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 108

Payments Forecasting Payment Services Payment Solutions 108

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.

Machine Learning 140

Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Blockchain Benchmarks 140

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Yet competition and the exponential rate of change in software are pushing against that mission. Enter our philosophy of Run Less Software. Our chat covers the origins of Run Less Software, how it has evolved at scale, and how it differs from the equally valid approaches of other engineering teams.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

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

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

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

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

In a small way, a few of those age 10-20 skills I did acquire from starting a tiny software company then were what carried through to whatever success I’ve had. I’ve also invested in 24+ next-generation SaaS companies, mostly successes, and had a chance to watch and learn from them as well, with a new lens. I let those go.

Sales Recruiting 323

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 323

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 97

Investment Banking Social Media Customer Lifetime Value 97

FastSpring

DECEMBER 8, 2022

As a former agency owner, now the Chief Marketing Officer at FastSpring, David Vogelpohl has helped many software companies scale around the world. I interviewed him for insights into how to build a global growth strategy, especially when it comes to localization. This would have been downloadable software. And in what roles?

Payment Methods 78

Payment Methods Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Software Review 78

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

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.

Interviewing 100

Interviewing Venture Capital Banking Benchmarks 100

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

We never sustainably fell behind from what one could actually do with computing and software because of this—not being on-prem didn’t destroy us. If you can nail that for the category you’re in, it will be magic that makes SaaS so much more compelling than the prior era of on-prem software. Don’t neglect your existing customer base.

Scale 253

Scale Cloud Scaling Interviewing 253

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

In two one-hour interviews, FastSpring sales leaders Todd Stellfox and Tony Markov each interviewed Kurt about pricing strategies that work in volatile markets and beyond. Stream both interviews below and see highlights from each. How to Price a New Product.

Pricing 110

Pricing Payment Solutions Payment Services SaaS Payments 110

Valuize Consulting

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Scott has spent his entire career building and commercializing enterprise software which has generated billions of dollars in revenue. The two crucial components of that are the supplier and buyer, both of whom are equally invested in achieving some outcome. What might we do differently or better?

Interviewing 52

Interviewing Healthcare Enterprise Technology 52

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Do at least 20–30 customer interviews before you start writing too much code. That doesn’t mean a ton of custom software. Most SaaS companies invest early in sales, but wait on customer success. Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. Great at engineering. Great at marketing.

Sales Hiring 310

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 310

Valuize Consulting

JULY 15, 2021

Product Owners are at the center of software development in leading agile software companies. This exact same Product Owner role is critical to your success in adopting and realizing value from your investments in CS technology. Connecting Customer Success Strategy With Technology.

Technology 52

Technology Customer Success Interviewing Scale 52

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

JFrog is the pioneer of Continuous Software Release Management, or CSRM. In other words, they got first-hand experience of the pains of software development. The initial goal was actually not to build a company; rather, it was just to solve the highly complex problems of managing software updates and delivery. JFrog offered 11.6

New CTO 215

New CTO CTO Benchmarks Consulting 215

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2020

Q: What is a strategy you have employed as a software company to keep sales up during COVID-19? My favorite strategy looking across my portfolio of investments is not charging customer that right now are struggling. And it likely will make you more in the medium and long term. Haven’t seen this strategy fail yet.

Scale 176

Scale Interviewing Revenue Strategy 176

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 15, 2023

Despite experiencing exactly that, Sandbox VR founder Steve Zhao doubled down and invested all of his personal savings into the unproven business. 7 years and 1 bankruptcy later, Steve has built the world’s leading full-body VR experience with over 30 locations across the globe.

Interviewing 75

Interviewing Investment Software Business 75

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 270

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 270

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 20, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. ServiceNow CEO Commentary Bill McDermott gave an interview this week where he sounded very bullish on the year ahead. You can listen to the full interview in the link above (it’s short, only ~5 minutes). Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Interviewing Subscription Payment Features 130

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2023

For companies that already have customers, you can conduct interviews and surveys. If you had a magic wand and could change anything in our software, what would it be? Invest In Education — Make sure you’re educating customers, and it starts with one simple webinar. This is how you start creating your customer journey roadmap.

Scale 217

Scale Strategy Marketing Education 217

IT World

JANUARY 12, 2023

From 35% to 45% of companies are expected to use AI-based talent acquisition software and services to help select and interview job prospects in the coming year, according to two recent studies.

AI 92

AI Artificial Intelligence Acquisition Interviewing 92

OPEXEngine

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

OPEXEngine provides SaaS and Software companies with comprehensive and accurate analytics and benchmarks to help executives understand and improve operational performance. Investors and software company management need high quality and neutral benchmarks to assess their operational performance, reduce risk and improve efficiency.

