Andreessen Horowitz

MAY 10, 2023

The event featured a series of interviews … The post Enterprise Startups: Advice on Hiring, Firing, Scaling, and Selling appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Enterprise 136

Enterprise Scaling Startup Interviewing 136

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Applying data and science to scaling has become easier because of the shift that’s happened in the software industry over the past 15 years, from outside sales to inside sales. A data-driven framework for scaling. Mark’s latest ebook, The Science of Scaling , outlines a precise framework for success. Next comes go-to-market fit.

Scale 226

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 226

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

To $300k-$400k+ per employee at scale. With “SaaS” about $200 Billion of that. Most of you are, in fact: According to our latest unscientific but directionally correct survey of over 2,000 SaaS execs, 64% of you are growing your sales team in 2024. I bet you get an interview. So cuts continue.

Sales Hiring 269

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Interviewing 269

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

At SaaStr Miami, former Founder’s Fund Partner and CRO of Brex Sam Blond — host of the SaaStr CRO Confidential Podcast — sat down with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin for a fireside chat about finding success as a SaaS company in 2024. Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 259

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

And in fact, about 90% of SaaS companies that IPO still have their founder as CEO : SaaS CEOs That Go The Distance, To IPO … Tend To Be Founder-CEOs (Updated) Ultimately I see only one problem with founder CEOs: If they can’t constantly recruit, and recruit again, and recruit again , a world class management team.

Scale 261

Scale Interviewing Engineering Content Marketing 261

OpenView Labs

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Once dominated by relationships, sales today (especially SaaS sales) are equally propelled by technology. Interviewing / Hiring Your Sales Team. You may also want to consider some new interview approaches, all of which we outline in this article. Scaling SaaS Sales. SaaS Sales Channels & Methodologies.

Scale 91

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Technical Review 91

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 204

SaaS Interviewing Branding Scaling 204

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

The hardest phase of SaaS, at least for the founders, is the phase from Initial Traction ($1-$2m in ARR + 80%-100% YoY growth) to the next phase — Initial Scale. Inevitability in SaaS comes around $10m in ARR , plus or minus. That’s the power of compounding SaaS revenue. At Least, Do 20 Interviews a Week.

Scale 254

Scale Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scaling 254

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. More wisdom from SaaS leaders.

Interviewing 75

Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Scale 75

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 210

Azure AWS Cloud SaaS 210

SaaStock

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

The invite-only event has only one prerequisite: SaaS founders need to have achieved either $3M+ in ARR or have secured Series A funding. Away from the crowds for two days and nights, founders exchange stories about their journeys, the triumphs, failures and the challenges of scaling a SaaS business. What happens at SaaSociety.

Scale 155

Scale Scaling Entertainment Travel 155

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. Hiring a “VP” of Sales before you have 2 scaled reps and a repeating process. Yes, Box is SaaS. Hiring a B2C marketer for SaaS. I’m even making a few myself again.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 363

Valuize Consulting

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

Achieving Customer Success At Scale. As your customer base grows, the need to lead operations transformation, scale your CS team, manage intricate customer relationships and reach your customers across multiple touchpoints, is compounded. Q: What was your first job? How did you get started in Customer Success?

Scale 52

Scale Technical Review Technology Interviewing 52

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

So we’re finally, almost back from the IPO Drout in SaaS. The last SaaS leader to IPO was HashiCorp back in Dec 2021. After that, the public markets began a precipitous decline — leading to an almost 2 year pause in SaaS IPO. at this scale (!!) at this scale (!!) But now we’re almost back.

Scale 229

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Interviewing 229

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

20X year 1⃣ 12X year 2⃣ 5X year 3⃣ #deelspeed @deel [link] — Shuooo (@shuoshuooshuooo) January 23, 2023 When we look at SaaS companies’ success stories, everything looks great on their growth maps. Shuo Wang is the CRO and co-founder of Deel, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies. Trust the process.

Sales Hiring 233

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 233

FastSpring

MARCH 3, 2023

This is one of the primary reasons why growth expert Fred Linfjärd encourages SaaS companies to consider using a merchant of record instead of a DIY solution. I interviewed him live on LinkedIn about four signs that SaaS companies have outgrown Stripe. Related post: Can SaaS Companies Afford to Ignore Sales Tax and VAT?

Merchant Services 138

Merchant Services Payment Services Outsourcing Services SaaS Payments 138

SaaStr

OCTOBER 24, 2023

It often doesn’t leave you until $20m, $30m ARR, or sometimes much later, even in SaaS. I remember interviewing Todd McKinnon, founder CEO of Okta (now at $2B+ ARR), saying it wasn’t until $30m ARR or so he felt they weren’t going to fail : You will never, ever feel Failing With 100% Responsibility as a “mere” employee.

Entrepreneurship 262

Entrepreneurship Interviewing Scaling SaaS 262

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 5, 2023

We also give you a bunch of tips on how to implement it in your SaaS. By delivering valuable products that meet user expectations, SaaS organizations can better retain customers and increase their lifetime value. This helps SaaS companies understand how well the product satisfies user needs in comparison to its competitors.

Management 90

Management Scale Customer Lifetime Value SaaS 90

User Pilot

OCTOBER 29, 2023

WTP helps SaaS companies choose optimum prices for their products to maximize profit. SaaS product teams also use it to prioritize features and evaluate the feasibility of new motions. Effective customer research techniques include interviews and focus groups as they allow you to collect qualitative feedback.

SaaS 95

SaaS Interviewing Pricing Market Research 95

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What are some of the “ultimate sins” in marketing and sales and success in SaaS in the early stages? Hiring a “VP” of Sales before you have 2 scaled reps and a repeating process. But if they say in an interview they “don’t really care about money” … well … they aren’t sales people. A bit more here.

