SaaStr

AUGUST 4, 2021

I’ve interviewed 100s of VP of marketing candidates over the past years and I can tell you one think — it’s easy to spot the ones that won’t work out. In most SaaS companies, marketing’s job at the end of the day is to help sales close more. But a new VP of Marketing will really only do 3 things.

Interviewing 356

Interviewing Sales Hiring Marketing Branding 356

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2025

It’s live on SaaStr.com itself and you can also access it here and talk to AI Jason about any of 1000s and 1000s of B2B, sales, SaaS, VC, etc. Its practical and relatable for SaaS founders struggling with scaling their sales teams. “10 Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales During an Interview.”

Sales Hiring 255

Sales Hiring AI Scale Compensation 255

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

On the one hand, in SaaS these days, we hopefully are all selling solutions. So used car techniques and such have little place in a SaaS AEs toolkit. This may sound a bit mean, but Id go far as to say many SaaS sales reps at established companies arent that great at sales. If they cant do it by interview #2 probably pass.

Interviewing 195

Interviewing SaaS Sales 195

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Interviewing? One bit of advice: Please, please, actually research the company you are interviewing at. The other day I did a similar final, fourth round interview for a VPM. I ended the interview (politely) after 10 minutes and told him to watch the video. Looking for your next role? Been through a lay off? For real.

Interviewing 268

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting 268

FastSpring

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Here are the questions we sought to answer by analyzing anonymized subscription data for transactions across various Asian countries (excluding broader “APAC” regions like Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia): How do customers in Asia’s growing markets prefer to manage their SaaS subscriptions? or EU, or are they different?

Merchant Services 159

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Benchmarks Payment Features 159

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Former Head of Revenue at BILL and HubSpot Americas leader Michelle Benfer recently joined us on a SaaStr Workshop Wednesday share her insights on one of the most critical roles in any SaaS organization: the frontline sales manager. Providing a direct pulse on customer and market sentiment. ” The bottom line?

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales 257

SaaStr

DECEMBER 15, 2020

It seems like everyone wants to be a SaaS founder these days. Start their own SaaS company. There are three things I ask folks who want to start their own SaaS company: 1. That just doesn’t happen in paid SaaS apps. >> Because everything in SaaS is just insanely competitive. It’s time.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting SaaS Interviewing Consulting 363

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2025

Now if you are ready, but haven’t done it before in SaaS, here are 13 good screening questions to see if you have a real VP, Sales candidate in hand or not. This will ferret out if he/she can play at an early-stage SaaS start-up successfully and if they know how to scale once you scale. A VP of Sales job is to scale sales.

Sales Recruiting 177

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 177

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2020

A little while back we put together some of the top sales & marketing mistakes SaaS companies and founders make, especially in the early days. Yes, Box is SaaS. But if they say in an interview they “don’t really care about money” … well … they aren’t sales people. Hiring a B2C marketer for SaaS. That’s not you.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 363

SaaStr

DECEMBER 18, 2020

More here: If You’re Going to Do a SaaS Start-Up … You Have to Give it 24 Months – SaaStr. Are You Interviewing 50+ Years Young SaaS Veterans? The post How Old is “Too Old” To Start a SaaS Startup? And it was really founded as a very different company many years earlier: ?. Some have adult kids.

Startup 321

Startup SaaS Consulting Interviewing 321

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2025

.” This brutal honesty has become Wang’s signature—and it’s exactly what propelled Deel from $1M to $100M ARR in just 20 months, making them (briefly) the fastest-growing SaaS company in history. Here are the 10 critical moves that got them there, and the painful lessons they learned when hypergrowth broke everything.

Payment Services 184

Payment Services Sales Hiring Payment Solutions SaaS Payments 184

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2024

Struggling to find a job in SaaS today? But on the other hand … literally almost every SaaS company I know doing even reasonably well is hiring. So finding a job may be 5x harder than 2021, but there are still a vast number of unfilled roles at just about every good or great SaaS company. Here’s the thing. Ask about comp.

ChatGPT 276

ChatGPT SaaS Interviewing Startup 276

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2024

In the early days of SaaS , blogging was a popular form of content creation. Jason Lemkin has interviewed some of the best founders on his podcast, SaaStr Annual. He approaches interviews with profound respect for the founders he interviews. He respects the founders he interviews more than he respects himself.

