SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2022

This one took me a little while to figure out (thanks to Auren Hoffman for helping me see this clearly), but if you’re a founder, the best investment you can make is in yourself. I’ll never make more money in the stock market, or investing in startups, or anything else … than I’ve made betting on myself.

Scale 361

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Startup 361

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2023

Yes, There’s Lots of “Dry Powder” in Venture Today. SaaStr 624: Investing and Venture Capital in 2023 with SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin and Atrium Founder and CRO Pete Kazanjy. . Half of You Are Giving No Raises for 2023. But There is Zero Pressure to Deploy It. Top Podcasts This Week: 1.

Scale 241

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Scaling 241

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

While the world of public tech stocks is defined by consumer-facing juggernauts like Facebook, Amazon, and Google, the world of venture capital is defined by the North Star of SaaS. People used to respect capital more. Founders remain extremely optimistic about raising future capital at higher valuations.

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Headcount Finance Technical Review 245

SaaStr

JANUARY 22, 2023

SaaStr 627: Move Over, Sales: Why Product & Marketing are the C-Suite’s New Power Partnership with Checkout.com CMO Leela Srinivasan and CPO Meron Colbeci    4. SaaStr 624: Investing and Venture Capital in 2023 with SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin and Atrium Founder and CRO Pete Kazanjy  5.

Scale 207

Scale Customer Success Venture Capital Sales Hiring 207

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

Many start-ups think they need to net venture capital to jumpstart their growth. UserZoom invested in a model where they didn’t just provide software, but services, in a model known as SaaS++. Sales and marketing are still significant, but consider dedicating more research and design to the user experience. Key Takeaways.

Scale 225

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring SMB 225

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

The venture capital firm’s mission is to be “entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs.” Doug Pepper, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth, has invested in software and SaaS companies for 22 years, from seed to growth stage.

Scale 219

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Venture Capital 219

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

And often, if you are capital efficient, your marketing cost will be close to $0 at this point (you are barely spending anything to acquire most customers), and your sales costs are pretty predictable. Generally speaking, one Director of Sales can manage about 8 closers, account execs, max. Why would this be?

Sales Hiring 244

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Venture Capital 244

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. Fixing it yourself becomes the biggest time sink and excuse for not hiring there is. You end up spending all your time backfilling roles you should have hired. And even worse, you often sort of give up trying to make the hire. Less and you under-invest.

Part-Time VPE 279

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 279

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

With more rounds of venture capital come more board seats, and after a few rounds, the founders often don’t control the board. You know when that fancy VP of Sales you hired isn’t going to work out. Most VCs can afford to lose the first check they invest in you. And the board decides who the CEO is.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Sales Hiring Forecasting Startup 347

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to understand how venture capital works. 2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” You can’t always expect a great VP of Sales to double sales in 30-60-90 days. But you have to see progress in one sales cycle. If, in one sales cycle, things aren’t improving on several core metrics, they never will.

Part-Time VPE 194

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 194

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Or of my investments, ones like Algolia and Salesloft, that yes, in theory, were playing in larger markets, but in practice, their entry points were quite narrow. How many sales reps, how much marketing spend, how many engineers will you really need? Worth hiring a sales team, raising some venture capital (even a modest amount).

Scale 222

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital AWS 222

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2022

One of the first what How to Hire a Great VP of Sales at the New York Enterprise Tech Meet-Up (thank you to John Lehr and Work-Bench for setting this up). The Number One Thing You Can Do to Accelerate Your Business Post-Initial Traction is Hiring a Great VP of Sales. Now, I just invest in SasS companies.

Sales Hiring 271

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting 271

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2021

Who can help me find that first VP of Sales? A lot of folks will want to invest in the next round of their startups. Later this doesn’t matter but some VCs really can promote you and help attract the best hires, etc. Later this doesn’t matter but some VCs really can promote you and help attract the best hires, etc.

Sales Recruiting 298

Sales Recruiting Venture Capital Sales Hiring Investment 298

SaaStr

APRIL 11, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank specialized in venture capital-backed startups, primarily in tech. Understandably, the collapse of a venture bank where companies could lose billions of dollars was staggering. Wait And See DiTargiani has worked in sales and business development roles in Silicon Valley for a long time.

Banking 225

Banking Sales Hiring Venture Capital Communication 225

Sales Hacker

APRIL 19, 2022

In this article, I’ll outline the principles of compensation design , how to build sales compensation plans , and include resources to set OTEs and quotas that keep your reps happy and hungry for more. Why Sales Comp Planning is Key to Rep Retention. Who should be responsible for sales compensation planning?

Compensation 87

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Retention 87

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

FEBRUARY 5, 2018

To me, there’s never been a better time to be a sales enablement professional. While the sales enablement profession looks set to continue on an impressive trajectory, one aspect that has alarmed and disappointed me is the lack of credible and fresh data on sales enablement, its importance and value.

Sales Enablement 143

Sales Enablement Sales Hiring Sales Venture Capital 143

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 12, 2017

I hesitate to compare and contrast bootstrapped and venture backed businesses, because I’m a venture capitalist and it’s very easy to dismiss any analysis as biased in favor of venture investment. First, they invest 30% of their total cash in customer acquisition no matter the state of the business.

Sales Hiring 202

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Startup Finance 202

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 million Euro from a high profile group of Venture Capital funds and Business Angels.

CTO 52

CTO Startup Venture Capital Transportation 52

Point Nine Land

MARCH 15, 2022

If you take a look at a 50 person sales team, you’ll likely find it to be very data-driven. Eiso is joined by an amazing team including Paul Bleicher , one of Sqreen’s first hires. His second one, source{d}, was geared towards developers, too (and was a forerunner to today’s renaissance of NLP for code).

