SaaStr

MAY 27, 2024

Ok the title here is a bit dramatic, but certainly seed investing is in an odd place in 2024. Harry and Jason did a deep dive on this and so much more here: Intro (00:00:00) Seed investing is broken due to limited founders capable of triple-digit growth. The best investments grow from $1 million to $10 million in 5 quarters or less.

CTO Hire 176

CTO Hire Development Team Review Software Review Technical Review 176

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2022

Co-founder and CEO of Plato, Quong Hoang, the #1 mentoring platform for engineering leaders , helped moderate a discussion between CTO of Change.org, Elaine Zhou, and Head of Engineering at Notion, Michael Manapat, on this subject. On a purely human level, most employees like to settle down if they find a place that feels like home.

CTO Coach 212

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO CTO 212

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? You can find the full slide deck from David’s presentation on Slideshare. David Sacks: SaaS Background and Investments. billion in 2012.

CTO Hire 234

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 234

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

My experience across leading 30+ seed investments, including 4 billion+ exits so far, on why startups fail: Not 200% committed to winning no matter what. There are other reasons startups something do “Good But Not Great” or just OK, but that don’t lead to failure IMHE: Great CEO, Merely Good CTO.

Startup 204

Startup Scale CTO Pricing 204

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

Startups come in all shapes and sizes on various stages of a timeline, yet it’s not surprising how many have the same questions and concerns about how to scale from x to y to z, the right time to hire and fire, and how to keep a team motivated during hard times. His answers didn’t disappoint. They wanted a one-call close.

CTO Hire 174

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 174

Valerian Tech

DECEMBER 14, 2022

There are many benefits to hiring a fractional CTO, also known as a part-time or interim CTO. A fractional CTO can bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to your organization without the added expense of a full-time executive.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Technology 52

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. There are no Cloud magicians, and you can’t hire a PLG magician. Let’s jump right into the questions.

Scale 230

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 230

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2022

Jenn Knight, Co-founder and CTO of AgentSync, and Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone, discuss how different approaches have helped each brand reach its target audience and accomplish its goals, the potential of product-led growth, and how to scale growth strategies to yield desirable results. tip their toes in new growth strategies.

New CTO 195

New CTO CTO Scale Innovation 195

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

I’ve come to almost exclusively invest in founder-CEOs that are or were engineers. Or at least — where the co-founder CTO is a true equal partner to the CEO. You need to recruit a great engineering team. But usually there is an amazing (in terms of cleverness, if not always pure skillset) CTO from Day 1.

Outsourcing Services 177

Outsourcing Services Engineering CTO SaaS 177

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. These are all full-time jobs by $1m ARR.

Part-Time VPE 254

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 254

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2023

I’ve invested in 5 start-ups that had a $1,000,000,000+ cash exit or IPO. Almost all of them had an amazing CTO or CPO, and hired a simply epic VP or two. Almost all of them had an amazing CTO or CPO, and hired a simply epic VP or two. Good but not great CEOs just can’t find a way to iterate fast enough.

CTO Hire 206

CTO Hire CTO Investment Marketing 206

OpenView Labs

APRIL 12, 2019

Getting hiring right is absolutely critical. If you push them, what a VC will also tell you is that they back founders who have the ability to attract and recruit singular talent. I’d like to talk about two different companies with two very different approaches to hiring post-seed raise. We needed a CTO. Full disclosure.

CTO Hire 64

CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 64

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2022

But finding out post-term sheet about too many material issues can lead VCs to run for the hills. Don’t force VCs to find out in due diligence that only 2 percent of the pool, not the customary 15 percent or so, is available for new hires. And if they are seed investing in the round (surprisingly common) — disclose it!

Finance 271

Finance Technical Review CTO Hire New CTO 271

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2024

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? Jason Warner , who was CTO of GitHub before and during my time as COO there (and a former partner at Redpoint!) What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? We are currently investing out of our 9th Early Stage fund, a $650M vehicle.

Management 212

Management CTO Hire New CTO AI 212

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 151

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 151

TechEmpower SaaS

OCTOBER 9, 2023

This enables internal users to swiftly find answers to queries such as "What is our internal IP address?" This has significantly reduced the time team members spend searching for information, enabling them to stay focused on their core tasks. cto , infotech , innovation , product , project , saas

AI Search 519

AI Search Artificial Intelligence Generative AI AI 519

TechEmpower SaaS

AUGUST 21, 2023

It provides findings and recommendations intended to foster a mutual understanding between business and software leaders, shedding light on the current state of your technology and your team. This part of the report can go deep on how your software stacks up with respect to feature delivery, security, reliability, and scalability.

Technical Review 390

Technical Review Software Review Development Team Review Systems Review 390

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

He joined StubHub as CTO, but didn’t get nearly as much equity as the other CTO — because he “wasn’t committed enough.” ” They had that conversation enough times to just build the first Twilio API. But at that time, fundraising was really tough. They wanted to invest in apps, not APIs.

CTO Hire 335

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Airlines 335

Valerian Tech

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

However, they are still relatively new and their value can be extremely volatile, making them a high-risk investment for some people. How can CTO’s help ensure the Success of a Cryptocurrency Project? Foster community engagement: The CTO should engage with the community and seek to understand their needs and feedback.

