SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

On the investing side of life, the toughest meeting of all for me at least is probably the Right Co-Founder, Wrong CEO start-up. But after that, it starts to break down when you have to recruit a true management team, and in many cases, additional capital. They’ll know … Who can best recruit a management team?

Sales Recruiting 231

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 231

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

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. Their first step to achieving this was hiring a sales leader to build a sales team. Outbound: including Account Based Marketing (ABM).

Scale 195

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 195

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

And for Intercom’s VP of Sales EMEA, Sanj Bhayro , scaling is just what you need to invest in to ensure growth becomes as constant and linear as it can be. Sanj has plenty of experience scaling sales teams at growing businesses, and that’s precisely why, as of November of last year, he‘s overseeing EMEA sales at Intercom.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. For instance, Founders Fund doesn’t really invest in AI, health tech, or edtech, even if you’re growing 5x. On the sales side, people hired way too much.

Sales Hiring 254

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 254

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. In my experience both as a salesperson and as a recruiter, it’s primarily been four things: They want the work they’re doing to matter to them. 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 paying a little more for a lot more experience can be one of the top investments you’ll ever make. Sales — Not Easier. I’m not. Perhaps, I am worse.

Sales Recruiting 320

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 320

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Throughout her time there, she scaled the SaaS company from $1M ARR to pre- IPO, along the way, creating the category of customer success software, and paving the way for Gainsight’s $1.1B Today, she advises and invests in companies on these topics and others. How you should you go about recruiting the right person?

Scale 293

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 293

Totango

MARCH 15, 2022

Efforts to scale customer success team activity often fall short because of failure to avoid common mistakes. Your human resources practices, your project management procedures and your technology strategy all need to come together in order for you to scale up without overextending yourself.

Sales Recruiting 95

Sales Recruiting Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 95

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 265

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 265

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. If I wouldn’t work for you … then I can’t help you recruit folks that will. You’re in sales. Recruit the VPs? Others bet on traction. And/or Late.

Sales Recruiting 336

Sales Recruiting Scale AWS Investment 336

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

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2021

And then, I would have invested more wisely in Year 1 especially. Not Hiring 2-3 Sales Reps to Start. More on that here: When You Hire Your First Sales Rep — Just Make Sure You Hire Two. Scaling Too Slowly — and Too Quickly. But I also tried to scale up too quickly after our Series A.

Sales Recruiting 264

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale SaaS 264

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 now it’s all about like, can you really scale and execute? Dev Ittycheria : Thank you.

Sales Recruiting 247

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 247

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

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 318

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 318

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

Enough to invest, but not enough to go crazy with. More on that here and a great video discussion below: You’ll probably be ready for your first VP of Sales by $1m in ARR. But you’ll need a manager to scale beyond 2. But it’ll be harder on you, and you’ll scale more slowly than you could.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

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

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. VP Sales (45 Employees).

CTO Hire 245

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 245

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

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 297

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 297

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Before you rush in for the sale, you need to assess everything. 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. Recruit advocates (actual insiders) early. Familiarity.

Enterprise 139

Enterprise Technical Review Sales Recruiting Scale 139

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. In this talk, Claire will share these and other lessons for scaling high-growth organizations. Manual processes first. Names stick.

Scale 152

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Scaling 152

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

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. That’s the opposite of scaling efficiently.

Sales Hiring 81

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 81

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 7, 2021

In 2018, it became clear we needed to scale, and fast – our APAC customer base had increased more than 900%, and about 10 to 12% of the company’s revenue was already there. Liam: Samira Alamudi is a Sales Development Manager in our Sydney office as part of the Asia Pacific or APAC team. We had two SDRs and one account executive.

Sales Recruiting 118

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Customer Support 118

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

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

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

On top of that, founders are full of excuses preventing them from scaling. 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. The best VPs of Sales hit the ground running. It never works, folks!

Part-Time VPE 181

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 181

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2021

Because at this scale, there will be room at the bottom. But then the leaders break through, achieve Scale, and the outlines become clear. And at a sales perspective, they’ll move to optimizing revenue per lead, over closing every possibly lead. Harder to Recruit. He said this competitor was cheaper. Not usually.

Scale 239

Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 239

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2019

With Dreamforce and SaaStr Europa and Scale behind us, little tiny Team SaaStr is 100% focused on 2020 SaaStr Annual. But we’re turning this around this year and letting our top-rated practioner speakers do “Masterclasses” on new content teaching you how to scale faster. Recruiting Fair. 4,000+ CEOs.

New CTO 259

New CTO Sales Recruiting CTO Coach Scale 259

Tom Tunguz

MAY 15, 2017

It’s another thing altogether to have the sales team staffed to close that amount of business. The bookings capacity of the business is the amount of business a sales team should book in a certain period. They build a pipeline, learn the sales motion, and close a few accounts in the first few months.

Sales Hiring 120

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 120

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2021

You might also include developers on sales calls from time to time — it makes everyone feel heard. The CEO of Dominoes recruited his Head of Technology personally, telling him that his realm was the most critical thing Dominoes was going to do in the next decade. 3 Assign problems, not tasks. 4 Provide executive enthusiasm.

Sales Recruiting 162

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 162

InsightSquared

MAY 15, 2019

It’s one of my favorite questions to ask a fellow professional in sales operations. Insurance sales rep. Account Manager. Sales Operations is Still Developing. Sales operations as a profession is growing, yet it is a comparatively new function in businesses. Sales Ops is Many Disciplines in One.

Sales Recruiting 110

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review Sales 110

InsightSquared

MARCH 6, 2018

Sales operations has been around for quite some time, but lately the function has been gaining momentum. Instead of behind-the-scenes sales support, sales ops now acts as a strategic partner for sales VPs and leadership. Start building out your sales operations department by hiring someone to own your CRM.

Sales Recruiting 119

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Sales 119

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 4, 2020

I was the new Vice President of International Sales & Managing Director for a work management software company called Wrike. Starting Your International Sales Team. The key to starting an international sales team is having the right people in your landing team. A mercenary is driven by the sale.

Sales Hiring 99

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 99

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Your sales team is integral to your business’s success: not only do your salespeople bring in the big deals, but they also represent your company and culture to every new and potential prospect. So why is sales team culture still an afterthought for so many organizations? People all across the company are so proud of our sales team.

Sales Hiring 143

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 143

Valuize Consulting

JANUARY 25, 2024

Greg, Karen and Leah generously shared their learnings, challenges and triumphs in building, scaling and maturing their Digital CS programs. Effective Cross-Functional Collaboration Your Digital CS program should be directed by Customer Success but also requires close partnership with Marketing, Product, Sales, and Revenue Operations.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Sales Recruiting Scale Strategy 52