SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Everything from hiring on the GTM side to layering in a sales-led motion into PLG. Let’s dive into what’s making that hybrid model successful: PLG and Sales Led? Given this, you must understand the role that each facet of the business plays in promoting that product, from marketing and sales to customer service.

Scale 260

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Marketing 260

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Many of you are familiar with this visual, most likely created by an investment firm. Will you have an overlay team that only sells the new product, or will you enable your entire sales force? This question exists whether you have 2, 12, or 50 sales reps. Prepare for post-sales on new products. What are those incentives?

Scale 231

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 231

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2020

Today, we’re answering the question: how do teams grow as a startup scales? The median startup with between 1-5M in ARR will have 12 engineers, 6 in sales and 3 in marketing. Meanwhile, the size of the marketing team increases only by 4X, compared to a 10X increase in sales and a 5X+ in engineering.

Scale 355

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 355

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

“My CEO Told Me To Stop Selling So Much” Recently, I met with a sales leader I’ve known for years, and he told me The Most Curious Story. The sales-driven customers are very profitable on a CAC basis, since their lead cost is $0, and so the ‘Magic Number’ or CAC/CLTV ratio is very favorable.

Scale 337

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Construction 337

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Despite what we’ve seen post-2020/2021, there has been a surge in AI investments, with AI companies at the infrastructure layer hitting a hundred times valuations at early funding stages. The general sense is that most VPs of Sales want to fully automate CS. There are worries over the persistence of low public multiples.

Investment 148

Investment Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 148

SaaStr

APRIL 25, 2023

In last week’s Workshop Wednesday , President Sales & Field Engineering Chris Donato and SVP Business Development & Ecosystem Shelli Vivona shared how to scale out a go-to-market org. They’ve invested in in-person training, a three-day offsite where the training went deep and resulted in certifying.

Scale 181

Scale VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Engineering 181

SaaStr

AUGUST 5, 2022

Dear SaaStr: Should I Tell VCs How Much I Want Them to Invest? 10m tells me you are really ready to scale. 10m tells me you are really ready to scale. Don’t ask an investor for more money than they will invest, if you’d take less. Selling stock is sales. And you want to remove objections from sales.

Investment 217

Investment Scale Scaling Sales 217

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

So there’s a sort of org chart you’ll probably end up with at least twice as you start scaling in SaaS: The “Headless” Sales Org. It’s a bunch of sales reps without anyone to manage them other than … you. But if you end up not hiring a VP of Sales at that perfect moment in time (and most don’t), you’ll end up headless.

Sales Hiring 207

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 207

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

Scaling a tech startup doesn’t come easy, and when you’ve tried all the conventional SaaS advice, it might be tempting to give up. But before the years of rapid scaling, it took the company a little while to hit its stride. What Did WorkRamp Do Differently to Scale? But sometimes, the road less traveled is the path to success.

Scale 200

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 200

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2022

By moving from Freemium to “Contact Me” only (albeit with transparent pricing), sales went way, way up. So many sales leaders get frustrated with Free editions, very low-cost editions … and the Long Tail in general. The Long Tail : Distracts sales , with leads that never closes. Super power, over many years.

Scale 292

Scale Sales Engineering Acquisition 292

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

based SMB sales positions. SaaS sales execs with even a little bit of experience at other SaaS companies are looking for higher and higher OTEs, often with lower effective attainment and high support costs. based sales reps often aren’t really willing to work, or excel, at sub-$100k OTEs anymore. for non-enterprise sales.

SMB 269

SMB Scale Sales Hiring Sales 269

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 22, 2020

This year, we launched Scale , a new content strand focusing on how industry leaders are propelling their companies forward by keeping their customers front and center. . When we created Scale, we had no idea what the year would hold in store; we simply knew that investing in long-term customer relationships was the key to success.

Scale 220

Scale Scaling Customer Support Interviewing 220

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2023

How CAC targets drive GTM strategies: If Your CAC Target Is Low You’ll likely focus on small-to-medium businesses and use tools like inbound sales and low-touch or no-touch self-service. The sales cycle at this stage may be very short. The sales cycle will be slightly longer at this stage. But over time, things change.