Part-Time CTO 52

Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Coach CTO Hire 52

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 15, 2022

Investing in education. We believe one of the most important ways we can contribute to diversity in the industry is by investing in education. Darragh Curran , our Chief Technology Officer, emphasizes how promoting diversity has to be more than just a question of how we hire.

Software Engineering 104

Software Engineering Engineering CTO Software 104

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2021

What are the signs that an entrepreneur will always be small time? What makes a bad CTO? 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. What are the most common mistakes first time entrepreneurs make?

Software Review 276

Software Review CTO Coach Technical Review Sales Recruiting 276

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2020

But everyone hears from you all the time. Your investors and others will learn a lot more hearing about sales from your VP of Sales, your CTO co-founder … and not you. But that aside, usually one investor will be the one that helps you most recruit the team, recruit more capital, promote the company, be its biggest champion.

Sales Recruiting 329

Sales Recruiting New CTO Scale CTO 329

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

It starts at the beginning when someone interacts with your brand.” – Kim Walsh Hiring and collaboration for growth The product marketing team is the first function to hire for. The next hiring focus should be growth marketing. Once this is in place, start investing in paid channels.

Scale 183

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scaling 183

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to see: A couple of good hires brought in Improvement on some metrics A big deal or two hanging out there, brought in and closed Things taken off your plate. More time may make them better if they’re already progressing, even if it’s just 10-15% in the first sales cycle. Hiring someone too junior. That often compounds.

Part-Time VPE 175

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 175

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 20, 2021

As a result, much of the evaluation, investment, and rollout of virtual training technology in 2020 was rushed, limited in scope, and poorly planned. Businesses must take a step back, evaluate their software investments, and rework their implementations. How to maximize customer training investment.

Investment 95

Investment Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Scale 95

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

Which role should you hire for first? For starters, your first hire should be someone who can complement your skills, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak, but it goes much deeper than that. Obviously, I can’t imagine a chief executive not having loss of sleep over building a management team. Mallun : Sure.

Sales Hiring 252

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 252

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

Investing at a breathtaking pace. And he made an observation to me that I’d been thinking about for a very long time, but didn’t know how to express. In my first start-up as a founder, I had a great CTO and VPE and a pretty darn good VP Ops from the very beginning. 20×7, near as I can tell.

Part-Time VPE 276

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire AWS New CTO 276

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

The goal is to help each other learn something new, find mentorships, create partnerships, and exchange strategies. with Olivier Adam, Chief Growth Officer at ReferralCandy Successful Scaling Across Markets, Lessons in Marketing & Building GTM with IvyCap’s MP with Ashish Wadhwani, Co-founder and Managing Partner.

VP of Engineering 228

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder Outsourcing Services CTO Coach 228

The SaaS Garage

DECEMBER 15, 2022

In order to complete the platform and drive growth, Julius Proell and his co-founders Liza ALtena (Chief Sales Officer), Sebastian Bartels (Chief Technology Officer) and climate expert Dr. Thomas Remke (Chief Climate Officer) have collected 1.2

CTO 52

CTO Startup Venture Capital Transportation 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

You have to be careful to pair that with someone strong to manage the relationship, that has more time and that also can be trusted. As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself. Hire that person, and make sure they are someone the top customers can really trust and count on.

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 264

Outseta

APRIL 11, 2019

Why most SaaS companies are blind to some of the best talent on the market By Geoff Roberts 9 min read I believe that most SaaS companies are missing out of a major opportunity when hiring—the opportunity to hire more part-time help, where the employee acts as a fully integrated (albeit part-time) member of the team on an ongoing basis.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Sales Hiring B2B New CTO 52

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Lightspeed has invested in companies for about 20 years, with roots in early-stage Enterprise investing. Enterprise technology spend has remained resilient , with Cloud spend tripling over the last year. In November of 2021, Abhay was the CTO at Adobe, and they were investing a lot in AI, but not GenAI.

AI 204

AI Artificial Intelligence Healthcare New CTO 204

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

However, as soon as a founder/CEO raises venture capital (VC) they have decided to take investing partners along on the journey. Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run. The challenge for hired CEOs is for them to understand: it’s not my company in the sense that I founded it, but it is my company to run.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Venture Capital Technical Advisors 59

OpenView Labs

MARCH 17, 2020

When you ask average questions, you get average hires. If a potential senior hire has gotten so far as to talk with the CEO , she’s probably someone the company wants. Related: Are You Hiring for Culture Fit or Culture Add? A 6-Point Checklist to Find Out Where You Stand.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. The different roles in SaaS companies: Chief Executive Officer : As the highest-ranking executive, this person ensures the company runs smoothly and employees are happy and engaged.

Sales Hiring 88

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 88

Crafty CTO

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Fractional CTO services can be a valuable asset for businesses that want to take advantage of technology to grow and improve their operations, but don’t have the resources or expertise to do so in-house.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Technology 40

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2019

I remember my CTO once arguing with a Fortune 500 company on a “security” concern they had which really made no sense. More here: I Never Lost a Customer I Actually Visited | SaaStr Not hiring a full-time RFP person. Not hiring a full-time Chief Security & Compliance Offer. Didn’t matter.

Sales Hiring 167

Sales Hiring Enterprise CTO Hire CTO 167