INDUSTRY INSIGHTS YOUR PEERS ARE READING
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. MORE
This enables the team to deliver high-touch service across all of their accounts, without the need to significantly grow their headcount . How to Pro actively Engage Clients and Automate Your High Touch Service – A Success Story . MORE
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. MORE
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. MORE
But specializing across the sales process will take more headcount. MORE
In a fast-paced environment where things like onboarding, headcount plans, comp, demo practice, deal strategy, and lots of other revenue-generating activities are top of mind and rapidly changing, it can be easy to lose sight of what matters most to people. MORE
But it’d be far more effective to share how Snapt uses Custom Bots to qualify and book meetings at scale, without additional headcount. In sales, the ability to connect with leads in real time can’t be understated. MORE
How to Scale without Scaling Headcount. To ensure you success function scales without scaling your headcount, make sure everyone in the company is bought into the success mindset. Top 15 Takeaways from Pulse Europe 2018. MORE
Imagine you work at a startup that is growing headcount 125% year over year. Startups are business machines engineered to grow quickly. The forces of hypergrowth exert enormous strain on every aspect of the company. Internal break all the time as the company moults into a new skin. This is one of the most important things to keep in mind when hiring. MORE
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. MORE
The difference in valuation afforded to companies which grow revenues by leveraging technology rather than growing headcount can be 10x! Hortonworks filed their S-1 last week. Reading through the document, I noticed the company had quite a substantial fraction of professional services revenue; 41% of trailing 12 month revenue is services. MORE
Financial Plan This template helps you create a full financial plan that includes everything from revenue modeling to costs projections and headcount planning. (As you can see, I really like placeit.net :) ) In case you haven't started to think about your plan for 2017 yet, now's the time. MORE
Leveraging automation is not only interesting, but important - after all, if a SaaS company’s headcount growth exceeds revenue growth, it impacts its ability to invest in product, and if that happens, things can start to go awry. MORE
The number of employees when things get particularly troublesome are three, 10, 30, 100, 300 and 1,000 - before company headcount hits these milestones you’ll need to rethink how you operate. I’ve been working within the software as a service (SaaS) industry for more than five years now. MORE
When is the right time to increase sales headcount for a SaaS startup? It is one of the most strategic decisions for early-stage business to make given the amount of effort and expense involved in building, managing and scaling a sales team. While there is no single absolute sign, neither qualitative nor quantitative, these are some of the signals I have found indicate it might be a good time to scale sales. First, the pipeline to quota ratio exceeds 6X. MORE
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. MORE
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. MORE
What’s the secret to scaling without adding IT headcount? Altitude 2019 was our biggest and best customer conference yet. This year, 270 attendees joined us in San Francisco (with some even flying in from Estonia, Sweden, and France). Over 2.5 MORE
At this scale, the economics of sales training are plain to see: less headcount required to attain the same bookings run rate. Sales leaders consistently underinvest in sales team training and development. As SaaS startups scale, sales execution becomes the most tangible metric of a business’ success, and the one by which the business’ health is benchmarked. Not to mention how the head of sales is evaluated. When is the right time to invest in sales training? MORE
As you can see in the spreadsheet and in the chart, based on these assumptions your total sales headcount increases from 2 to 9 in year 2 and from 9 to 30 in year 3. PS: As you can see in the chart below, there's a 1:1 correlation (approximately) between ARR and sales headcount. MORE
Even without a clear understanding of her funnel, she can probably estimate the impact of a change in headcount accurately. Have you noticed the disconnect between how executives talk about Sales Development and how they treat Sales Development leaders? MORE
Customer success teams must justify the investment of building a CS team, often at the expense of headcount in another team. Constrained by headcount budgets and burn requirements, startup leadership teams often must choose between hiring an additional sales person or investing in a customer success person, for example. MORE
Besides working through your budget, marketing programs, headcount, and whatever else you need to have in place when the new year rolls around, I’d suggest you add another item: Review your value proposition and messages. I'll start by apologizing. MORE
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. MORE
Of course, headcount is always a sensitive topic, so start small to show your executives what is possible. If executed right, the headcount is truly an investment. In this article, you’ll learn how to structure your sales development (SDR) team for maximum efficiency and scalability. Sales leaders, read on! The only easy day was yesterday.”. Navy SEALs. This is one of the most famous principles of the U.S. Navy SEALs. MORE
To account for that, you can insert potential and actual dollar values in place of the headcount: Customer Renewal Rate = Actual Renewal Value ÷ Potential Renewal Value X 100. Renewal is about a consistent revenue basis. The rate at which your customers extend their relationship with you determines how fast and how far your enterprise can grow. As such, being able to accurately calculate your renewal rate gives you insight into your customer success team’s performance. MORE
When I started, they had a big growth plan as far as headcount, but they were a little bit looser on processes and cadences and things like that framework I was talking about. We’re just not there yet, so I don’t want to really grow headcount yet. MORE