Scale 228

Scale Strategy Scaling Outbound Sales Team 228

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Eran Zimman, monday.com’s co-founder and co-CEO, shares his secrets to scaling and growth in an unpredictable market. Serve customers a CRM or project management first, and as they scale and use it more, they’re exposed to more features. They kept doing it after the economy changed, and they also scaled it. It’s cheap.

Scale 164

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Banking 164

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2022

Confluent’s President of Field Operations, Erica Schultz, explores different tactics businesses can employ to scale revenue and increase efficiency in the current macro environment. As you look to scale your business and make your processes more efficient, it’s essential to foster a shared understanding of who your target customer is.

VP of Engineering 197

VP of Engineering Scale Scaling Sales Hiring 197

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

How do you scale a company based that can be collaborative for everyone in your org — from finance to marketing? Ultimately, they developed a more hybrid sales approach because there are good parts to each experience. Invest in your own personal growth similar to how you would actively solicit venture investment for capital.

Scale 198

Scale Software Review Scaling Sales Hiring 198

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Back in the day, premium comp for some software sales execs made simple and easy sense. Traditional software had 90% gross margins, and the classic enterprise sales reps, the best ones, could close a million or more dollars a year. Sales reps in low NRR and high churn environments got paid almost the same as enterprise reps.

Scale 312

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Sales 312

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

E.g., Sales +Marketing Expenses < First Year ACV = Success ? But maybe not while you are scaling, you can often afford to invest more if you have funding. This is pretty much where most of us end up at, at scale. The sales team only brings in a minority of the lifetime revenue per customer. More on that below.

Scale 246

Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

Scale-ups are exciting. Scaling to satisfy customers’ demands depends on innovation and foresight combined with enterprise-ready technology and the right partners. On top of considerable dedication, creating a scale-up requires a functional edge—a unique and unreplicable capability compared to the players in the industry.

Scale 223

Scale Scaling Marketplace as a Service Entrepreneurship 223

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2021

Zendesk’s Sharon Prosser, VP Worldwide SMB Sales & XDR, and Astha Malik, VP GTM Strategy, Planning, and Enablement share some guiding principles about how their company has grown and enriched many markets. Move your sales teams into different areas of focus and get them to need each other. 3 Invest in people.

Scale 194

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring SMB 194

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Do You Become Successful at Enterprise Sales? If you haven’t done enterprise sales before, the biggest thing to understand: you can do it. But for enterprise sales, you’re going to have to get your arse out of your home office and go close some real live human beings: Listen — often in person.

Scale 251

Scale Sales Hiring Enterprise Sales 251

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2022

Cliff Bockard, Senior Vice President of Revenue at DigitalOcean, joined us at SaaStr Scale to discuss how businesses can serve SMBs and still bring in large numbers of revenue. . Transparent pricing makes their life easier than going on sales calls every day only to find out that your product is not financially viable for them. .

Scale 197

Scale Scaling Revenue Enterprise 197

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Their first step to achieving this was hiring a sales leader to build a sales team. They also hired a VP of Partners who knew how to scale B2B software. Partner: investing in different partnership channels. When StoryBlok got to this stage, they made the switch from a self-service to an enterprise model. Self-service.

Scale 195

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 195

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

They’re researching business products and services online, purchasing via websites as much as they can, and foregoing interactions with sales representatives whenever possible. Of course, the shift to digital sales tactics has been underway for years. What sales investments should you focus on in 2022? Sales engagement.

Scale 89

Scale Investment Sales Forecasting 89

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2022

You might feel confused about where to begin, how to scale up, which mistakes you should avoid, and things you should consider before expanding. Now, let’s look at ten learnings that Dorian gathered while scaling Grammarly from a Consumer to an Enterprise brand with B2B offerings. Enter your email below for the latest SaaStr updates.

