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. If you don’t instill this practice early on, it’s very difficult to add later.

Sales Hiring 258

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 258

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 16, 2024

Today, IT budgets are roughly broken down into: ~50% headcount / personnel, ~25% software, ~15% hardware, and ~10% outsourcing / consultants. As software grows as a percentage, I think we see headcount / outsourcing shrinking. I’m certainly not the first (or thousandth.) to have this view, but I wanted to flesh out why.

Outsourcing Services 274

Outsourcing Services Cloud Software Outsourced Development 274

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 31, 2023

This innovation reinvigorates very early-stage IPOs. But the overwhelming desire for the US to continue to lead the innovation wave it started creates safe harbors , the same provisions which enabled the web to flourish, are applied to AI. We see the first broadly successful tokens with dividends (likely outside the US).

AI Search 240

AI Search Headcount Scale AI 240

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

CIOs now understand that if they don’t figure out how to use automation as a lever to improve margins, customer experiences, and innovation with fewer resources, they’ll be the ones without a job at the end of the year. The most interesting innovation is often from the teams that understand the problem the most.

Generative AI 292

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 292

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. Right Market Jeff loves joining companies during a downturn because a lot of innovation and creativity comes from it.

Headcount 272

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 272

Totango

APRIL 6, 2023

Our latest platform enhancements and solutions help you scale without needing to add headcount, and make CS a company-wide initiative that drives predictable revenue growth. And stay tuned for some exciting announcements on Totango product innovations coming soon!

Innovation 92

Innovation Scale Revenue Technical Review 92

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2024

One of the strategy changes is to say, “Hey if we turn up the innovation and actual product quality, can we ultimately get around having to spend all this money on advertising?” How good are you as an organization at planning, innovating, and thinking about business processes and then implementing them in your business?

AI Search 268

AI Search SaaS Advertising Sales Hiring 268

Payrix

APRIL 10, 2025

In todays competitive software market, forward-thinking trade and field service platforms are no longer asking if they should modernize their payment infrastructure, theyre working diligently to source the right payments partner to implement innovative solutions before their competitors beat them to the punch.

Payments 100

Payments Payment Services Outsourcing Services Payment Solutions 100

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 20, 2022

In the race to win a customer’s business, it’s not really about how good your product is – it’s how fast you keep innovating. Speed, the ability to move and improve, to iterate and innovate, is paramount, and if you listen to Intercom on Product regularly, this probably sounds familiar.

Underperforming Technical Team 249

Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Sales Hiring Scale 249

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 30, 2022

But these days, there are so many innovative and impactful tools that can massively streamline your workflows and help to set you up for success as you scale. This is especially important for small teams, where you need to operate at a scale far beyond your headcount (without burning out your team by working around the clock).

Scale 163

Scale Payment Services Startup AWS 163

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 17, 2024

Establishing effective yet efficient ratios requires aligning your CSM headcount with the mechanics of your customer lifecycle design including the definition of the CSM role in your company and the specific activities that achieve successful product adoption with your customers. Address feedback on performance and response times.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Systems Review Headcount Scale 52

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 24, 2018

It’s an age old question for anyone leading a customer support organization, the sort of challenge that requires continuous innovation as a company and its customer base expands. How do you scale a support organization without breaking the budget or killing the quality of the customer experience?

Scale 178

Scale Customer Support Scaling Strategy 178

Totango

JULY 26, 2022

This allows the entire company to innovate customer engagements so everyone owns and shares in the success of positive customer relationships. This allows you to enhance value and improve CX by utilizing the resources you already have rather than adding more headcount. Totango accomplishes this in a variety of ways. Dynamic Assignment.

Scale 117

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Customer Success 117

Clouded Judgement

MAY 24, 2024

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen… The Workday earnings call summarized it well: “But within the quarter, we experienced increased deal scrutiny as compared to prior quarters, and we are seeing customers committing to lower headcount levels on renewals compared to what we had expected.

Cloud 157

Cloud Software Headcount Scale 157

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.

Customer Success 100

Customer Success Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 100

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

The list below shows the different categories of mental model in this post: Planning Prioritisation Problem-Solving Innovation Getting Work Done Growth Economics Psychology Learning Planning 1. Innovation 14. Horizons Framework Another innovation model is the Horizons Framework developed by McKinsey. Source: McKinsey 17.

Underperforming Technical Team 215

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service 215

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 9, 2022

Sales leadership needs to understand capacity at the aggregate level to better assess revenue projections and headcount decisions. Model options to improve capacity where needed (enablement, coaching, marketing promotions, headcount, etc.). Related: Your template for effective 1:1 coaching | Sales Hacker.

Scale 117

Scale Headcount Sales Forecasting 117

ChurnZero

MAY 17, 2022

WASHINGTON , May 17, 2022 — ChurnZero , a leading Customer Success platform, has earned multiple accolades from business and SaaS industry groups for its product innovation and industry leadership. The company plans on doubling its headcount in 2022. ChurnZero has quickly become one of Washington, D.C.’s

Marketplace as a Service 98

Marketplace as a Service Technical Review Headcount Software Review 98

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

“The great thing about performance marketing is the ROI is really obvious, so you can justify increased spend and headcount based on the performance, and that’s what we’ve done” The first thing we did was build out a pretty robust performance marketing team. There is definitely an innovation in that space.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

BetterCloud

APRIL 24, 2025

Beyond security, the organization’s innovation pipeline stagnates. Looking to help your IT team without adding headcount? Overburdened IT staff, operating under constant pressure, are more prone to errors, overlooking critical security patches, or cutting corners in security protocols. Save your seat. Book a demo today.

