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. They want to feel like you’re invested in their success. that you’re invested in their success).

Sales Recruiting 53

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Trends 53

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

I’ve also invested in 24+ next-generation SaaS companies, mostly successes, and had a chance to watch and learn from them as well, with a new lens. And age-ism is going to cut out some of the very, very best talent in the market. Sales — Not Easier. I know how sales works much, much better. I’m not.

Sales Recruiting 325

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 325

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2023

So backstage at SaaStr Annual this year, and in a number of other conversations since, I’ve had a chance to get a few quiet moments with maybe two dozen top CROs and VPs of Sales. Yes, macro issues come up, and how they have to sell to more stakeholders now, and sales cycles are longer. But the best long ago adapted.

Sales Recruiting 219

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Onboarding Sales 219

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 241

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 241

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 103

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 103

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 231

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 231

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2021

I thought it might be helpful to assemble a checklist of 22 reasons I almost immediately pass on investing in start-ups that are still interesting. And your existing market. billion, but Addressing a Larger Segment of the Market” That gives me confidence. You’re in sales. Recruit the VPs?

Sales Recruiting 336

Sales Recruiting Scale AWS Investment 336

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

I thought it would be worth drilling down deeper into each of them, and sharing the learnings and mistakes: 1/ Spending less time fixing things, more time recruiting senior folks to own them. No one spends enough time recruiting as it is, after $1m ARR or so. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. You can do this.

Part-Time VPE 268

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 268

Neil Patel

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

With the competition for customers becoming stiffer by the day, brands have to be savvy about the way they do their marketing. You must employ marketing strategies that work. One such marketing strategy is direct response marketing. What is Direct Response Marketing? Advantages of Direct Response Marketing.

Sales Recruiting 141

Sales Recruiting Marketing Social Media Branding 141

Incredo

MARCH 11, 2020

Associations face a unique challenge in marketing, in that they have to cater to a very specific audience and ensure they’re going to become long term members. And each association has different challenges to begin with, so traditional marketing strategies won’t work very effectively either.

Strategy 257

Strategy Social Media Sales Recruiting Marketing 257

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Writer has one of the best marketing teams and has spread like wildfire with customers, including Spotify, HubSpot, L’Oreal, Accenture, and many more. Tips for recruiting the best possible team members and how patience factors into that. 31:07) A consultative sales process and messaging considerations. (36:56)

Sales Recruiting 93

Sales Recruiting Enterprise AI Banking 93

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2021

While I thought I understood the market we were attempting to create and attack, with time, I realized I didn’t fully research comps as deeply or successfully as I could have. And then, I would have invested more wisely in Year 1 especially. Not Hiring 2-3 Sales Reps to Start. Insufficient Diligence.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale SaaS 265

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

In 2019, the founding team at Storyblok set out to create a content marketing solution that worked for everyone—developers and marketers alike. Storyblok started with a leadership-first hiring plan and a recruitment strategy that involved the following: A test to know how candidates handle different tasks and their expertise level.

Scale 199

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 199

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. If you hire someone to do the first sales, you’ll never understand it yourself. When you go to hire your first sales rep, hire 2. Hire a great marketer early. A bit more here. More here.

Sales Hiring 300

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 300

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 128

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 128

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. You can have the great product and a great team, but the market of small or very niche.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Think about it — who else is so invested in your long-term success? If they’ve bought 7%, 10%, 20% of your company (with no exit on the horizon) … they’re pretty invested personally. They have a good incentive to recruit almost as hard as you do, and network a lot to help you. Your VCs are. More Money.

Sales Hiring 216

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Investment Acquisition 216

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

I’ve had the privilege to invest one way or another in about 35 SaaS companies, both as a VC and as angel. They understand why they got “No”s in the early, pre-traction days, and even, in the early-ish days when they had a handful of customers but wasn’t really taking off yet (my favorite time to invest).

Scale 339

Scale Sales Recruiting Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 339

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 20, 2022

Strong sales reps are the lifeblood of your business and how you choose to invest in them matters. For frontline sales managers, attributes like competency, quality of work, ease of execution, and length of contribution indicate reps’ overall job success, but you can’t rely on those inputs to tell you if they are personally satisfied.

