SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

That works for a while, but you end up with not enough headcount if you do freeze hiring but still want to grow. More on this in our deep dive with co-CEO Eran Zinman: You can’t grow forever with no growth in headcount. But we’re lapping tougher times for many, and for many others, it’s just plain time to hire again.

Sales Hiring 298

Sales Hiring Headcount Scale Cloud 298

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2022

Sales-driven SaaS startups end up with about half their headcount in sales and marketing. 2x the sales headcount you thought you did to hit the full plan for this year, and Q1 of next year. It sounds high at first, until you realize that's just how the math works. Software itself and other departments get leverage.

Scale 346

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 346

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2023

At least in the short term, it is turning most of us can do more with about the same headcount in SaaS. #4. Headcount Growing, But Slowly. Staying basically flat in headcount for 3 quarters while growing a stunning 50% (!) They got there, in fact, two years ahead of schedule. 47% Of Revenue Outside the U.S.,

Headcount 300

Headcount Sales Hiring Scale Cloud 300

SaaStr

MAY 30, 2023

And very few of you are doubling headcount, vs everyone in 2021. Hiring has way slowed down, but many folks are still hiring, albeit at a reduced rate. 56% of you aren’t hiring, or barely hiring. But a good chunk of you are still hiring, albeit in moderation. This is what we are starting to see across public SaaS leaders as well.

Sales Hiring 242

Sales Hiring Headcount Engineering Revenue 242

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2022

So, did headcount at the Series A. In 11 years, the median headcount at Series A swelled from 15 to 28. [1]. 1] Thank you to the Pitchbook team for running the headcount analysis data. [2] More capital meant the constraints of yester-decade no longer applied. Founders declared a maximum acceptable dilution instead.

Headcount 293

Headcount Venture Capital Finance Startup 293

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Some of the changes we’ve seen in the last year or two include: CAC reduction Headcount optimization Price complexity Quality of revenue A different environment means a different strategy, and Notion Capital lays out four business model changes that could be helpful based on what peers are doing. You don’t want to be there.

Business Model 261

Business Model SaaS Payments Payments Headcount 261

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2023

Yes many public SaaS companies have done some sort of layoffs the past 12 months, they were often more really reorgs, though, without any net decrease in headcount. The key was “simply” keeping headcount flat. #3. Everyone is basically doing more with not much more headcount. Without really sacrificing growth.

Scale 212

Scale Headcount Point of Sale SaaS 212

TurnKey Labs

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Effectively managing labor costs is a critical concern for businesses aiming to maintain financial stability and competitiveness. However, the challenge lies in finding ways to reduce expenses without resorting to employee layoffs, which can have adverse effects on employee morale and productivity.

Headcount 57

Headcount Strategy Management Business 57

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

There is almost no software and non-headcount budget for CS. 64% of CS teams spend $200,000 or less a year on non-headcount, with growth stage companies spending the least, just 0.1% I generally see CS reporting to a CRO as a recipe for conflicts, but sometimes it’s the best option: #2. This data is interesting. of revenue.

Customer Success 313

Customer Success Headcount Churn Revenue 313

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2023

Everyone is basically doing more with not much more headcount (see next point). #4. Growing Headcount, But Much More Slowly That Revenue. Headcount is up 29% year-over-year, but revenue is up 50%. Also you can see sales & marketing headcount is basically flat, while hiring is almost all in engineering / R&D.

Headcount 215

Headcount Scale Sales Hiring AWS 215

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2024

Unlike building a product team, there is no efficiency when building a sales org: half of your headcount will be in sales at $10m, $50m, or $100m in revenue. It’s tough for founders to grok 40%+ of their headcount forever may be in sales. Add more structure here, and everything gets better. #6.

Sales Hiring 260

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 260

Tom Tunguz

JULY 10, 2024

If buyers act rationally & reduce headcount by 50% 1 which we know is probably not true, then to maintain the same revenue per customer, price would need to double. This initial pricing has anchored the market at least for now in that range. We can observe that in three of the companies’ pricing strategy above.

AI 191

AI Pricing Sales Hiring Strategy 191

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2023

Freezing Headcount is How They Got So Much More Efficient Again, a common story. But for now, AppFolio is staying leaner, with less headcount this year than last — despite impressive +29% growth. #4. Many that did are now re-hiring, from Monday to Salesforce and more.

Payment Services 251

Payment Services Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments 251

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. What ratio do you want between AEs and other sales roles?

Headcount 41

Headcount Sales Hiring Scale Sales 41

SaaStr

AUGUST 1, 2023

But this time, instead of headcount, it was apps. Yes, some bigger companies went through layoffs too, but in many cases, they hired more folks back, and really just kept headcount flat or slowed its growth. You get all the VPs into a room, and you tell them to make a list. Of the 10% to cut. Apps though they truly cut.

Headcount 224

Headcount Finance Cloud Startup 224

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

Slowing headcount growth — like lots of others. Okta headcount grew 32% year-over-year, fairly consistent with revenue growth, but then Okta like others slowed down hiring. Okta is seeing higher SMB churn and more ROI scrutiny, but is also benefitting from some customers wanting to centralize on fewer core vendors.

Scale 292

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring SMB 292

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 27, 2023

The antidote: greater pipeline-to-quota coverage ratios by either increasing the top of the funnel or reducing the account executive headcount. These benchmarks suggest startups should plan on materially longer sales cycles into 2023. The data analysis uses the results from the 2023 GTM Survey.

Startup 306

Startup SMB Headcount Sales 306

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2023

At the end of the day, in SaaS, efficiency really comes from growing revenue faster than headcount. Almost everyone is doing more with … yes, more headcount, but only a smidge more. Revenue Up 30%, but Employee Count Only up 10%, to 7,055. Salaries and comp are the vast majority of expenses. Including HubSpot. #4.

