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 166

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 166

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2022

One of the first what How to Hire a Great VP of Sales at the New York Enterprise Tech Meet-Up (thank you to John Lehr and Work-Bench for setting this up). The Number One Thing You Can Do to Accelerate Your Business Post-Initial Traction is Hiring a Great VP of Sales. Make the revenue recur, I’m interested. Who is over 20?

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting 245

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

In SaaS, #1 most common misfire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” or variants thereof. Because in SaaS start-ups, it seems like the majority of first VP Sales fail.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2023

They hired their first VP of Sales with a wonderful pedigree and experience at some of the hottest startups. because they needed to rebuild the sales team. They rebuilt the sales team and closed some big deals. Lesson #3: Revenue Is Funding It’s harder and harder to raise money, and startups need to have more revenue.

Sales Recruiting 231

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 231

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 270

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 270

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

Justin Welsh, former SVP of Sales at PatientPop explains how he started in SaaS in 2009 as the second sales hire at Zocdoc. Justin used Sales Culture to grow a successful PatientPop team to 140 employees and 55 million in revenue. Justin Welsh | SVP Sales @ PatientPop. Want to see more content like this?

Sales Recruiting 251

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 251

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

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. Suddenly, people’s calendars went from six calls to two calls a day, but because they added more time to focus on qualified accounts, activity and conversion increased.

Scale 213

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 213

SaaStr

OCTOBER 28, 2022

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. In 2021, there was much less focus on efficiency and more on revenue metrics like ARR. The 2022 Economic Climate, Barriers to Growth, and Recruitment.

Sales Recruiting 192

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Leadership Interviewing 192

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

The backup of 2020 was great, 2021 comes in and somehow we have 600 unicorns and everyone can burn 500 million a year or have huge sales teams. ” There were no IPOs from December 2021 until Klaviyo a couple of months ago, but even Klaviyo still barely IPO’d at 800 million in revenue. It’s part of the job now.

Sales Recruiting 271

Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Software Review 271

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 sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales. Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022.

Sales Hiring 238

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 238

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2020

There’s a common thinking that sales teams should be relatively high churn. That the bottom 15-20% of the sales team almost has to churn each year, because it’s survival of the fittest. At Salesforce, at Box, the bottom end of the sales team churns out each year. First, do sales reps really compete with each other?

Scale 276

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 276

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

Sandi Lin, CEO and Co-founder of Skilljar, and Kathy Lord, its CRO, know a thing or two about Chief Revenue Officers. You might never have considered a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) because it’s not been a common role until very recently, and because you might not have the kind of revenue that needs its own manager.

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 221

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. Our Sponsor Today’s episode is sponsored by DemandBase , Demandbase helps B2B companies hit their revenue goals using fewer resources.

Sales Hiring 104

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 104

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

Sales Hacker

JUNE 10, 2021

There’s one thing recruiters are unanimous about. It’s that sales representatives are one of the toughest positions to hire for. The demand for sales reps is one of the highest of any job. Our recruitment team at EASI has gotten really good at this. It generated over $53 million in revenue just in 2020. Leadership.

Sales Hiring 104

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 104

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2022

VCs funded startups in a day, with limited diligence, sometimes at 100x revenue for the hottest of deals. What we used to do, from ‘05-‘19: Do 30 interviews per position, ideally. Then when everything super boomed in 2H’20 and ‘21 it went kind of like this: Do 3-4 solid interview for a position, not 30. Find 3 good ones.

Sales Hiring 241

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 241

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

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 23, 2023

P9 Panel on Hiring Sales Leaders — Founders Summit 2023 “You are going to fire your first sales manager!” — A lesson too many founders learn the hard way. The Founder isn’t willing to be the first salesperson Many of the best founders we work with don’t have a sales background and are either product or engineering focused.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

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 199

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 199

OpenView Labs

JULY 20, 2020

Interviewing is hard , and interviewing candidates for sales roles can be doubly so. Sales requires a mix of left- and right-brained qualities, and accurately evaluating a candidate’s skills is a challenge for hiring managers. Why is effective interviewing so important? How not to interview for sales.

