SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Companies in our region are good at achieving PMF and scaling to $1 million-$5 million ARR efficiently. They are hiring leaders, building teams, and attracting advisors in the US while devouring the SV SaaS playbook. Software demand is softening. It helps your leaders scale and creates a CXO pipeline for the company.

Scale 225

Scale Sales Hiring Cybersecurity Underperforming Technical Team 225

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Investing in Instacart was perhaps the hardest decision I had to make as a venture capitalist. We pulled from my prior marketplaces experience and dove into their business quickly to develop a point-of-view on the opportunity. Prior to founding Instacart, Apoorva was a fulfillment optimization software engineer from Amazon.

Marketplace as a Service 139

Marketplace as a Service Scale Underperforming Technical Team Construction 139

Neil Patel

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

The good news is data labeling is scalable when you work with the right data labeling software. Data labeling is the process of analyzing raw data and labeling it to provide context to machine learning software, algorithms, and end-users. The task is usually completed by a combination of software, processes, and people.

Scale 125

Scale Outsourcing Services Artificial Intelligence Scaling 125

Neil Patel

JANUARY 25, 2021

Everyone has questions when it comes to choosing data analysis software. Luckily, data analysis software can seriously simplify data analysis—provided you choose the right one. How to Choose the Best Data Analysis Software for You. Data analysis software isn’t a cheap investment, so use caution when making a selection.

Data Analysis 128

Data Analysis Software Data Scale 128

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 11, 2019

But as the business becomes more successful – and there are resources to build a support team – additional layers begin to separate executives from their customers. If you’re a leader, he says, don’t try to scale your job. Here are five quick takeaways: Most sales and support teams talk about their jobs as a funnel.

Scale 188

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team 188

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

While running my financial modeling software business Flightpath (Now Forecast+) , we often get the question “Which SaaS billing platform should we use” from our customers. If you get the setup wrong, you end up with bad data, incorrect reports and forecasts, which has a material impact on the business.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments Software Review 52

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Yet competition and the exponential rate of change in software are pushing against that mission. Enter our philosophy of Run Less Software. It means reducing choices amongst engineering teams and standardizing technology, so our team can spend as much time as possible delivering value to customers.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

Casey Accidental

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

This can make it tricky to evaluate as an engineer, designer, product manager or CEO if the investment will bear fruit and whether one should keep going. I’ll explain how I think about these decisions as a product leader and give more context on the journey of developing entirely new products inside a company.

Underperforming Technical Team 63

Underperforming Technical Team Scale GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup 63

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. Our team is in Room 111.

Scale 160

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Scaling 160

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

One of the biggest challenges businesses face when they grow is scaling effective , autonomous and quick decision-making. I leveraged many of the 52 mental models while working at various software as a service (SaaS) companies, but in truth, they can be applied anywhere, regardless of industry. A good idea is a good idea, after all.

Underperforming Technical Team 213

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service 213

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. Jyoti Bansal : And then he started talking about sales and Dev during the breakfast he convinced me if you can marry the right kind of sales scaling and execution then that’s when your business will really, really take off.

Sales Recruiting 251

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 251

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 30, 2024

ABOUT IN THE VAULT “In the Vault” is a new audio podcast series by the a16z Fintech team, where we sit down with the most influential figures in financial services to explore key trends impacting the industry and the pressing innovations that will shape our future. Follow this show on our podcast feed so you don't miss an episode.

Payment Solutions 80

Payment Solutions Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments 80

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

Their CEO will join us at SaaSr Scale 2021 on December 15 to talk about using data to get to 10,000 SMB customers! A mentor of mine suggested that I reframe my search to seek out companies that I would invest in, instead of the other way around. He told me, you can invest time, talent, or treasure.

Scale 270

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 270

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 23, 2020

Delivering those better experiences requires a fundamentally new way to do customer support, a messenger-based approach that works at internet scale. The businesses who are thriving right now, despite increasing support volume and a mandate to cut costs, are the ones investing in this new way of doing customer support.

Customer Support 245

Customer Support Scale Underperforming Technical Team Scaling 245

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

So how can you leverage that product’s success to obtain the valuation and funding you need to scale? I’m talking about product-led growth as an investment strategy, but really my background is 10 years of operating experience in the product-led growth world. Now I’m investing in that. So, OpenView worked out for me.

Investment 100

Investment Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Software Review 100

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 5, 2021

Over the past decade, software has created tremendous value for investors and businesses, thanks largely to its transformative effect on the economy , its role in developing new cloud-based business models, and its ability to increase efficiency in operations. Sticky after all. the ability to offload more IT tasks to a remote vendor.

Software Review 52

Software Review DevOps as a Service Software Underperforming Technical Team 52

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 23, 2023

TL;DR Regular roadmaps kill outcomes by forcing teams to think in the categories of features and timelines. It’s difficult to implement outcome-based roadmaps because stakeholders don’t trust product teams to deliver on business goals. Many companies lack differentiation strategies and drive product development by copying competitors.

Scale 105

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting Software Review 105

Neil Patel

OCTOBER 25, 2020

If you are looking to scale up your marketing, you will need talented people that can take charge of and execute your strategy. But should you build your own in-house marketing team or hire an agency partner? Digital agencies are companies that help other businesses perform a specific function such as marketing, development, or design.

Sales Hiring 145

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 145

Audacix

FEBRUARY 5, 2023

Or maybe you're looking to shift left with application security so that you can build a culture of security within your development team? Whatever your reasons for researching this topic, the good news for you is that your team can take ownership of many of your application security testing activities.

Underperforming Technical Team 52

Underperforming Technical Team DevOps as a Service SaaS Sales Hiring 52

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2019

Freemium can help software companies gain users quickly—but what happens when it’s time to scale back or up? Join Joaquim Lecha, CEO at Typeform, and Christoph Janz, Managing Partner at Point Nine, as they delve into freemium at scale. We give them the superpowers of the developer and the designer. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW.