Sales Recruiting 98

Sales Recruiting Scale Retention Sales 98

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

David Sacks: SaaS Background and Investments. In 2008, he founded Yammer, an enterprise software company that David grew to 500 employees and $60 million in sales. David Sacks has invested in over 20 unicorn companies, including Airbnb, Bird, ClickUp, Facebook, Slack, and Uber. Head of Sales. Head of Marketing.

CTO Hire 249

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 249

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

MARCH 18, 2022

Then, decide how much time, money, and effort your company is willing to invest in the CAB. . Mapistry recruited a diverse pool by inviting both legacy customers and new customers. . New customers add value to your CABs with their fresh experience with your sales cycle and onboarding processes. Try highlighting benefits like….

Sales Recruiting 241

Sales Recruiting Enterprise Onboarding Investment 241

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”. What does this mean for product design and product management? Today’s episode continues our enterprise go-to-market podcast series.

Product Marketing 81

Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 81

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

Enough to invest, but not enough to go crazy with. He’d found several good First VP candidates, in particular, a strong first head of marketing and a strong first head of product. And your first VP of Marketing just increases qualified leads by 25%. . — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) July 21, 2019.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 16, 2020

The 2010s were the decade of software and SaaS, the era when Salesforce become the first SaaS company to sail past the $100B market cap mark. The 2020s will be the era of data companies boosting massive markets. The IPO market hasn’t been this hot since at least 2012, but likely since the dot-com era.

Sales Recruiting 279

Sales Recruiting Blockchain Banking Machine Learning 279

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

As you start to go to market, there are two things to prioritize from early customers that matter more than cash. Feedback and marketing rights. Every prospect championing a software purchase will be asked by the opponents of the sale and decision-makers : “Who else is using the software? The second may not be so obvious.

Sales Recruiting 207

Sales Recruiting Banking Branding Software 207

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

I probably will pass on investing in you if I don’t know you want money. We recently did a New New in Venture event and I asked the question of many top VCs including David Sacks, Keith Rabois, Aileen Lee and more. “Give the VP of Sales More Time” This is always terrible advice. In one sales cycle, or less.

Part-Time VPE 302

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 302

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2021

1% equity considered low as a startup Director of Sales? What types of due diligence are undertaken by VCs before investing in a company? I’m Head of Product and I think our CEO is actively recruiting a VP of Product. I was told that a general rule of thumb is 75% of fair market value. How much does a VC make?

Software Review 281

Software Review CTO Coach Technical Review Sales Recruiting 281

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

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Before you rush in for the sale, you need to assess everything. What’s going on in the market? Tailor your solution and sales material to meet their specific need in the same language they use when they talk about their problems and desired solutions. Remember, not every conversation is a sale. What’s going on in society?

Enterprise 139

Enterprise Technical Review Sales Recruiting Scale 139

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 8, 2020

According to First Round’s 2019 State of Startups report , sales leadership is the most difficult hire to make. And with sales being a top priority for founders…. …along with it getting harder to recruit top-quality talent… Image: State of Startups. See, hiring and sales aren’t dissimilar.

Sales Hiring 81

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 81

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

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 12, 2019

A little over a year ago, I got the opportunity to start a new team within our sales organization – a team of Relationship Managers dedicated to growing our current customers at scale. The opportunity emerged out of a shift in how we practice sales. Starting a new sales team is not unlike doing improv.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

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 91

Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Market Research Outsourced Development 91

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 3, 2020

It would be foolish to tell you that every CRO and CFO I talk to agrees with me in saying that SDRs are a no-brainer investment. Most companies are intrigued by the potential of SDRs, but cautious when investing the necessary resources to build a proper team. We’ll also assume you sell a mid-market $50K ACV SaaS product.

Sales Recruiting 91

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Investment Technical Review 91

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2021

Because I suspected that small but interesting early traction was just bottom-feeding in the market. Not a true disruption in the market. Once the players in a new market get pretty big themselves, they’ll ultimately most likely raise prices. Harder to Recruit. You’ll have to develop a very lean sales culture.

Scale 239

Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 239