OPEXEngine

APRIL 12, 2022

The other day a founder asked me about interviewing because a candidate had described me as “a great interviewer,” and she wanted to know why. I find interviewing and recruiting difficult, have made plenty of mistakes over the years, and the consequences of those mistakes are invariably painful. Use work test samples.

Sales Recruiting 40

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Finance 40

OpenView Labs

APRIL 29, 2021

OpenView, Work-Bench , Primary Venture Partners , and Lerer Hippeau just hosted the fourth and final session of SaaS Growth Camp—a series for the firms’ portfolio companies tailored to the complex ideas behind SaaS growth and go-to-market strategies. Recruiting top talent is the common denominator across all scaling startups.

Sales Recruiting 81

Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale 81

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Hiring a VP of Sales isn’t new, but the conversations have evolved as the world has. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive.

Sales Hiring 146

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 146

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2021

Flock Safety’s Founder and CEO, Garrett Langley, and its VP of Growth, Alex Latraverse, know a bit about sales. Enough to go from 0 to 100 sales reps in about 18 months — and they’re looking to be well beyond 100 by the end of this month. The three things that led to ramping up sales at Flock Safety were: Achieving product-market fit.

Sales Recruiting 177

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 177

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

It’s a strange hiring market out there especially at early-stage companies. This week, I’m breaking down what we’re seeing and hearing in the market and what candidates can do to differentiate in the hiring process. Nailing the interview process: Here’s one way to nail the interview process once the interview is landed: 1.

Interviewing 87

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 87

SaaStr

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Conversations about the state of the SaaS market in 2022 are everywhere, and it can seem overwhelming for entrepreneurs and business leaders to make sense of everything. In the first session of the eye-opening CRO Confidential series, SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin interviews Founders Fund Partner Sam Blond about the current economic climate.

Sales Recruiting 217

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Leadership Interviewing 217

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development.

Sales Hiring 247

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 247

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2022

So we’ve talked so much over the years on SaaStr on how to hire a great VP of Sales, the difference they’ll make, and how the level-up comes quickly. And VPs of Sales do, too. Don’t hire a VP of Sales that isn’t truly comfortable selling to your buyer persona, especially in B2D and fintech. Be careful.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 263

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Chuck is the co-founder of Blueprint Expansion , a GTM roles recruiting firm that has helped over 50 VC-backed companies make amazing Sales, Marketing, & Customer Success hires. By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase.

Sales Hiring 104

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 104

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. On the marketing side, people got ‘lazy’ under the guise of, “Let’s increase our paid online ad spend and turn that dial up and spend more.”

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 264

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2020

Founder-led sales generally stops scaling around $1m-$2m ARR. A sign to hire a real sales leader. Over the years at SaaStr we’ve talked a lot about hiring a great VP of Sales, when it works, when it does, and how it moves the needle. To stick with founder-led sales longer than most folks do, i.e. past $1.5m-$2m ARR or so.

Sales Hiring 295

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 295

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 16, 2019

So if scaling your sales organization is a priority in 2020, here are the things you need to be aware of to make sure you do so successfully. Marketing and candidate experience will be table stakes. The candidate experience during the entire interview process is a crucial piece of this puzzle as well.

Sales Recruiting 53

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Trends 53

User Pilot

AUGUST 21, 2023

In this ultimate list of product manager interview questions, we have tried to simplify the process of hiring great product managers. Product management encompasses the entire SaaS lifecycle from ideation to launch and everything that follows. How would you manage a team that works across time zones and remotely?

Interviewing 98

Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team Management Sales Hiring 98

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

And age-ism is going to cut out some of the very, very best talent in the market. Still, an overall deep-dive on lessons learned the second and third time around: Not Easier : Recruiting – Not Easier. In the early days, especially as a first-time founder, I thought I could recruit anyone and everyone. Maybe more.

Sales Recruiting 334

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 334

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 6, 2020

The number one thing I grade candidates on is how well did they run their sales process on me? If you’re a job candidate in sales, you should be managing your job application process just like you’d run your sales process with a potential customer. Again, I’m running this like a sales process.

Sales Recruiting 71

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Consulting 71

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

Your best sales reps can close so much more than your average rep. Move the bottom 10% out and give the best leads to your top performer, and watch sales go up 20%. The best VPs of Sales design comp plans so the team never wants to leave. You should be striving for zero voluntary attrition on your sales team.

Sales Recruiting 223

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 223

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 26, 2019

” Prioritizing women is sales and other business sectors continues to be a challenge for businesses, but recruiting women of color—that’s a greater challenge yet. Key Issues in Hiring Saleswomen of Color: Women in sales is challenging. Having women in sales is important. Women in Sales: It’s Challenging.

Sales Recruiting 55

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Company Culture 55

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 30, 2023

The first goal of sales at a startup isn’t to bring in revenue — it’s to get customer feedback. I’ve spent the last year working to find product-market fit for my startup, Dock. I’ve used our sales process to iterate our way to product market-fit and wanted to share what I’ve learned along the way.

Sales Recruiting 88

Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 88

User Pilot

APRIL 19, 2024

Looking for the best way to do market research? From framing your initial question to extracting valuable customer insights, we’ll walk you through the lean market research process step-by-step. Get ready to empower your decisions with real-world market intelligence. Why should you do market research? The outcome?