Sales & Marketing spend: headcount and discretionary. Revenue-based financing is quickly becoming a popular way for startups to raise funds without sacrificing equity. This is how it works. This is a guest post by Brian Parks, Managing Partner at Bigfoot Capital. MORE
The continued support of their investors has underscored the market potential and has led the crew to expand their partner ecosystem and double their headcount across engineering, sales, and marketing. Hello, my pals. MORE
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. The post 5 Ways to Keep Your Sales Machine Efficient While Scaling Headcount appeared first on Sales Hacker. MORE
Over this time, our headcount has grown by over 10x, and our revenue has grown by over 60x. Successful customers are happy customers. Happy customers stick around and recommend your company to their friends. MORE
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. MORE
What’s the secret to scaling without adding IT headcount? Altitude 2019 was our biggest and best customer conference yet. This year, 270 attendees joined us in San Francisco (with some even flying in from Estonia, Sweden, and France). Over 2.5 MORE
The difference in valuation afforded to companies which grow revenues by leveraging technology rather than growing headcount can be 10x!” — Tomasz Tunguz. Editor’s Note: This article was first posted on the Brooke Goodbary blog here. . MORE
Despite the exponential growth they’ve gone through, Stripe have been refreshingly conservative about how quickly they grown the company from a headcount perspective. We are a very engineering-centric company, so 50% of headcount is always going to be on engineering. MORE
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. MORE
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. MORE
And in a fast-growing startup which doubles headcount every year and where each individual employee can have a much bigger impact than in a large enterprise, it's even more important that everyone is on the same page. MORE
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. MORE
The new Customer Success Software Momentum Grid from G2 showcases CS solutions with the highest growth trajectory on a product’s user satisfaction, online presence, and employee headcount growth over the last year. MORE
If you have open headcount for Q1 be interviewing in Q4. Behind headcount equals behind plan. It’s two weeks until December. MORE
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. MORE
With so many organizations using basic triggers and sequences, a non-personalized email about funding, headcount growth, or a new office location is not enough to get through to your prospects. MORE
Or extra headcount? As a sales manager, your success is determined by the success of your reps. But, unfortunately, a lot of reps out there are barely hitting quota. In fact, the majority of today’s sales teams consist of average performers. MORE
Headcount Related Topics 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.
Tom 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.
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. The post 5 Ways to Keep Your Sales Machine Efficient While Scaling Headcount appeared first on Sales Hacker.
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.
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.
Tom 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.
SaaStr
OCTOBER 6, 2019
But specializing across the sales process will take more headcount.
|
InsightSquared
SEPTEMBER 27, 2019
With so many organizations using basic triggers and sequences, a non-personalized email about funding, headcount growth, or a new office location is not enough to get through to your prospects.
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.
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.
Tom 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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
ChurnZero
AUGUST 23, 2019
The new Customer Success Software Momentum Grid from G2 showcases CS solutions with the highest growth trajectory on a product’s user satisfaction, online presence, and employee headcount growth over the last year.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 14, 2014
Customer success teams must justify the investment of building a CS team, often at the expense of headcount in another team. Constrained by headcount budgets and burn requirements, startup leadership teams often must choose between hiring an additional sales person or investing in a customer success person, for example.
ChurnZero
SEPTEMBER 10, 2019
This enables the team to deliver high-touch service across all of their accounts, without the need to significantly grow their headcount . How to Pro actively Engage Clients and Automate Your High Touch Service – A Success Story .
The Angel VC
JUNE 25, 2015
As you can see in the spreadsheet and in the chart, based on these assumptions your total sales headcount increases from 2 to 9 in year 2 and from 9 to 30 in year 3. PS: As you can see in the chart below, there's a 1:1 correlation (approximately) between ARR and sales headcount.
Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth
JULY 24, 2018
The number of employees when things get particularly troublesome are three, 10, 30, 100, 300 and 1,000 - before company headcount hits these milestones you’ll need to rethink how you operate. I’ve been working within the software as a service (SaaS) industry for more than five years now.
ChurnZero
NOVEMBER 16, 2018
How to Scale without Scaling Headcount. To ensure you success function scales without scaling your headcount, make sure everyone in the company is bought into the success mindset. Top 15 Takeaways from Pulse Europe 2018.
Tom Tunguz
AUGUST 18, 2018
Imagine you work at a startup that is growing headcount 125% year over year. Startups are business machines engineered to grow quickly. The forces of hypergrowth exert enormous strain on every aspect of the company. Internal break all the time as the company moults into a new skin. This is one of the most important things to keep in mind when hiring.
The Angel VC
NOVEMBER 23, 2016
Financial Plan This template helps you create a full financial plan that includes everything from revenue modeling to costs projections and headcount planning. (As you can see, I really like placeit.net :) ) In case you haven't started to think about your plan for 2017 yet, now's the time.
