SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2025

A smaller number of high-quality leads that convert at higher rates is vastly superior to a flood of poor-fit prospects. You assembled a talented team, built an amazing product, and established a growing SaaS business. Mix in the classic conflict between sales and marketing teams, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Sales Hiring 190

Sales Hiring Marketing Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 190

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 13, 2020

ML products also require us to manage relatively large technology risks – this is an area where, unlike in most other product development, technical limitations might render the entire design impossible. New software engineers quickly learn that a lot of complexity arises from error handling. We can’t just build for the good path.

Artificial Intelligence 281

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Underperforming Technical Team Development 281

Incredo

MARCH 20, 2020

The Incredo team switched to a fully remote working system in September 2019. At the beginning it was a bit hard to track the progress of tasks and communicate with team members effectively. Since you started working from home, your whole team already saves around 1 hour of their day.

Underperforming Technical Team 227

Underperforming Technical Team Outsourced Development Systems Review Software Review 227

User Pilot

OCTOBER 31, 2024

A product analytics strategy is essential for any business looking to make informed decisions about product development and user experience. Plus, there are many reasons why you need a product analytics strategy: Aligns product development with user needs and business goals. Lack of team resources. Outdated technology.

Strategy 105

Strategy Underperforming Technical Team Government Customer Lifetime Value 105

FastSpring

JANUARY 23, 2025

How selling an investment business is very different from getting VC funding. They’re interested in the return on investment, they’re interested in the growth opportunities, they’re interested in the strategies and the synergies that those businesses can bring them, either as individuals or as companies.

Scale 118

Scale Entrepreneurship Scaling Underperforming Technical Team 118

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

So let’s take a look back to a deep dive with the CEOs on what they learned building their first senior teams: ———-. As a founder/CEO, building your first management team is something that you often lose sleep over. What makes you feel that you need to level up your management, set up your first management team?

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 261

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

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2025

David Frankel is Managing Partner at Founder Collective, a successful seed fund with investments in companies like The Trade Desk, Olo, and Coupang. Manage Team Expectations – Balance transparency with the need to keep the team focused on building the business.

Technical Review 189

Technical Review Software Review Development Team Review Sales Hiring 189

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 268

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales 268

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2021

PlanGrid builds beautiful, simple software for the construction industry. The second is pulling more around values, and how we approached team building. Even as a three person team, we went through an exercise to figure out what do we stand for, as a team? Getting the team right is so key here.

VP of Engineering 293

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 293

Sales Hacker

JUNE 17, 2025

But behind every product launch and revenue milestone is a team – and building that team is one of the hardest and important parts of the journey. Build the team that builds the company.” – that is part of your go-to-market strategy responsible for growth. So Sophie Buonassisi: I love it. Shall shall do it. It feels inevitable.

AI 81

AI Technical Advisors Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring 81

Casey Accidental

MARCH 29, 2022

A common issue leaders in product management, design, or engineering face is justifying investment in the “non-sexy” stuff. Non-sexy things include general user experience improvements, performance, developer velocity, infrastructure, technical debt, and, fortunately less than it used to be, growth. User Experience.

Investment 139

Investment Underperforming Technical Team User Experience Scale 139

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Scaling a support team is challenging enough as it is. 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. For Natasha, the answer is a resounding yes.

Outsourcing Services 206

Outsourcing Services Scale Software Sales Hiring 206

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

They are hiring leaders, building teams, and attracting advisors in the US while devouring the SV SaaS playbook. Software demand is softening. AI is likely the next platform, dev tools are strategic given the scarcity of developers, cybersecurity is front and center for enterprises, and the data stack is still going strong.

Scale 289

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Cybersecurity 289

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 120

Investment Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Artificial Intelligence 120

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

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. Unfortunately for me, I had little experience, not much talent, and lacked the treasure/money to invest. It seemed like the best investment! .

Scale 284

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Underperforming Technical Team 284

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

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2024

You don’t want conflict with the sales team. How do you leverage that offer to develop relationships with partners? This is where they started, but startups weren’t adopting the product as much with a discount, and there was a lot of conflict with the sales team. During SaaStr Annual, Zendesk Sr. Do they have a CRO in place?

Startup 255

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team AWS 255

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

Companies which don’t use mental models risk unleashing mayhem with poor choices or becoming bloated and bureaucratic by reducing the volume and speed at which decisions are made - both scenarios are undesirable and will impact growth. OKRs are a useful mental model - they make it crystal clear what people and teams should be striving for.

Underperforming Technical Team 215

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service 215

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 4, 2019

The fastest growing software companies in recent years all have something in common – they started with little to no sales team. Yes, Slack started off with no sales team. Yes, Dropbox started off with no traditional sales team. billion in revenue) so it’s safe to say Jeanne and her team have helped do exactly that.