Market Research 52

Market Research Sales Recruiting Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 52

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. Great at marketing. Do at least 20–30 customer interviews before you start writing too much code. If you hire someone to do the first sales, you’ll never understand it yourself. Hire a great marketer early.

Sales Hiring 297

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 297

Incredo

APRIL 8, 2020

But human nature and the will to move forward help companies even in the hardest times to come up with creative initiatives to spread the word about their companies. We interviewed tens of SaaS companies worldwide to understand what special campaigns they launched or how they tried to help people in general.

Sales Recruiting 269

Sales Recruiting Travel SaaS Sales Hiring 269

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

The reality is that the best LinkedIn users are marketing machines. I've built real friendships with the best B2B marketers in the world and I’m on a text-message basis with countless founders, CEOs, VPs, and executives. They use the platform as a content distribution system, not a resume builder. Quantify your results.

Sales Recruiting 134

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 134

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

What should you look for in an Enterprise rep vs. a Mid-Market rep? Solving High Volume, Low Conversion at Lattice Dini Mehta joined Lattice at $3M in revenue when it had just 10 people in seat for Go-To-Market and 7 salespeople. How do you diagnose and solve churn? From a GTM execution standpoint, they weren’t focused.

Scale 238

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 238

Sales Hacker

JUNE 17, 2020

According to statistics from our sales professional user base here at RepVue , only 46.7% of sales professionals globally are achieving quota. And it’s even fewer in software sales organizations. And that’s not where hiring managers should be spending their time during the candidate evaluation process. Not so fast.

Sales Hiring 81

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Sales 81

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 22, 2020

If you think sales is a simple job, I have a few hundred professional connections who would like a word with you. 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.

Sales Hiring 76

Sales Hiring Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 76

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

How do product managers identify market gaps? TL;DR Market gaps are the disparities between what customers need and want , and what the market can deliver. A market gap can be caused by missing functionality or poor user experience. A market gap can be caused by missing functionality or poor user experience.

Underperforming Technical Team 105

Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Market Research Outsourced Development 105

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

As he told me a few days ago, he has observed the lack of sales management and sales execution skills as one of the most consistent deficiencies limiting the potential of early stage SaaS companies. Sales execution deficiency manifests itself at roughly the same time as product market fit.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Compensation 183

Sales Hacker

APRIL 21, 2020

When I first wrote this article, we were in a very different place, with unemployment at an all-time low and sales hiring a top priority. You’ll be able to download the interview scorecard template that I use with my clients. Man oh man, how the world has changed so quickly! The cherry on top? If you’re a job seeker, never fear!

Sales Hiring 94

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 94

Sales Hacker

MAY 6, 2021

From B2C consumer-focused tech to the next B2B enterprise cloud giants, B2B, and B2C technology companies are springing up left and right and sprinting toward multi-billion dollar valuations (whether on the private or public markets) faster than ever. What’s the difference between a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)?

VP of Engineering 93

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 93

Sales Hacker

MARCH 30, 2023

If you’re new to sales (or don’t have an economics degree), decoding the sales compensation plan on offer can make your head spin. There are 3 key questions you must ask your hiring manager or recruiter when offered a sales role to maximize your earnings and career potential. Variable OTE. Quota attainment.

Compensation 75

Compensation Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 75

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

If you’re looking to move up the ladder into a sales leadership role, your resume is key to getting your foot in the door. I’m the founder of iCareerSolutions, a 20x award-winning resume-writing company, specializing in executive and C-suite level resumes that get my clients high-level interviews. Identify market trends.

Leadership 77

Leadership Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 77

OpenView Labs

JANUARY 31, 2022

It is no surprise that 2022’s job market is just as hot as 2021 , and the competition for talent is more saturated than ever. Do they understand your GTM motion (enterprise vs mid-market/SMB)? Most candidates in the market are passively looking (if at all). Make a clear plan for your interview process .

Sales Hiring 60

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting SMB 60

OpenView Labs

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

Think of the tech job market like a queue at a busy taxi stand. Faced with one of the hottest recruiting markets in recent memory, many newly remote tech companies have dramatically expanded their hiring borders. Prioritize building out your product team over bringing on sales and marketing hires.

Sales Hiring 68

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Interviewing 68

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Is it going to come from the Sales and Marketing budget, or General Administrative budget? Where does Sales, Support, Training & Education play and what does the handoff look like? Your charters must dictate how you hire as the skill sets you recruit need to align with, and complement, your charters.

VP of Engineering 98

VP of Engineering Customer Success Sales Hiring Interviewing 98

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

Whether you need to hire dozens of sales reps in the next few months or you’re a scrappy startup and need your first three sales hires, building a business will nearly always involve hiring for sales. Although hiring is the hardest job we have to do as sales leaders, it’s certainly one of the most important tasks to get right.

Sales Hiring 139

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Sales Enablement 139

OpenView Labs

MARCH 8, 2021

B2B sales involves one business selling its product to another business. Those with experience in both B2B and B2C sales know that B2B is a lot tougher—the deals are bigger, there’s often more than one decision-maker, and the competition is intense. For all those reasons, hiring and management must be on point.

Sales Hiring 80

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting B2B 80

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

You might have a few account executives and a sales leader in place; maybe some revenue and a handful of customers. The sales team costs real money, and the question before the company is: how do you know what quota plan to assign to the account executives? Stage 1: Management by Objectives.

Compensation 148

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 148