Scale 267

Scale SMB Headcount New CTO 267

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Like many tech companies, Monday added a ton of headcount in 2021. It then added only 63 employees last quarter, and plans to continue with very slow headcount for a while. Another reminder to go global in SaaS as early as you can! #10. Slowing hiring has been key to driving up free cash flow.

Headcount 298

Headcount SMB Engineering Scaling 298

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2023

A classic and great deep dive in terms of how to scale your teams, headcount, and orgs: #2. In advance of that, we wanted to take a look at a few of David’s classic sessions from SaaStr Annuals past: #1. The SaaS Org Chart by Series with David Sacks, Co-founder and General Partner at Craft Ventures.

Headcount 234

Headcount Startup Scaling SaaS 234

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 31, 2023

AI Efficiency Gains +2% Headcount Reduction ? Headcount reductions in the last year, which impacted every company, should increase the pipeline coverage ratios for the remaining team members. All of these technologies are still nascent & imperfect, but they should improve through the course of the year.

Headcount 168

Headcount Sales Hiring AI Cloud 168

Sales Hacker

JULY 24, 2018

Decreased revenue per rep, High turnover as you scale headcount. 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%.

Scale 55

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Scaling 55

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

Don’t Tie Revenue To Headcount “You want to get away from a business model where every incremental dollar requires incremental hiring,” says Deatsch. So instead of focusing on scaling headcount quickly, work toward growing revenue quickly.

Sales Hiring 234

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 234

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

Do you have to double your headcount to make it from $10M to $20M or even $2M to $5M? For headcount specifically, make sure that the constraint to growing faster is that you don’t have enough salespeople to work the demand that exists for your business. When those outcomes are achieved, the hire gets their headcount.

Sales Hiring 268

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 268

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 25, 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. Most sales teams ramp AEs (both inside and outside) on six month time periods. This was surprisingly low.

Headcount 364

Headcount Scale Benchmarks Retention 364

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Unlike building a product team, there is no efficiency when building a sales org: half of your headcount will be in sales at $10m, $50m, or $100m in revenue. This regular interaction ensures that both teams are aligned on priorities and helps prevent last-minute disruptions. This means building a sales org requires a different approach.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 259

Tom 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. Over the weekend, I analyzed Roger’s data to answer this question. First, let’s look at layoffs by day. Friday spike to more than 1800.

Sales Recruiting 310

Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 310

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 22, 2023

B2B companies have reduced headcount to a greater extent than at any time since 2020. The current wave of layoffs, a difficult component of the innovation boom/bust cycle, differs from the previous years’ dynamics. In the last three years, B2C startups’ ratio of layoffs have dwarfed B2B layoffs. In 2020, B2C companies cut 8.8x

B2C 262

B2C B2B Headcount Innovation 262

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2021

But in theory, higher quotas should “pay” for specialization so in theory, this won’t impact headcount too much. But in practice it often adds 20% or so to the headcount in the model. Fifth, the more specialized the sales process is, the more folks you’ll need. SDRs, BDRs, etc. 2 Managers. = 22 heads /.75

Scale 300

Scale Sales Hiring Headcount Sales 300

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 11, 2022

And they’ll be able to do this efficiently, without increasing headcount or hours logged. Of course, we’re acutely aware that many businesses are operating with less headcount, resources, and bandwidth than before so we narrowed down our advice to the five essentials for driving true bottom-line impact.

Headcount 237

Headcount Customer Support Strategy Branding 237

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2024

They did layoffs and froze headcount. 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 235

Headcount Finance Startup Trends 235

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 17, 2023

Like the Devops movement, the Dataops movement aims to scale the use of data within companies without increasing the headcount of the data team. On December 14th we welcomed Philip Zelitchenko , VP of Data from ZoomInfo, to talk about how he has built this discipline within his team & it was fascinating. The video is here.

Data 200

Data Government Scale Headcount 200

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Keeping headcount flat got everyone to be more efficient. Adding Back Sales Capacity Now. I.e., Hiring More Reps. This is a theme we’ll see accelerate the coming months and year. Salesforce also just announced its accelerating hiring again. But you can be too efficient in sales. Samsara is scaling up sales faster now again.

Sales Hiring 252

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Engineering 252

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2024

Until recently, founders would describe their growth rate by how fast they were growing their company headcount. What’s the #1 bit of advice you’d give to SaaS founders today? My advice is to keep the bar high. In addition, recent advancements in automation are making it possible to keep the bar higher for longer when scaling teams. #4.

Scale 219

Scale Headcount Travel B2B 219

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 6, 2022

Sales-lead teams cut headcount when account executives don’t attain numbers. Some about the data: PLG companies R&D spend hasn’t produced new business at the same rate as a dollar invested in sales & marketing post-Covid. Engineering teams do this to a lesser extent.

Headcount 287

Headcount Market Research Acquisition Education 287

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2022

Headcount up 7%, while revenue is up 37%. But that only increases total headcount 7% which revenues went up 37%. That transition doesn’t happen overnight for legacy customers. 30% of their revenues are still from customers running Jira and friends on their own servers. But it’s now finally in decline, shrinking 12%. #5.

Scale 310

Scale Marketplace as a Service Headcount Cloud 310

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

The headcount and other ongoing operating costs do add to expenses and hit earnings, however. If the acquisition fails years down the road, that Goodwill may need to be written off, and impact earnings for a quarter as a one-time expense. But even there, it’s years later, and a one-off expense.

Acquisition 252

Acquisition Investment Headcount Banking 252