SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

For an Investment That is Very Good, But Not Great. We settle when we don’t interview at least 30 candidates for every position. But that’s rare. It’s just so, so hard to truly build something huge and important. Good but not great founders don’t get you there. Good but not great traction?

Interviewing 245

Interviewing Investment Marketing 245

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2023

They spend most of their time on existing investments. Working with CEOs, recruiting for your existing investments, speaking, events, etc. Just doing VP interviews alone takes a lot of time if you do a lot of them. Best case, that leaves 30-35% of your time to look at new investments. 9 boards x 8 meetings a year x 0.5

Travel 222

Travel Interviewing Investment Business 222

Sales Hacker

APRIL 21, 2020

You’ll be able to download the interview scorecard template that I use with my clients. Part two of this scorecard series will help you create a sales interview scorecard to land that sales role you’ve been dreaming about. Who is involved in the interview process, onboarding process, and ongoing support and training process?

Sales Hiring 93

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 93

OpenView Labs

JANUARY 8, 2021

Great interview questions tell you who a person is, what motivates them, how they think and solve problems, and what they’d be like as a teammate. To help us all conduct better interviews, we asked some of the smartest leaders in SaaS to share their favorite questions. takes the cake as the worst question ever.

Interviewing 75

Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Scale 75

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

With nearly a full hour of Q&A with a phenomenal communicator as our guest, our “Off The Record” interview with Pat Grady (Partner at Sequoia Capital) surfaced a number of actionable insights for Founders. We’ve excerpted 10 key highlights from our interview below: #1 – Habits Of Exceptional CEOs.

Scale 284

Scale Company Culture Interviewing Finance 284

OpenView Labs

JULY 20, 2020

Interviewing is hard , and interviewing candidates for sales roles can be doubly so. Why is effective interviewing so important? Better interviewing = better sales teams. The following details some of my learnings around sales hiring and interviewing, as well as some tactical advice for candidates seeking sales roles.

Interviewing 73

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 73

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 22, 2020

By mastering your sales interview questions. As a longtime recruiting leader, I’ve worked with countless hiring managers looking to fill sales roles , and I’ve had a firsthand look at their interview process. 6 Sales Interview Questions to Find the Best Talent. How do you make sure your potential new hires have the right skills?

Sales Hiring 76

Sales Hiring Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 76

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 7, 2021

In the subscription economy, there’s no debate about whether or not to invest in Customer Success (CS); 70% of rapidly growing businesses say that Customer Success is extremely important ( Hubspot , 2017). When it comes to budget, organizations often haven’t established where the investment is coming from to fund the CS team.

VP of Engineering 98

VP of Engineering Customer Success Sales Hiring Interviewing 98

CustomerSuccessBox

OCTOBER 31, 2021

This is why we, at CustomerSuccessBox, thought of interviewing CS leaders to understand their perspective of QBR. An example of a major win I personally experienced was with a customer that was having internal difficulties in positioning the tool they had invested in. 2) The standard BR template can be adapted where necessary (e.g.

Interviewing 59

Interviewing Technical Review Scale Communication 59

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2023

It was a really great deep-dive on where venture is right now: Multiples have fallen back to 2015 and 2016 Why VCs can’t justify investing at $100m+ valuations in many cases today How optimism is bleeding out of VC, and realism has seeped in Why the “next round” often isn’t coming anymore, and how everything got inverted in (..)

Interviewing 204

Interviewing Investment SaaS Sales 204

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 26, 2024

This episode features interviews with payor and provider leaders about what they’re seeing and how they’re thinking about AI. Julie and Jay also authored an in-depth guide to commercializing AI in healthcare based on these interviews, available here.

AI 81

AI Healthcare Interviewing Investment 81

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

Candid VC Interviews – Session #1 . For our very first session of “Off The Record” we are honored to interview Pat Grady from Sequoia Capital. Pat’s track record includes investments in Amplitude, Drift, Hubspot, Okta, Qualtrics, ServiceNow, Snowflake, and Zoom. Partner | Sequoia. Follow Follow.