Sales Hiring 286

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Technical Review Scale 286

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2020

Q: What are the challenges that a SaaS business owner must overcome to be successful? Yet, in SaaS it generally takes 2 years to iterate, iterate, iterate and get to a true MSP — a Minimum Sellable Product. More here: If You’re Going to Do a SaaS Start-Up … You Have to Give it 24 Months | SaaStr. Can you fund it?

SaaS 286

SaaS Interviewing Engineering Startup 286

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2022

Roughly — very roughly — you want to be multiproduct in SaaS by the time you have 10,000 customers. So a top theme across SaaStr CEO interviews since 2017 or so, and across our 5 Interesting Learnings series with public SaaS companies, is … when should you go multi-product? For enterprise, this could be $300m-500m in ARR.

Scale 300

Scale SaaS SMB Scaling 300

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2025

Its Coachella meets SaaS. Explore demos booths from 150+ sponsors and partners showcasing the latest AI, B2B and SaaS tools and solutions! With 200+ speakers, including the CEOs of Snowflake, HubSpot, Box, and more, this is your chance to meet the people shaping the SaaS world. Watch Live Music Performances. Don’t miss it!

AI 223

AI B2B Startup Interviewing 223

User Pilot

MARCH 9, 2025

What is customer research in SaaS? For SaaS companies, this “listening” can take many forms to learn how users interact with their product and uncover areas for improvement. For SaaS companies, this “listening” can take many forms to learn how users interact with their product and uncover areas for improvement.

SaaS 83

SaaS Social Media Interviewing Scale 83

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2023

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. Have the best CRO you know interview your potential VP of Sales. Ok so what do you do? A few thoughts. We used to do these things. The best CMO your VP of Marketing candidate. appeared first on SaaStr.

Sales Hiring 297

Sales Hiring SaaS Interviewing Startup 297

SaaStr

APRIL 21, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 5 Things I Should Know Before Starting a SaaS Startup? At least do 30+ customer interviews and really listen on if they’d paid for real, and then go validate that some more. The post Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 5 Things I Should Know Before Starting a SaaS Startup? It’s never enough.

Startup 300

Startup CTO SaaS Interviewing 300

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2023

More here: If You’re Going to Do a SaaS Start-Up … You Have to Give it 24 Months – SaaStr Picking cofounders that aren’t as committed. More here: A Simple Commitment Test For You And Your Co-Founders – SaaStr Not doing enough potential customer interviews. More here: Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? That’s tough.

SMB 269

SMB SaaS B2C Interviewing 269

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What Should Be The Priorities of SaaS Founders During The Early Stages? There is too much to do in SaaS — sales, customer success, product, engineering, demand gen, etc. They don’t do enough interviews, meet enough potential customers, do enough work, etc. You need an MSP, not an MVP in SaaS.

SaaS 278

SaaS Market Research Interviewing Content Marketing 278

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

Q: What are some advice for people who want to create a SaaS startup? A bit more here: If You’re Going to Do a SaaS Start-Up … You Have to Give it 24 Months | SaaStr. Do at least 20 potential customer interviews. A bit more here: Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? Don’t Forget the 20 Interview Rule.

Startup 269

Startup SaaS Interviewing Market Segmentation 269

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2019

What are a SaaS startup’s first 100 hires? All your questions as a SaaS founder are finally answered. In our NEW Ultimate Guide For Scaling, Sales and Raising Capital: 100 SaaS Questions Answered , we compile the most helpful, tactical advice to help you scale your startup. A Must-Read MasterClass for Everyone in SaaS.

Scale 54

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales 54

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

Getting Outbound off the Ground in the Early Days Whatever stage your company is in, you can map wherever you are to outbound and use this article to either create, scale up or improve your outbound SaaS sales. It’s usually a simple interview with a hiring manager screen first and then an actual interview panel.