Scale 145

Scale Scaling Payment Methods SaaS Payments 145

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

sales team. As everyone left to work for an investment bank in California or New York that summer of ’99, I went to work at a startup in Ann Arbor. We disrupted this space and ended up pushing out software vendors that had been doing this for 25, 30 years. We have team selling here that extends beyond the sales team.

Scale 227

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales 227

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 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. Here’s what Claire talks about: How to avoid trapdoor decisions when scaling. Lessons for scaling high-growth organizations.

Scale 123

Scale Payment Services Payment Methods Sales Hiring 123

FastSpring

DECEMBER 8, 2022

As a former agency owner, now the Chief Marketing Officer at FastSpring, David Vogelpohl has helped many software companies scale around the world. I’m EJ Brown, Senior Content Strategist at FastSpring, we help SaaS and software companies scale around the world. This would have been downloadable software.

Payment Methods 78

Payment Methods Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Software Review 78

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 13, 2022

Oftentimes a good customer service experience starts with developing a sound process. With ticketing workflows that put the emphasis on conversations not tickets, customer support teams now have the ability to categorize, prioritize, and assign issues as they arise. What is a customer service process? Messenger-based customer service.

Underperforming Technical Team 129

Underperforming Technical Team Customer Support Technical Support Churn 129

Casey Accidental

MAY 27, 2021

Every engineer, designer and product manager on the team should be involved in defining the problem and the solution. What this means though is that initial releases will never have everything teams want. Product development projects always have very high opportunity cost. Every key result should be outcome based.

Underperforming Technical Team 145

Underperforming Technical Team Payment Solutions Payment Services Payments 145

Stax

JANUARY 3, 2024

Poor implementation of self-checkouts can add friction to the customer experience, so it’s important to design a tailored checkout strategy and smooth implementation. That said, you should also consider that team members are still required to monitor self-checkout areas to provide assistance or discourage shoplifting.

Payment Solutions 88

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payment Services Payments 88

OPEXEngine

AUGUST 31, 2021

Tech debt refers to the cost of redeveloping existing products and code that wouldn’t otherwise be able to scale or evolve over time to meet shifting consumer needs. And while the concept has been around for years, for most of that time, tech debt was primarily the concern of product and engineering teams. Why tech debt matters.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Software Review Scale 52

OPEXEngine

AUGUST 31, 2021

Tech debt refers to the cost of redeveloping existing products and code that wouldn’t otherwise be able to scale or evolve over time to meet shifting consumer needs. And while the concept has been around for years, for most of that time, tech debt was primarily the concern of product and engineering teams. Why tech debt matters.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Software Review Scale 52

Casey Accidental

OCTOBER 20, 2020

Building on the definitions from that essay and introducing a few new ones, here are the types of business models we’ll cover: SaaS: software that businesses access online and purchase via a subscription e.g. Slack, Adobe, Atlassian. A business is SaaS or SaaS-like if it sells anything else software-related.

Marketplace as a Service 141

Marketplace as a Service Business Model SaaS Payments Payments 141

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

TL;DR SaaS, or “Software as a Service,” is a business model that delivers centrally hosted software to subscribers over the internet. They also manage finances and supervise one or more engineering teams. Much of the success here depends on how competent and motivated the CTO and their team is.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

If you don’t have tickets, lock in Early Bird pricing today and bring your team! The other thing is I’ve studied enterprise software for literally 30 years. I was an intern at IBM mainframe software when I was 20 years old. “Look, here’s enterprise software. I was a software developer, a product person.

Sales Hiring 339

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 339

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Despite the work still being very much a balancing act between what’s possible and what’s feasible, things, it appears, are just starting to scale. ML teams tend to invest a fair share of resources in research that never ships. And they are just scaling that up. What’s up?

Artificial Intelligence 249

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning AI Search AI 249

Baremetrics

OCTOBER 31, 2021

It distracts the team from writing new features + fixing bugs. You have to face challenging tradeoffs, the more of your team’s time you buy with hosted services, the less customization and higher cost you incur. Are you growing and want to scale? Wait… that’s bad news. Like, really expensive.

AWS 115

AWS DevOps as a Service Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review 115

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 7, 2021

In the subscription economy, there’s no debate about whether or not to invest in Customer Success (CS); 70% of rapidly growing businesses say that Customer Success is extremely important ( Hubspot , 2017). The question now is, how big should CS organizations be, and what’s the best way to staff and scale its success?

VP of Engineering 98

VP of Engineering Customer Success Sales Hiring Interviewing 98

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 12, 2023

In this episode, a16z partner Seema Amble talks with Dimitri Dadiomov, the co-founder and CEO of payment operations platform Modern Treasury, about the challenges of creating a new category, hiring for marketing before you hire for sales, and why developing new features is similar to birding. And so that was what you’re investing in.

Payment Solutions 112

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payment Services Payments 112

Chaotic Flow

AUGUST 18, 2015

SaaS businesses develop intimate, long term relationships with their SaaS customers. If they don’t keep their customers around for years, then all that capital invested in customer acquisition will have gone to waste. It is typical in B2B software for customer acquisition to eat up 50% or more of total costs.

Customer Success 138

Customer Success Underperforming Technical Team Scale SaaS 138

Point Nine Land

JUNE 22, 2023

…or why this software investor has a crush on hardware It’s hard to find a VC who doesn’t love software, and for good reason. Software is also a lovely thing to scale. It’s not very surprising then that we’ve built, invested in, and bought a ton of software over the last few decades.

Outsourcing Services 59

Outsourcing Services Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development AI 59