Investment 52

Investment Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Engineering 52

SaaSOptics

AUGUST 11, 2022

So far, we’ve seen a slowdown in the venture market due to the drop in the stock market, inflation, an increase in interest rates, and a number of other issues. According to Crunchbase, valuations are declining, funding rounds are slowing, and some tech companies are freezing hiring or laying off employees to boost profits.

Scale 97

Scale Scaling Technical Review Venture Capital 97

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

What does it take to scale a sales team successfully? Should one hire sales reps 2×2? How does Andy think about hiring sales reps from adjacent companies and industries? How does Andy think about minimizing and optimising sales ramp times? How does Andy view the importance of offering trials?

Sales Hiring 212

Sales Hiring Scale Leadership Sales Enablement 212

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

You’re investing resources in hiring and training the right people, tracking different metrics at different stages, adding more and more complexity with each increase in headcount, use cases, and customers. I think that the hiring competitive landscape is extremely difficult. Natasha: The challenges are endless.

Scale 206

Scale Outsourcing Services Software Sales Hiring 206

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 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. Teddie Wardi | Managing Director @ Insight Partners. Want to see more content like this? Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Government 183

Kellblog

JANUARY 3, 2022

You should have hired professionals to run your experiment. But you’re not fully committed, the board is split on the decision, you’re worried about the CAC impact of initially unproductive sales investments, and you’re not sure what to do. Good sales DNA you convince yourself.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Consulting Leadership 125

Neil Patel

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

That’s an expensive mistake if you make the wrong investment. Instead, larger tech companies like Twitter and Pinterest are making investments in small startups. Over the last couple of years, there have been clear trends in why big companies are choosing to invest in these small teams and use them as part of their growth strategy.

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Payment Methods Acquisition Development Team Review 144

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 7, 2020

I have been an early employee at a very successful start-up (and several not-so-successful ones), and I’ve also been in Sales and Management at large, enterprise corporations. And although Sales is Sales, there are several big differences. Sales Support. There are pros and cons to both. Procedures and Workflows.

Scale 77

Scale Enterprise Sales Hiring Technical Review 77

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2020

Christoph has invested in more than 20 SaaS startups and lives and breathes SaaS, everything from “A as in AI-enhanced B2B software” to “Z as in Zendesk”. Christoph co-founded Point Nine Capital in 2011. We’re an early stage venture capital firm focused primarily on B2B SaaS and B2B marketplaces.

Development Team Review 163

Development Team Review Software Review Management SaaS Payments 163

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 4, 2020

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Matt Rizzetta , founder of North 6th Agency, which is a communications and PR firm based in New York City. Years later, he’s got a thriving business that is not venture capital backed. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. How to get better at sales [21:37].

Scale 105

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 105

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. Lead generation tools do change, but the basic motions of sales and marketing haven’t changed much.

Scale 258

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 258

Kellblog

DECEMBER 27, 2021

Before diving in, let me remind readers that I do these predictions in the spirit of fun, they are not business or investment advice, and that all of my usual disclaimers and terms apply. Flood of venture capital (VC). Venture capital continues to flow. Upstarts can stand yet again on the shoulders of giants.

Blockchain 143

Blockchain Technical Review Venture Capital Sales Hiring 143

User Pilot

JUNE 13, 2022

We covered the best blogs on SaaS growth, product marketing , UX analytics, venture capital, and sales. The Angel VC blog is devoted to discussing internet start-ups, SaaS, and early-stage investing. The Brad Feld blog is one of the best venture capital blogs dedicated to entrepreneurs and investors.

Venture Capital 52

Venture Capital SaaS Data Scale 52

The Angel VC

NOVEMBER 26, 2014

I was worried that the inbound marketing plus customer success (at that time, called “customer advocacy”) approach wouldn’t scale and thought that they’d have to do outbound sales soon to keep growing. I didn’t have a diversified portfolio, and I didn’t know if I’d ever have one because I had no idea when I’d make my second investment.

Scale 155

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Software Review 155

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 2, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Semil Shah , General Partner at Haystack and Venture Partner at Lightspeed. He’s also one of the most well known and well respected writers on venture capital and early stage investing. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. What You’ll Learn.

Scale 55

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Finance 55

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

Does Bob agree with the notion that channel sales have completely died in the world of SaaS? How does Bob think about when is the right time to hire a Head of Partnerships? Where do most startups go wrong both in hiring for partnerships and in the engagements themselves? Why is this? What are the drivers of its death?

Sales Hiring 133

Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 133

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2019

Why does Parker believe it is fundamentally better to wait for as long as possible before hiring customer support? Why should your engineers be heavily involved in the customer support hiring process? What do you look for in those hires? We’re just making our first, sort of, one to two hires in the company.

VP of Engineering 137

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Scale Systems Review 137

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Given the shifting landscape, it’s helpful for you as a CEO and/or founder—or for your finance and capital markets teams, if you have those hires to help you through this process—to know who the key players are at each stage so you can spend your time and energy speaking to the right firms.

Outsourcing Services 129

Outsourcing Services Software Review Scale Banking 129

FastSpring

APRIL 7, 2022

In their case, the cash that Messente generated from these early sales enabled them to pay salaries quickly, which meant they could keep their doors open and the ideas flowing. Messente was turning a profit month after month, meaning it could hire more salespeople and really start to scale up. Expand with your customers.

SaaS Payments 118

SaaS Payments Technical Advisors Payment Services Payments 118