BetterCloud
OCTOBER 21, 2019
What’s the secret to scaling without adding IT headcount? Altitude 2019 was our biggest and best customer conference yet. This year, 270 attendees joined us in San Francisco (with some even flying in from Estonia, Sweden, and France). Over 2.5
BetterCloud
OCTOBER 21, 2019
What’s the secret to scaling without adding IT headcount? Altitude 2019 was our biggest and best customer conference yet. This year, 270 attendees joined us in San Francisco (with some even flying in from Estonia, Sweden, and France). Over 2.5
Sales Hacker
FEBRUARY 13, 2018
Of course, headcount is always a sensitive topic, so start small to show your executives what is possible. If executed right, the headcount is truly an investment. In this article, you’ll learn how to structure your sales development (SDR) team for maximum efficiency and scalability. Sales leaders, read on! The only easy day was yesterday.”. Navy SEALs. This is one of the most famous principles of the U.S. Navy SEALs.
Tom Tunguz
JUNE 6, 2016
When is the right time to increase sales headcount for a SaaS startup? It is one of the most strategic decisions for early-stage business to make given the amount of effort and expense involved in building, managing and scaling a sales team. While there is no single absolute sign, neither qualitative nor quantitative, these are some of the signals I have found indicate it might be a good time to scale sales. First, the pipeline to quota ratio exceeds 6X.
Sales Hacker
JULY 31, 2019
In a fast-paced environment where things like onboarding, headcount plans, comp, demo practice, deal strategy, and lots of other revenue-generating activities are top of mind and rapidly changing, it can be easy to lose sight of what matters most to people.
Sales Hacker
MAY 7, 2018
Or extra headcount? As a sales manager, your success is determined by the success of your reps. But, unfortunately, a lot of reps out there are barely hitting quota. In fact, the majority of today’s sales teams consist of average performers.
Totango
APRIL 23, 2019
To account for that, you can insert potential and actual dollar values in place of the headcount: Customer Renewal Rate = Actual Renewal Value ÷ Potential Renewal Value X 100. Renewal is about a consistent revenue basis. The rate at which your customers extend their relationship with you determines how fast and how far your enterprise can grow. As such, being able to accurately calculate your renewal rate gives you insight into your customer success team’s performance.
Tom Tunguz
DECEMBER 11, 2016
At this scale, the economics of sales training are plain to see: less headcount required to attain the same bookings run rate. Sales leaders consistently underinvest in sales team training and development. As SaaS startups scale, sales execution becomes the most tangible metric of a business’ success, and the one by which the business’ health is benchmarked. Not to mention how the head of sales is evaluated. When is the right time to invest in sales training?
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
DECEMBER 3, 2013
Besides working through your budget, marketing programs, headcount, and whatever else you need to have in place when the new year rolls around, I’d suggest you add another item: Review your value proposition and messages. I'll start by apologizing.
OpenView Labs
OCTOBER 1, 2019
The difference in valuation afforded to companies which grow revenues by leveraging technology rather than growing headcount can be 10x!” — Tomasz Tunguz. Editor’s Note: This article was first posted on the Brooke Goodbary blog here. .
The Angel VC
DECEMBER 14, 2013
And in a fast-growing startup which doubles headcount every year and where each individual employee can have a much bigger impact than in a large enterprise, it's even more important that everyone is on the same page.
Inside Intercom
APRIL 4, 2019
Despite the exponential growth they’ve gone through, Stripe have been refreshingly conservative about how quickly they grown the company from a headcount perspective. We are a very engineering-centric company, so 50% of headcount is always going to be on engineering.
Inside Intercom
DECEMBER 21, 2018
But it’d be far more effective to share how Snapt uses Custom Bots to qualify and book meetings at scale, without additional headcount. In sales, the ability to connect with leads in real time can’t be understated.
Inside Intercom
AUGUST 29, 2019
When I started, they had a big growth plan as far as headcount, but they were a little bit looser on processes and cadences and things like that framework I was talking about. We’re just not there yet, so I don’t want to really grow headcount yet.
Sales Hacker
MAY 17, 2019
Even without a clear understanding of her funnel, she can probably estimate the impact of a change in headcount accurately. Have you noticed the disconnect between how executives talk about Sales Development and how they treat Sales Development leaders?
OpenView Labs
MARCH 10, 2019
Over this time, our headcount has grown by over 10x, and our revenue has grown by over 60x. Successful customers are happy customers. Happy customers stick around and recommend your company to their friends.
Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth
JUNE 26, 2018
Leveraging automation is not only interesting, but important - after all, if a SaaS company’s headcount growth exceeds revenue growth, it impacts its ability to invest in product, and if that happens, things can start to go awry.
ProfitWell
MARCH 27, 2019
The continued support of their investors has underscored the market potential and has led the crew to expand their partner ecosystem and double their headcount across engineering, sales, and marketing. Hello, my pals.
Chart Mogul
AUGUST 15, 2019
Sales & Marketing spend: headcount and discretionary. Revenue-based financing is quickly becoming a popular way for startups to raise funds without sacrificing equity. This is how it works. This is a guest post by Brian Parks, Managing Partner at Bigfoot Capital.
Tom Tunguz
NOVEMBER 19, 2014
The difference in valuation afforded to companies which grow revenues by leveraging technology rather than growing headcount can be 10x! Hortonworks filed their S-1 last week. Reading through the document, I noticed the company had quite a substantial fraction of professional services revenue; 41% of trailing 12 month revenue is services.
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