Scale 206

Scale SMB Enterprise Sales Hiring 206

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Or do you actually have something worth scaling?”. This doesn’t simply mean that you’ve had a lot of sales, but instead that you’ve won over lots of repeat customers and have demonstrated a strategy that works. Build sustainable scale models. Do you have it right in your first market?

Scale 205

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 205

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2022

generate momentum, they will inevitably need to scale up. For whatever reason, the company is ready to exit startup status and prepare to scale-up. Dave Kellogg, Executive-In-Residence at Balderton Capital, breaks down the most common mistakes companies make when going from startup to scale-up. Be realistic in self-assessment.

Scale 193

Scale Technical Advisors Sales Hiring Technical Review 193

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2022

Yamini Rangan, CEO at HubSpot, has many insights on how to serve SMB customers at scale. But because SMBs are rarely digital-first, their recent challenges allowed HubSpot to leverage their years of experience in marketing automation, as it became a core feature of how these companies worked to scale. Balanced Growth Drivers.

Scale 224

Scale SMB Scaling Innovation 224

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 7, 2020

“Support isn’t just a cost center, but a strategic investment that increases customer retention and reduces churn” Indeed, if you look at the broader financial models of customer support, you’ll see that support isn’t just a cost center, but a strategic investment that increases customer retention and reduces churn.

Customer Support 196

Customer Support Investment Scale Retention 196

SaaStr

JUNE 8, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design a Sales Reps Compensation Plan at Just $10k MRR ? Figuring out your very first sales comp plan when you don’t have a repeatable process or much revenue is confusing. but You don’t have the capital to invest here … the rep has to be accretive. And The business model does have to work.

Compensation 204

Compensation Scale Sales Business Model 204

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Gusto is a high-velocity, high-scale acquisition and expansion engine, and one we can all learn from. To be even more specific, Gusto realized the word “territory” was holding their sales team back. Today, many SaaS companies still divide up sales accounts in territories by city, country, or region, or round-robin them by rep.

Scale 211

Scale Sales Marketing Construction 211

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

Doug Pepper, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth, has invested in software and SaaS companies for 22 years, from seed to growth stage. They initially double their ARR each year in scaling post $10M. On the other hand, the sales expenses form a larger share of operating expenses as the GTM motion is leveraged.

Scale 206

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Venture Capital 206

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2022

Even with late stage VC capital much harder to get now, and the IPO markets still frozen, I see many folks on my LinkedIn feed saying Sales and Customer Success are underpaid. Well, for most of time, about 10% of the “profit” on a deal has done to sales, and about 5% of renewals have gone to customer success. More money.

Scale 223

Scale Customer Success Venture Capital Sales 223

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2023

Key Takeaways Create a huge top-of-funnel Ensure the right mix of self-serve, sales-assisted and inbound, and outbound for your product and customer Don’t underestimate the power of a community-building motion Customer Success Is Everything Customer success is vital for any tech company, but it’s incredibly important in the SMB world.

Scale 197

Scale SMB Merchant Services Payment Methods 197

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2022

A few ideas on how to help the sales team make this your best year so far: Hire dedicated sales / revenue ops. Many of you will have little to no dedicated help in sales operations , even up to $10m ARR or beyond. If that’s you, or your VP of Sales, or even your VP of Marketing … it can sort of work for a while.

Scale 244

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Enterprise 244

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Check out the session here: Algolia also summarized their Top 5 take-aways here , and below: Most SaaS founders start out the same way— armed with ample expertise of the technical details that go into a product and with limited experience of other aspects of scaling, such as sales. On finding product-market fit in the early stages.

Scale 232

Scale Sales Hiring Technical Advisors Scaling 232

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2021

The CEO basically is the VP of Sales and Revenue and Customer Success, with maybe a junior resource or two helping. And they realize, now that they’ve gotten here, that — it’s time to Go Bigger: That the CEO, not trained in sales, shouldn’t be the VP of Sales anymore. But it will take $2.5m-$3m gross.

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Sales 265