Sales Hiring 305

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 305

FastSpring

JANUARY 23, 2025

If you own a SaaS or other digital product business such as a Slack plugin, Chrome extension, online publishing business, mobile app, or even a blog and youre looking to exit, you may have a lot of questions about how best to go about it. Podcast Full Interview: Audio Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

Scale 119

Scale Entrepreneurship Scaling Underperforming Technical Team 119

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Unparalleled Networking Opportunities SaaStr Annual brings together thousands of SaaS, Cloud and AI executives, founders, VCs, and industry leaders under one roof across our 40+ acre campus, May 13-15 in SF Bay! Finding and recruiting top talent is consistently ranked as one of the biggest challenges for growing SaaS companies.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2023

So there’s no doubt things are a bit harder for everyone in SaaS and Cloud right now. SaaS spend is still growing. They see overall SaaS spend still growing a very healthy 18% in 2023 to almost $200 Billion Worldwide in 2023. The post Gartner: SaaS Will Still Grow 18% in 2023 to $200 Billion Worldwide.

Azure 266

Azure AWS SaaS Cloud 266

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2025

So I’d just about given up on the second worst SaaS vendor in our stack at SaaStr. The SaaS Resurrection Playbook What can B2B companies learn from this dramatic turnaround? Listen to the Exit Interviews Our vendor finally built this feature because they started taking cancellation calls seriously. The 10x Feature is Real.

Social Media 170

Social Media Outsourced Development Interviewing Retention 170

Incredo

APRIL 8, 2020

And SaaS companies aren’t exceptions. Did your SaaS company launch any special campaign to support its community or customers during coronavirus? The post Marketing During Coronavirus: 8 Ways SaaS Companies Reacted to the Pandemic appeared first on Incredo. Let us know and we may include your initiative in our post.

Sales Recruiting 269

Sales Recruiting Travel SaaS Sales Hiring 269

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2025

Sessions, interviews, deep dives — you name it. Whether it’s SaaS metrics trends, market analysis, or competitive intelligence, Claude helps us go beyond the obvious. And the teams that embrace it now are the ones that will dominate their categories tomorrow. And honestly? Enter Recall AI. This thing is a lifesaver.

AI 246

AI Software Review Social Media Systems Review 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2025

How many times can you sell somewhat sorry but boring SaaS products? If they dont ask good, curious questions during the interview process I say pass for that reason alone. "The So long as its just a smidge easier to sell than the last one. Voice APIs? Call center analytics? Security compliance? Rather than truly learning.

Sales Hiring 179

Sales Hiring Sales compliance Interviewing 179

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2022

Traction and Boast co-founder Lloyed Lobo and Jason Lemkin caught up on how to really scale your SaaS company 10x in a deep-dive here: We deep dive on: How to get from $10m to $100m ARR even with so-so growth. When to quit in SaaS, and when not to. Why you don’t do enough interviews. And so much more!

SaaS 246

SaaS Interviewing Branding Scaling 246

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

And what I wish I’d done better as a SaaS CEO: Force yourself to interview 30 candidates for each VP position. You’ll have to, to get through 30 interviews. After each of those 30 interviews — email over a note on your feedback. Let me share some learnings, and what I do now to force myself to be a better recruiter.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Scale 363

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2023

There are two types of SaaS companies in the world: those that are category creators and the challengers of incumbent technology. Personality, startup skills, and softer skills are all important — grit and resilience are key for Pugh and should be for any startup SaaS salesperson. It’s a tough time in the SaaS industry right now.

Scale 268

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 268

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

Ask the founders this question when you interview them: How supportive has X person been as an investor? The ones that are really engaged, the ones that are there for founders will have some friction swith some of founder they’ve invested in.

Venture Capital 306

Venture Capital Software Review Investment Startup 306

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Best Ways to Retain Your Customers in SaaS? This has become way too common, and way too agressive the past 12-18 months as SaaS companies have looked to more revenue from the base vs new logos. Too many early-stage VPs of Sales don’t have a strong “wing person” running customer success.

Sales Hiring 286

Sales Hiring SaaS SMB Churn 286

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2022

If there really is a slowdown (and I’m not sure will be in SaaS), folks will have to work harder. So I’m not yet convinced times are really tougher for SaaS companies. But buyers are still buying more SaaS than ever, far more than just last year and far, far more than even 2 years ago. — Jason BeKind Lemkin #????????????

Sales Hiring 315

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 315