Kellblog

JULY 17, 2022

In general, I think branding is a potential marketing rathole for startups, particularly early-stage ones. Some startups put the cart in front of the horse. In this post, I’ll use a six-point branding framework and share my thoughts on how each element applies (or doesn’t) to startups. For startups, fewer is better.

Branding 131

Branding Startup Software Sales Recruiting 131

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. Is a CRO right for you?

Sales Hiring 241

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 241

Mucker Capital

APRIL 2, 2024

In this Mucker Growth session, Mike Genstil with ValueCore delves into the concept of value selling and its application in enterprise sales. As a founder, ideally you want your sellers, marketers, and product leaders aligned in transforming product features into value-based messages to accelerate sales cycles and secure corporate deals.

Sales Recruiting 52

Sales Recruiting Technical Review Enterprise Cybersecurity 52

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

I’ve never created LinkedIn content with the “goal” of lead generation or immediate-term sales. Another cool example I really like is Tito Bohrt — he stands out with the pseudo, “ Sales Mad Scientist ” — which demonstrates confidence and a unique identity online.

Sales Recruiting 128

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 128

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

A few factors that contribute to high-performing sales teams: High quota attainment. The best startups invest in their sales teams and work hard so most of the reps hit and exceed quota. Turning over a sales team is very hard on the organization. A great VP of Sales is worth her weight in gold.

Sales Hiring 323

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 323

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Sales reps were hosting 4-6 calls daily but most of these calls were early demos or top-of-funnel discovery calls Sales was closing really small deals on one end while talking to really large companies with hundreds of thousands of people on the other. As a startup, it’s tempting to try and do everything.

Scale 231

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 231

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. And then some track record of execution either as the new startup or in the past. Dev Ittycheria : Thank you.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 8, 2020

According to First Round’s 2019 State of Startups report , sales leadership is the most difficult hire to make. Image: State of Startups. And with sales being a top priority for founders…. Image: State of Startups. …hiring a qualified sales leader is getting harder by the day.

Sales Hiring 81

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 81

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

David Sacks: SaaS Background and Investments. David’s first foray into SaaS was in 1999 when he joined a startup that would become PayPal, starting as the product leader and later as the COO. In 2008, he founded Yammer, an enterprise software company that David grew to 500 employees and $60 million in sales. Head of Sales.

CTO Hire 249

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 249

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

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

I’ve never created LinkedIn content with the “goal” of lead generation or immediate-term sales. Another cool example I really like is Tito Bohrt — he stands out with the pseudo, “ Sales Mad Scientist ” — which demonstrates confidence and a unique identity online.

Sales Recruiting 52

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 52

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

Companies were growing their sales organizations and bringing in more revenue. Companies everywhere have frozen their hiring and laid off workers — with sales reps often among the first to go. I’ll be honest: as the leader of a sales-focused recruiting company, this has been tough for me and my team.

Sales Hiring 94

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 94

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

403: Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Success @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. Before Quip, Sam spent an incredible 3 years at Dropbox where he was the first enterprise sales rep in the entire company. Should you hire 2 at a time?

Scale 174

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 174

Kellblog

JULY 18, 2019

So, you’re thinking of taking a job at a startup, but are nervous about the risk, perhaps having trouble telling one from another, and unsure about knowing what’s really important in startup success. Startups are about people. Their investments give them contractual rights (e.g., Great core/founding team.

Underperforming Technical Team 78

Underperforming Technical Team Startup Software Technical Cofounder 78

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

One of the toughest challenges for founders — and especially technical founders who are used to focusing so much on product features over sales — is striking “product-market fit”. So in that shift from product-market fit to product-market-SALES fit, how much should you optimize your go-to-market for product… and even the other way around?

Product Marketing 81

Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 81

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 26, 2021

In this episode of the Sales Hacker Podcast, we have Kerry Hudson , VP of Commercial Sales at Conga , a sales leader in the high tech space across multiple verticals. Join us for a timely conversation about producing high performing sales organizations with a focus on people, process, and customers. powered by Sounder.

Scale 95

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Leadership 95

The Angel VC

DECEMBER 12, 2018

While this is generally true for most companies, it’s particularly true for SaaS businesses, which invest heavily in product development, sales, and marketing upfront and get payments from customers over a delayed period of time, usually several years. The main reason is that your customer acquisition costs are highly front-loaded.

Sales Recruiting 106

Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale 106

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

JANUARY 11, 2018

At the beginning of each year I like to reflect on where I’m investing my time - this exercise helps me evaluate whether or not it’s being used in the most valuable, productive and impactful way. How to Start a Startup Despite this podcast series being published in 2016, I still find myself listening back to a large number of talks each year.

Sales Recruiting 100

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Enablement Construction 100

SaaStr

APRIL 23, 2019

Opening video: Hey, all these startups, they have a lot of trouble getting corporate credit cards. Anu: So, without further ado, Henrique, I know that when you first applied to YC, you actually applied with a VR startup idea, but the video showed all about credit card. Expense management was something people care about.

Sales Hiring 160

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Payment Methods 160

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2019

Steve has previously said, “Sales and marketing must be one team.” Where does Steve find common points of tension between sales and marketing? Speaking of developer-first, how can startups compete in a war for talent against FB and Google? How can a CEO determine when is the right time to fundamentally invest in devops?