Scale 162

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Payment Services 162

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 137

Data Analysis Software Data Scale 137

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Co-founder and CEO at Greenhouse, Daniel Chait, sits down with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin to share what’s new at Greenhouse, a successful recruiting software company at $200M in ARR today. Hiring is complicated, so you have to build a lot of software to get to $200M ARR. You could do vanilla 101 SaaS practices and succeed.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring AI SMB Scale 279

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2022

Jason Lemkin: Yeah, I think if you ask how applicable is SEO, programmable is maybe a different question, but I tell you every single SaaS company I have invested in or worked with that has made a commitment to building at least one high quality piece of content per week has seen significant ROI from SEO over a period of months or a year.

Scale 292

Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring VP of Engineering 292

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

If you’re a senior engineer and want to further your career, what skills should you develop? Moving forward in your career, avoid the trap of doing work that feels high-impact, but it’s actually not , or work that makes you look good at the expense of the project and the team. How do people move into staff engineering roles?

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 23, 2020

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. Once every decade or two, developments in technology trigger monumental changes in an industry. There are massive risks for those who don’t follow.

Customer Support 245

Customer Support Scale Underperforming Technical Team Scaling 245

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

You can have the great product and a great team, but the market of small or very niche. The second one is the team, obviously depending on how earlier the team has a huge factor because you may be so early in your journey that there’s nothing else to point to, but the track record of the team. So that’s easy.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 261

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2020

What Nobody Tells You About Seed Investing with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Cowboy Ventures Founder and Partner Aileen Lee. I think it gives us a perspective that maybe we don’t get in some other places, in addition to many great investments over the years. Personally, our team has been holding back a little bit.

Investment 187

Investment Technical Review Part-Time VPE Development Team Review 187

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

If your SaaS business has a sales team, there’s no way to grow 100% year-over-year without also growing your sales leadership. Knowing the common pitfalls won’t stop you or your team from making them, but it will help build the most important skill any manager can have: resiliency. SaaS = Software that scales. Overwhelmed.

Scale 174

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Underperforming Technical Team 174

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

As a core part of Matt’s philosophy, people need to have their own domain and run open-source software because it allows them to control the entire stack of what they’re putting online. WordPress is its own ecosystem, a vibrant community of hundreds of thousands of people who create add-ons, plugins, and develop sites.

Underperforming Technical Team 331

Underperforming Technical Team Social Media Government Subscription 331

FastSpring

DECEMBER 7, 2023

As the Director of Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships at WP Engine , Carl has worked on many acquisitions and partnerships, including brands like Flywheel, Perfect Dashboard, Block Lab, and recently, Delicious Brains. “This is everyday for me, so I love talking about it,” says Carl Hargreaves about mergers and acquisitions.

Software Review 148

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Branding 148

Totango

NOVEMBER 23, 2021

Whether you’re not using a customer success platform yet or you’re using an aging CS tool, there comes a time when you need to upgrade CS software. How do you tell when it’s time to ditch your current system and invest in a CS upgrade? However, just because you upgrade CS software doesn’t mean you should ditch your CRM tool.

Software 98

Software Underperforming Technical Team Churn Customer Success 98

Baremetrics

OCTOBER 11, 2021

Once users are in a position to invest in such a service, your SaaS should be the first that comes to mind. Building an organic audience through content marketing is also one of the most cost efficient marketing strategies available to SaaS start-ups that can’t afford to invest in expensive ad placements.

Content Marketing 113

Content Marketing SaaS Payments Investment Marketing 113

Incredo

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

Precisely – about SaaS affiliate programs… SaaS partner programs entice both software providers and affiliate partners for various reasons: 1) SaaS products are usually low-cost. 2) Software companies can pay high commissions because they don’t sell physical products. 5) Everyone minds his own business.

SaaS Payments 139

SaaS Payments Payment Methods Merchant Services Sales Recruiting 139

The Angel VC

MAY 17, 2017

In our weekly investment team call earlier this week we decided to pass on two early-stage SaaS startups that were both on track to grow from zero to $100k in MRR in their first 12 months of going live. And chances are that it would have been a good investment. I’ll keep you posted.) What does it mean for SaaS founders?

Business Model 180

Business Model Venture Capital SaaS Underperforming Technical Team 180

Scytale

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

Whether you’re a new entrepreneur in the software industry, scaling your startup, or a seasoned SaaS provider, securing a SOC 3 audit report can be a game-changer for your business , helping you strengthen customer trust while demonstrating your unwavering commitment to data security. The good news? The good news?

compliance 52

compliance Underperforming Technical Team Scale Technical Review 52

User Pilot

APRIL 2, 2025

In this article, I’ll show you how Userpilot helps product teams cut through the noise and understand what really matters in mobile user behavior: no data science degree required. The platform’s code-free implementation makes it accessible for product managers who want insights without constantly relying on developers.

Mobile 65

Mobile Underperforming Technical Team Onboarding AWS 65

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

And so these are all sort of the financial reasons why it makes sense to invest the time and energy to actually create champions from day one in your business. And there’s lots of examples and if you’ve seen these TED Talks, you hear about Apple, Think Different and you hear about Salesforce in their early days and no software.

Scale 229

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Software Review 229