Cybersecurity 52

Cybersecurity Artificial Intelligence Headcount Government 52

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 11, 2019

So often, when we think about investing in a support team, sometimes the conversation becomes about getting the headcount higher, higher, higher. But where else can you be investing outside of headcount to maintain that customer centricity? The pace of innovation is way up and to the right, currently. Michael: For sure.

Scale 188

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team 188

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 19, 2024

They’re creative, data-driven, customer-centric, innovative, and impactful. For the fifth year running, we’ve recognized five customer success teams who achieved remarkable results in one of five categoriesonboarding, adoption, renewals and expansion, advocacy, and innovation. Here’s who they are, and how they did it.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Scale Underperforming Technical Team Innovation 52

OpenView Labs

MAY 24, 2021

They’re truly committed to building innovative products that sell themselves. For private SaaS companies that do not publish their financials, you can alternatively compare R&D headcount with Sales and Marketing headcount using LinkedIn data as an approximation. Atlassian has an R&D:S&M ratio of 2.9:1.

Scale 98

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Benchmarks 98

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 21, 2024

Last year, much of enterprise genAI spend unsurprisingly came from “innovation” budgets and other typically one-time pools of funding. In 2024, however, many leaders are reallocating that spend to more permanent software line items; fewer than a quarter reported that genAI spend will come from innovation budgets this year.

Generative AI 145

Generative AI Enterprise AI Artificial Intelligence 145

Stax

AUGUST 16, 2024

One of the best ways for SaaS businesses to sustain growth, improve profitability, and drive innovation is to offer value-added services. We’ve seen trimming of headcount. Balance innovation with integration. They’re willing to take things slower, mature their business strategies, and focus on reducing debt overhangs.

Payments 88

Payments Embedded Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 88

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

We’ve evolved into the leading resource for B2B salespeople who are trying to figure out how to innovate, evolve and modernize their sales processes. You need to build an efficient sales team…you can’t just throw money or headcount at things. We helped Jason Lemkin start SaaStr Annual.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

Sales Hacker

MAY 19, 2021

Since Eric is in charge of headcount growth and innovations, Katie needs to nurture this lead and be top of mind when he is ready to talk. .” Katie received this response from Eric: This falls into the bad timing bucket but is still a positive reply. Katie will take a nurture approach moving forward.

Data 103

Data Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Sales Funnel 103

Sales Hacker

APRIL 5, 2021

While replicating something that is already working well might seem like the logical thing to do, it can harm innovation and growth, contributing to the development of teams that look and think alike. The term “culture fit” has become trendy with companies looking to hire candidates that match their most successful employees’ profiles.

Sales Hiring 119

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Company Culture Interviewing 119

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 15, 2020

Embodying Zapier’s mission to make teams more agile and innovative is the company’s customer support organization, focused on empowering their customers to be successful using automation in order to free up precious time to focus on important work.

Payments 118

Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payment Methods 118

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 2, 2020

SEP innovation will result in awesome breakthroughs to help sales teams engage in the optimal next best action in real-time.”. 10% of companies that have reduced headcount have reinvested the savings into new sales technologies. Conversational intelligence, forecasting, customer success and more will all ultimately live in one tool.

Scale 138

Scale Engagement Sales Sales Enablement 138

BetterCloud

OCTOBER 14, 2020

Daniel Brundige is the Director of IT at Namely , an HR, payroll, and benefits platform that’s used by some of the world’s most innovative and exciting companies in the world. That includes things like headcount, improving our tools, and rethinking how we handle unique situations. We didn’t have to change anything.

Headcount 98

Headcount Systems Review Leadership Travel 98

Sales Hacker

APRIL 12, 2022

Outreach is the first and only engagement, and intelligence platform built by revenue innovators for revenue innovators. That’s because you’re funneling your resources, both your headcount and your program spend, to those accounts that are a good fit for your organization, for your product and service.

Strategy 106

Strategy Marketing B2B Growth Marketing 106

ChurnZero

JANUARY 3, 2020

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.

Customer Success 69

Customer Success Venture Capital Software Review Technical Review 69

ChurnZero

JUNE 26, 2020

Innovation – Does the vendor prioritize product innovation and new feature releases and upgrades? Consider questions such as: Is additional headcount needed to support this solution, like a full-time admin or developer? Implementation – What time constraints is our team working against to launch the product?

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Software Review Software Scale 98

OpenView Labs

MAY 20, 2021

The same was true when I ran the People function at a software development consultancy that doubled its headcount to ~100 while reducing attrition from 40% to 5% voluntary in 18 months. I saw this as a client partner and then regional managing director at an eBusiness firm that scaled from 0 to 2,000 people in three years, organically.

Scale 98

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Software Review 98

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2020

Those customers are some of our most powerful references because we get to bring them in and they tell the story not only of what it’s been like to work with Talkdesk over many years, but they also get to tell our innovation story for us. So much of what Talkdesk sells on is innovation and trust.

Scale 184

Scale Payment Services Sales Hiring Payment Methods 184

BetterCloud

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Every fall, the SaaSOps community assembles at the Altitude conference to learn about the evolving digital workplace , hear from industry experts , and celebrate their most innovative peers. All five winners uniquely embody innovation, resourcefulness, positive impact, and personal commitment to the SaaSOps movement.

Headcount 52

Headcount Innovation compliance Interviewing 52