Venture Capital 214

Venture Capital Interviewing Investment SaaS 214

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2022

In my own portfolio , more of my investments had a record month in October than a rough month. They aren’t perfect, but given how many CIOs they interview — over 2,200 for this survey — they’re one of my favorite sources for what’s happening in 2023. But is spending? I’m not so sure. Be honest.

Forecasting 232

Forecasting Artificial Intelligence Software Business 232

Valuize Consulting

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

Secondly, you need to invest in technology that optimizes your team’s operations. When making an investment in CS technology, there will be upfront costs that can make a company question the importance of the investment, or perhaps cut corners to bring these costs down.

Scale 52

Scale Technical Review Technology Interviewing 52

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

But I hadn’t really thought of them as a proxy for all SaaS companies until I saw the CEO’s interview from a few weeks back. Vista’s investments are older, established SaaS companies with brands. The companies they own a majority of are collectively at $24B (!) in ARR, so it’s second only to Salesforce in SaaS.

Cybersecurity 296

Cybersecurity SMB Interviewing Enterprise 296

User Pilot

AUGUST 6, 2023

Following up on insightful customer feedback through email or interviews. Using customer relationship management (CRM) software to centralize your customer data is a worthwhile investment since it will prevent the formation of data silos and streamline the process of ensuring everyone has access to the information they need.

Investment 87

Investment Banking Social Media Customer Lifetime Value 87

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Hiring a VP of Sales Who Never Really Understands Your Product During The Interview Process Ok I know some even many will disagree, but I’m right here :). They never invest the time after they start, either. I recently interviewed a seasoned VP of Sales that lived in the South Bay in the Bay Area (San Jose).

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 221

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 16, 2021

In this interview, Naz shares her expertise on how to design a powerful CS strategy that equips your team with the right tools and resources to drive an exceptional employee experience and champion phenomenal growth. Empower your CSMs through efficient processes and a strategic plan for your CS technology investment.

Interviewing 52

Interviewing Customer Success Scale Government 52

OpenView Labs

MARCH 17, 2020

So I’m always on the lookout for provocative interview questions that help you learn much more about the person than just their canned answer to “What’s your biggest weakness?” ” I could see from his answer that this was someone who was investing in his own personal growth to be a better executive and leader.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Alison brings the perspective of all sides of a startup, from investing to SaaS to Cloud. For Google Workspace, they invested in expanding and building Google Meet and the rest of the workspace during 2020. It was interesting because they got to interview a bunch of customers and sales executives.

Cloud 229

Cloud Scale AWS AI 229

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 23, 2024

They also talked about the difficulties — and potential advantages — of selling into small businesses, taking alternative approaches to interviewing candidates, and the importance of keeping culture a vital part of a company as it scales. We’re experimenting with it, but we haven’t made a massive investment.

Payments 95

Payments Forecasting Payment Services Payment Solutions 95

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

Just note, you’ll need a strong balance sheet and stable investments — it takes money to make money. Market: products that aligned with her experience but that she was emotionally invested in and excited about. She used her interviews with investors to find out how they really felt about the product and their why.

Sales Hiring 228

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 228

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2023

I see very mediocre executives that came into startups I’ve invested in and really get nothing accomplished in 6-9 months or more … then trade that experience for another VP role. It’s time to do them again: First, have the best VP in that role you know interview the VP candidate you want to hire. Again and again.

Sales Hiring 223

Sales Hiring SaaS Interviewing Startup 223

Tom Tunguz

JULY 20, 2014

In fact, I found only two books: a textbook on private equity and venture capital by HBS professor Joshua Lerner, and an out-of-print collection of 32 VC interviews called “ Done Deals ,” published in September 2000. By mid-1999, $300M was being invested in Internet companies each week. Mitch Kapor, Accel. John Doerr.

Interviewing 100

Interviewing Venture Capital Banking Benchmarks 100

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Klue , which operates an AI-based competitive analysis platform, announced a $15 million Series A investment this week. The round also saw investments from angels like Frederic Kerrest, who is the co-founder of Okta. . The engagement may last a few months and involve extensive interviews and online research (yes, lots of Googling!)