Sales Hiring 238

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 238

ChurnZero

JULY 22, 2022

But when it feels like each customer has different goals and definitions of success, how do you create an onboarding program that caters to these individual needs and at the same time can scale? I recommend you interview customers. I would interview 5 to 10 customers and ask what ah-ha moment made them glad they bought your product.

Scale 98

Scale Onboarding Scaling Underperforming Technical Team 98

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2022

Incredibly, ZoomInfo has scaled to IPO with an entirely sales-driven motion. He breaks down how GTM efficiency drives their ability to scale with sales-driven motion and other insights you can apply to scale your SaaS business. So how did they do it? Mistake 1: Not being honest about your talent.

Scale 226

Scale Sales Hiring Interviewing Engineering 226

User Pilot

JANUARY 10, 2024

User research methods for SaaS: Usability testing User testing User interviews Focus groups Session replays First click testing User feedback surveys Card sorting A/B testing Product analytics Heatmaps Userpilot can help you conduct user experience (UX) research and easily interpret the data. Choose the appropriate research method.

User Experience 95

User Experience Interviewing SaaS Underperforming Technical Team 95

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

In the latest installment of SaaStr’s What’s New series – where we sit down with the leaders in SaaS and Cloud for the inside scoop on what’s top of mind and what’s new, SaaStr CEO and Jason Lemkin chats with the CMO of Google Cloud, Alison Wagonfeld.

Cloud 241

Cloud Scale AWS AI 241

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. They are the Great Gap Fillers in SaaS. What I mean is, with most SaaS companies, there’s just a huge customer workflow break. There are so many gaps in every SaaS org, and bless the CS team for filling so many of them.

Customer Success 287

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 287

SaaSX

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

This article should really be titled, “How to interview a product manager (if you aren’t a product person) “ Because customer success, marketing, sales, support, and other operational roles are key stakeholders in a SaaS organization they are often called into the interview process for product managers.

Interviewing 59

Interviewing Management Sales Hiring Scale 59

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2022

Fast forward to today, the company is the latest SaaS unicorn, fresh off it’s $1.7B This was a really fun session with 3 folks who’d known each other for a while, about how to scale as a CEO. I was luck enough to be a small seed investor in Front’s first round and met Mathilde shortly after they came to the U.S.

Interviewing 233

Interviewing Scaling SaaS 233

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2019

Join Anish Shivdasani, CEO of Giraffe, as he provides unique African experiences learned from scaling to 1M users. Now, unfortunately there are a lot of constraints in Africa, major constraints when you’re talking about setting up and scaling a startup. When I interview people, I ask them, “Why do you want to join Giraffe?”

Scale 162

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling SaaS Payments 162

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 7, 2021

The question now is, how big should CS organizations be, and what’s the best way to staff and scale its success? To uncover how today’s CS leaders are successfully building and scaling their CS organizations, Valuize’s Founder and CEO, Ross Fulton, spoke to TSIA’s Vice President, Customer Success Research, Stephen Fulkerson.

VP of Engineering 98

VP of Engineering Customer Success Sales Hiring Interviewing 98

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2022

They aren’t scientific, but they do poll out 25,000+ LinkedIn followers, who consist mainly of SaaS executives. Notwithstanding the drama in the public markets, most SaaS companies and startups are growing faster than ever. #6. In the scaling phase, I vote for leaving existing customers be. #9. A few of my favorites: #1.

Sales Hiring 292

Sales Hiring Pricing Scale Interviewing 292

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. As you scale, as much as 50% of your time may end up be spent in recruiting.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Scale 363

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2022

While there are universal truths that every SaaS founder should put into practice, each company’s journey is different. In this SaaStr Europa 2022 session, Matt Jacobson, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth, interviews Miro’s Founder & CEO, Andrey Khusid, to get insight into how he was able to grow the company so successfully.

Sales Hiring 211

Sales Hiring Scale Company Culture Leadership 211

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2021

Revolution in eCommerce Marketing: A Deep Dive with CEO Andrew Bialecki” One of our favorite interviews, talking about Klaviyo broke out in what seemed a crowded and mature space (email marketing). #4. “3 CCO Lessons in Scaling Enterprise CX with Hubspot” A deep dive with HubSpot’s COO. #5.

Scale 226

Scale Interviewing Enterprise Engineering 226

User Pilot

MARCH 14, 2024

Looking for customer analytics use cases that can significantly improve your SaaS? This article lists key use cases for SaaS and explains how to implement them to unlock customer satisfaction and product growth. 9 use cases for customer analytics in SaaS: Test your onboarding flows with A/B testing. You’re at the right place.

Customer Lifetime Value 93

Customer Lifetime Value SaaS Underperforming Technical Team Retention 93

Natalia Luneva

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

On this episode of the podcast, I interview Arthur Nobel and we discuss scaling SaaS companies. What we discovered is companies sometimes struggle with scaling so we dived into the reasons for that. Levers of scaling a SaaS company. He is passionate about enabling entrepreneurs to realize their vision.

Scale 52

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting SaaS 52

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

So those of us who know Vista Equity Partners (and many of you may not) think of it as one of the largest Private Equity firms buying SaaS companies. 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 has a pretty broad look at SaaS.

Cybersecurity 310

Cybersecurity SMB Interviewing Enterprise 310

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. Schedule a demo to learn how we can help you scale across borders to go farther faster.

Pricing 118

Pricing Payment Solutions Payment Services SaaS Payments 118