. Headcount reductions form that one-way door, since the exit of great talent can take months, if not years, to recover from and so this approach only gets used if the downturn is deeper than predicted or longer lasting.

Headcount 53

Headcount Travel Mobile Strategy 53

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 17, 2019

Benchmarking also provides useful data on spending levels across the major expense categories, i.e., COR, R&D, S&M, and G&A, and well as specific data on headcount for each team within these categories. For example, you can access Sales headcount data for Account Executives, Sales Development Reps/Business Development Reps and Renewal Reps along with compensation data.

Benchmarks 40

Benchmarks Metrics Headcount B2C 40

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Sales now accounts for about 7% of the company’s headcount–a similar share of their workforce as marketing or product management. I’d even argue that the company is still under-resourced in sales; sales accounts for only 7% of Atlassian’s headcount compared to 25% of headcount at the average PLG business. Among the PLG businesses that have gone public since 2017, sales headcount grew by an average of 45% year-on-year compared to a 33% increase in non-sales headcount.

Headcount 59

Headcount Compensation Customer Lifetime Value Enterprise 59

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

The chart above shows the headcount growth of the median publicly traded SaaS company from year four through year ten of the company’s life. The multiplicative effect of headcount growth and improving productivity fuels the growth of the business. SaaS companies are marvelous businesses. They are more predictable than most other kinds of companies and in addition they demonstrate leverage from technology.

Headcount 40

Headcount Benchmarks Revenue Technology 40