AI 263

AI Consulting Interviewing Innovation 263

SaaStr

MAY 11, 2021

Your best bosses, VPs, mentors and others will give you “audibles” — quick bits of micro-advice during pitches, customer meetings, interviews, etc. If you aren’t investing 20% of your time, you’re doing less important things with that time. But embrace it if you want to be a CEO, a founder, and/or be a part of something bigger.

Scale 279

Scale Compensation Interviewing Scaling 279

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Overcoming challenges by optimizing for success In the early stages of setting up your SaaS business, it’s always a good idea to invest time thinking about the direction you want to take. Interview personally and define hiring values to build your team. And on to almost $300m ARR today! Listen to your team.

Sales Hiring 219

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 219

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2022

So as I’ve written about before, I’ve interviewed a ton of folks for CS roles in the past 12 months. Most for SaaStr itself (a lot of learnings there, but we have $30m+ of sponsors to keep happy), but also for a number of my investments and more. . — Jason Be Kind Lemkin (@jasonlk) October 9, 2022.

Customer Success 273

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 273

Sales Hacker

MARCH 8, 2018

Sales interviews are nerve-wracking. Hopefully, these 5 tips will help you avoid many of the pitfalls I see candidates falling into, and drastically improve how you prepare for a sales interview. Prepare For Your Next Sales Interview with These 5 Pro Tips. Understand that the sales interview process is grueling for a reason.

Sales Hiring 68

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 68

Brian Balfour

SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

Get the customizable Growth Interview Prep Worksheet that accompanies the post here. You walk into your growth interview after hours of preparation. But there’s one big problem you’ve overlooked - the interview isn’t actually about you. They all tie back to this one core error - thinking the interview is about you.

Interviewing 65

Interviewing Retention Metrics Social Media 65

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 3, 2023

I’ve worked for two, invested in many, seven of which became unicorns. I study them, benchmark them, analyze them, interview their leaders to understand their mechanics & share what I’ve learned on this blog. Thesis investing is at our core. I’ve spent my career as a student of startups. Theory is deliberately named.

Artificial Intelligence 153

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Blockchain Benchmarks 153

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2023

He’s invested and advised for over a dozen companies, and launched AccelerateHC seven years ago to help companies think through the organization they need and ultimately help them recruit high performing talent. Chuck lives in the Bay Area with his wife and has two daughters, a junior at UCLA and a freshman at UC Santa Barbara.

Sales Hiring 103

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 103

Valuize Consulting

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

In this interview, Scott delves into how the vendor-customer relationship needs to evolve in order to facilitate shared value and accountability and how to leverage technology to drive optimal value realization. The two crucial components of that are the supplier and buyer, both of whom are equally invested in achieving some outcome.

Interviewing 52

Interviewing Healthcare Enterprise Technology 52

User Pilot

MARCH 25, 2024

There are five steps to tracking and measuring user sentiments: Invest in the right sentiment analysis tools. Invest in the right sentiment analysis tools To accurately track user sentiment, you must invest in the right tools. Use in-app modals to invite users to interviews.

Social Media 100

Social Media Software Review Technical Review Artificial Intelligence 100

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2024

Leading him to some of his biggest mistakes when hiring: Not investing enough time. Mistake #5: Not Investing Early Enough in the Brand By investing early enough in branding, you lift demand gen higher. Databricks invested in the brand early, and it paid off with customers telling their story for them.

Sales Hiring 237

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Review Leadership 237

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

A mentor of mine suggested that I reframe my search to seek out companies that I would invest in, instead of the other way around. He told me, you can invest time, talent, or treasure. Unfortunately for me, I had little experience, not much talent, and lacked the treasure/money to invest. It seemed like the best investment! .

Scale 254

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 254

Valuize Consulting

JULY 15, 2021

This exact same Product Owner role is critical to your success in adopting and realizing value from your investments in CS technology. Jason is a Certified Product Manager who helps market-leading enterprise software companies maximize the impact, scale and efficiency of their CS technology investments.

Technology 52

Technology Customer Success Interviewing Scale 52