Interviewing 73

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 73

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. Do at least 20–30 customer interviews before you start writing too much code. Somehow, find enough cash to make it 24 months to first real revenue. Even if on their own, they aren’t enough revenue to really pay for all that much.

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 294

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

” now we have a strong team, enough revenues to start taking things more seriously, and a global (if accidental) footprint. Still, an overall deep-dive on lessons learned the second and third time around: Not Easier : Recruiting – Not Easier. Sales — Not Easier. I know how sales works much, much better.

Sales Recruiting 309

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 309

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

MAY 6, 2021

What’s the difference between a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)? The VP of Sales. Great VPs of sales have gravitas and tact, command the room and hold their end of the table regardless of who is on the other side. Singular focus on sales. And this is exactly why you hired them!

VP of Engineering 93

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 93

User Pilot

MAY 30, 2024

They develop go-to-market strategies, plan product launches, and equip revenue teams with narratives, insights, and collateral to help them close deals. PMMs are more external-facing and work with customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, and customer success (alongside leadership).

Product Marketing 73

Product Marketing Interviewing Management Scale 73

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 used our sales process to iterate our way to product market-fit and wanted to share what I’ve learned along the way. Use sales conversations as a tool to get product feedback. So how do you get there?

Sales Recruiting 88

Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 88

SaaStr

DECEMBER 15, 2020

I meet with great VPs of Sales and Product in particular who are Ready. I’d like to recruit you to be a VP at one of my companies, but I get it. And another 6-12 to get any material revenues. Because you won’t have enough revenue just 12 months in … if you have any. It’s time. I get it.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting SaaS Interviewing Consulting 363

SaaStr

AUGUST 20, 2020

343: Kyle Parrish is the Head of Sales @ Figma, the company that helps teams create, test and ship better designs from start to finish. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: * How Kyle made his way into the world of SaaS and sales and came to be Head of Sales at one of the fastest-growing companies in Figma. What worked?

Sales Hiring 186

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Advisors 186

SaaStr

MAY 14, 2023

Algolia went from zero to seven figures in revenue in 12 months, and the launch of their search as a service product, and grew pricing from $19 a month to $100,000, which sounds amazing. Daniel, you grew to 3 million in ARR before you hired a VP of Sales. You had all the reps and SDRs reporting to you, managed it all yourself.

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Payment Methods 221

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. Manage pipeline.

Leadership 77

Leadership Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 77

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

Mark Roberge, the Chief Revenue Officer at Hubspot, has spent 20 years in startups. 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. The first step is hiring a sales leader.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Compensation 183

Neil Patel

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

They can help humanize your brand and, ultimately, boost sales. There’s no corporate sales message with an employee spotlight. That kind of message comes with some significant benefits—the kind that can send revenues soaring. Boost Your Recruitment Strategy. Even more so if it’s senior management or an executive position.

Sales Recruiting 141

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Social Media Sales 141

Sales Hacker

APRIL 18, 2023

Table of contents Joel’s background: 80% interview rate, 0 sales experience Burn your resume! Here’s why Statistics: Video pitches vs. resumes How to make a video pitch Video pitch + follow-up cadence Real success stories Hone your mindset My story: How I landed an 80% interview rate with 0 sales experience It was early 2020.

Sales Recruiting 78

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales 78

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2022

When approaching a GTM exercise, one thing needs to be very clear: the company’s revenue strategy. This revenue strategy consists of three core questions: What is the market opportunity—the problem that needs to be solved? Sales Cycle. Post Sales. Hire talent strategically and be two steps ahead with sales capacity.

Scale 202

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 202

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2020

Brendon introduces his playbook to hiring the first VP of Sales from his experiences as VP of Sales at LinkedIn, EchoSign, Talkdesk and more. Learn the dos and don’ts to make the correct hire the first time and not rush into hiring the wrong VP of Sales, which can cost the company months or even years. Roughly 90%.

Sales Hiring 150

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 150

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Getting the team right is one of the hardest parts of scaling sales. But no sales team can afford to grow without intention. While building a sales team, we’ve focused a lot on our sales culture. Here’s how we went about growing a sales team that is both world class and culture-additive.

Scale 160

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 160

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 146

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 146