DevOps as a Service 100

DevOps as a Service Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring 100

Sales Hacker

JUNE 9, 2020

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Barrett Boston , Chief Revenue Officer at TriNet. The finance world wasn’t scratching the itch, though, so he decided that he just had to be in sales. The finance world wasn’t scratching the itch, though, so he decided that he just had to be in sales.

Leadership 78

Leadership Scale Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering 78

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

According to Harvard Business Review , companies that were instrumental in creating their categories accounted for 53 percent of incremental revenue growth and 74 percent of incremental market capitalization growth. For startups creating categories, the value of dominating a market while scaling can result in operational benefits as well.

Scale 109

Scale Sales Recruiting Marketplace as a Service Forecasting 109

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Though, if we narrow it down to just the highly successful ones—that is, startups that exit for more than $100 million—it takes nearly double that time: 11 years. As of this year, Bloomberg reports that the median age of founders of successful startup s (which they define as companies that exited at more than $1 billion) was 34 years old.

Sales Hiring 82

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Marketing 82

Unbounce

OCTOBER 18, 2021

When done right, marketing can be about more than return on investment or brand metrics. Sounds like a big opportunity for talent-starved companies to recruit, right? How’d they grow from a small startup to a budding global player? It can inspire audiences, tell meaningful stories, and share valuable information with the world.

Artificial Intelligence 136

Artificial Intelligence Marketing Scale Sales Recruiting 136

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 2, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Mary Rogul , a VP Sales Consultant, who’s currently an Enterprise Sales Advisor at Crayon. Fresh out of college, Mary started out in accounting, but it didn’t take long before she began a 20-year sales career that led her through Monster.com, HubSpot, and several others.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 52

Neil Patel

OCTOBER 25, 2020

The right employee will be more invested on an emotional level more than any agency partner as they are fully immersed in your company’s journey. This of course will take many years of active investment, but you could potentially build a powerful team organically. Finding the right fit for your organization is key.

Sales Hiring 145

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 145

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2020

* What does Jessica believe is the right way for sales reps to engage with new customers during this time? How should sales teams and CS respond to requests for discounts? What specific and deliberate things can startups do not just to prevent churn but also to increase usage and upsell? This podcast is sponsored by Guru.

Sales Recruiting 176

Sales Recruiting Technical Review Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 176

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 28, 2020

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Ellie Tamari , the VP of North American Sales at Namogoo. Today we are incredibly excited to have a recent friend, member of the Boston chapter of the Revenue Collective, and female sales leader that came to the role somewhat later in life — Ellie Tamari. What You’ll Learn.

Sales Hiring 67

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Management 67

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

Innovative startups. The first army are innovative startups. I’m referring to the full spectrum of business execution, from product management to design to engineering to marketing to sales to support and all the other functions needed to scale a business. Best in class Late-stage Startups (e.g. Mid-stage startups.

Software Review 224

Software Review Outsourcing Services Software Outsourced Development 224

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2019

How does a startup that launched during the financial crisis in 2008 become a unicorn company in 2019? Felix Van de Maele, Co-Founder and CEO of Collibra, will be joined by Teddie Wardi, Managing Director of Insight Partners, to unpack how he built a unicorn company from idea to conception to record growth. So it’s been awhile.

Sales Hiring 177

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Government 177

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. Part two of this scorecard series will help you create a sales interview scorecard to land that sales role you’ve been dreaming about. Sales chops. What sales system do we use?

Sales Hiring 93

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 93

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2019

Scaling the company’s employee base, sales teams, marketing, and operations—all while preserving its culture—has required a laser focus on first principles, smart processes, and effective hiring. And at the risk of giving you a full Stripe sales pitch, don’t worry, that’s in my other talk. Know your forever user.

Scale 152

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Scaling 152

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

As for Ryan, prior to G2 he was Senior Director of Global Marketing at Hubspot where among many other achievements, he scaled HubSpot’s marketing-generated sales revenue by 330% year-over-year. We would generate 10x what we invested into that based on those people. How does Ryan think about the relationship between the two?

Sales Hiring 131

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Software Review 131

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

As for Krish, under Krish’s leadership the team has grown to over 300 people and over 5,000 clients making it one of the next generation in truly global SaaS businesses started in India. Billion story from its launch in 2008 to its 2018 acquisition by Recruit Holdings. Loving our podcast content? So you bake that into pricing model.

Scale 128

Scale SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting Payment Services 128

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2023

Founders are responsible for ensuring a startup always has enough money, setting the vision for the company, and driving things forward. Lesson #1: If You Aren’t Making Mistakes, You Aren’t In A Startup If you do things that always work and maintain the status quo, you’re likely at a major company like Microsoft. And it was true.

Sales Recruiting 251

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 251

Point Nine Land

DECEMBER 12, 2018

While this is generally true for most companies, it’s particularly true for SaaS businesses, which invest heavily in product development, sales, and marketing upfront and get payments from customers over a delayed period of time, usually several years. The main reason is that your customer acquisition costs are highly front-loaded.

Sales Recruiting 61

Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale 61

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2019

Scaling the company’s employee base, sales teams, marketing, and operations—all while preserving its culture—has required a laser focus on first principles, smart processes, and effective hiring. And at the risk of giving you a full Stripe sales pitch, don’t worry, that’s in my other talk. The exchange of value.

Scale 117

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Sales Hiring 117