Software Review 52

Software Review Benchmarks Technical Review Development Team Review 52

Trint

OCTOBER 1, 2021

Sam Role in Trint: Associate Software Engineer Time at Trint: 2.5 At my interview, I was excited about the culture at Trint and couldn’t wait to advance my career at Trint. years Responsibilities: Currently, I am building new features for users of our product. However, my time at Trint started in a totally different department.

Software Engineering 130

Software Engineering Engineering Interviewing Travel 130

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

They’ve made tons of great investments. The irony of that story is if that firm would’ve invested $1 million into Podium at that time, today it would be worth over $200 million. We’d never even worked in software. It’s pretty good, pretty good return on investment so far. They’re awesome.

Scale 118

Scale Sales Hiring Software Review Scaling 118

Valuize Consulting

AUGUST 18, 2020

Since 2015, the customer success (CS) domain has achieved a 176.54% year-over-year growth of CSM positions globally ( Gainsight, 2019 ), which comes predominantly from the software & IT industry. First things first, you need to have a detailed understanding of what each customer is expecting to achieve with your software product(s).

Customer Success 40

Customer Success Strategy Software Scale 40

Trint

MARCH 1, 2021

Invest in content automation and free your creative teams from laborious processes, so they can focus on high-level tasks. Researching your customer, preparing questions and the interview itself can take hours - and that’s before you can even think about starting the write-up. Trust us, your team will thank you. Take customer stories.

Technical Review 130

Technical Review Software Review Interviewing Communication 130

Valuize Consulting

AUGUST 2, 2021

The subscription model has exploded in the last decade and fundamentally changed how software companies operate, measure success metrics and engage with customers. Now, Customer Success is all about driving real outcomes and value with customers and ensuring that they’re getting the return on their investment.

VP of Engineering 52

VP of Engineering Interviewing Metrics Scale 52

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2021

It will be the largest non-vendor event in the world for business software, by far, and perhaps the one really Tier 1 B2B event this year. Secret #2: most CEOs do not want to be interviewed by their VC board members. This took me a while to figure out, but most successful CEOs do not want to be interviewed by their board members.

Interviewing 196

Interviewing Scaling B2B Investment 196

User Pilot

OCTOBER 29, 2023

Effective customer research techniques include interviews and focus groups as they allow you to collect qualitative feedback. Interviews and focus groups Interviews and focus groups with potential and existing customers are an effective way to assess their price sensitivity and identify the factors that influence it.

SaaS 105

SaaS Interviewing Pricing Market Research 105

Kellblog

AUGUST 13, 2019

This is a sister post to my recent one, Career Decisions: What to Look For in a Software Startup. That piece is all about what to look for when considering taking a job at a software startup. This piece is kind of the opposite: what to look out for when considering an executive job at a software startup. ”). [3]

Software Review 76

Software Review Startup Sales Hiring Software 76

OPEXEngine

JANUARY 10, 2023

This is where investing in technologies such as automation comes into play, said Jenny Herald, VP of product for strategy execution platform Quantive, formerly Gtmhub. Quantive offers products including objective key results (OKR) software to help companies improve business outcomes. Setting OKRs for tech investment.

Artificial Intelligence 52

Artificial Intelligence Finance Machine Learning Interviewing 52

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

You can collect feedback from your customer base via in-app surveys, feedback widgets, interviews, and by monitoring social media mentions and reviews. Interview existing customers Another good way to identify emerging market gaps is by interviewing your customers. Spotting market gaps: interview invite.

Underperforming Technical Team 105

Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Market Research Outsourced Development 105

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 16, 2018

Here’s a summary of the frameworks and theory that I’ve aggregated over a decade of investing in startups. In software, we typically see three pricing structures. 2 Part Tariff (2PT) - The analytics software has a base platform fee of $10,000 and each analytics event processed by the system costs $0.10

Pricing 236

Pricing Market Research Interviewing Product Marketing 236

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2022

At the SaaStr Europa 2022 event, Accel Partner Philippe Botteri interviewed PayFit CEO & Co-Founder Firmin Zocchetto to ask about his GTM strategy. . Founded in 2015, PayFit is a software company that empowers entrepreneurs and SMBs to digitize payroll and HR processes. billion.

SMB 192

SMB Sales Hiring Scale B2C 192

User Pilot

APRIL 19, 2024

Interviews. This involves collecting new data directly from your target audience using various methods, such as surveys , focus groups, and interviews. Interviews : Have one-on-one conversations to gather detailed information from individuals in your target audience. Focus groups. Product trials. Each method has its benefits.

Market Research 52

Market Research Sales Recruiting Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 52