SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2023

Looking for a job? I’ve interviewed several COO candidates recently, a bunch of CROs, and other leaders who never did >any< real research on the companies they were interviewing with. Even when I was the 5th or 6th interview at the company (as an investor) (!!). You’ll be in the Top 5% of candidates if you do.

Interviewing 201

Interviewing 201

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

Jennifer has been at PagerDuty since 2016, a disruptive company that took automation to the next level before AI was hot in 2024. PagerDuty has a long history with AI because they’ve used analytical AI and a foundational model long before Jennifer even joined the company. Are Enterprise Leaders Excited About GenAI?

Generative AI 225

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 225

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2023

But … if you’ve been around, if you know great founders, if you have strong dealflow, if you can already get into great companies … then it’s terrible advice. One of the all-time best SaaS VCs just invested in one of my companies. The job is to deploy capital, after all. So we all feel this.

Investment 281

Investment Cloud SaaS Management 281

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2024

I struggled with this myself a bit in the early days, in my first start-up job. If a SaaS company under a great CEO grows from say $1m to $100m in ARR … the valuation and value could easily grow from $10m to $1b. That’s a unique job. Dear SaaStr: What Does a CEO Do to Deserve Such an Exorbitant Salary? That’s the CEO.

B2C 240

B2C Engineering Revenue SaaS 240

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

The question entrepreneurs and founders need to ask themselves is… Is Your Company Still Relevant In A Post-AI World? It’s an exciting time to be a visionary, and that’s a founder’s job. Those companies are gone. He proved that the innovator’s dilemma causes big companies to get disrupted. What about talent?

AI 246

AI Technical Review Startup Management 246

Upscope

SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

Customer success manager (CSM) job descriptions vary greatly across companies, depending on size and philosophy. Below are several job descriptions which cover this range. Why does the CSM job description vary so much across different organisations? Gainsight is a large (500+ employees) and growing SaaS company.

Customer Success 40

Customer Success Sales Hiring Management SaaS 40

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2023

Aren’t they already being paid to do a full-time job? Don’t they seem to be working on their side hustle on LinkedIn with even more enthusiasm than their day job? And in some cases, really to be both a VP and running a second senior job at the same time. Depends on the size of the company. Well, maybe.

Underperforming Technical Team 270

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Startup 270

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2024

The vast majority of startups and companies allow a ton of work from home. So look if you’re unhappy today, but have a good job, reflect a bit. If your job is truly unrewarding, yes find another one. My best advice if your job is rewarding is do more of it. And importantly — it’s not quality of life. I meant embrace it.

Sales Hiring 201

Sales Hiring Startup Sales 201

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. However, last Friday the jobs report came out very strong (which would in theory contradict the possibility of a soft landing, which I’ll get into). Follow along to stay up to date! Hard Landing? Soft Landing? No Landing?

Cloud 268

Cloud Software Review Technical Review Systems Review 268

SaaStr

OCTOBER 24, 2023

You pick yourself up, and find another job. If as a non-founder, you fail at your individual job, that is rough. But the company can survive that. The most shocking thing from talking with Jensen: if he could do it all over again, he would not start a company. It’s hard there, too — but it’s not the same. You move on.

Entrepreneurship 252

Entrepreneurship Interviewing Scaling SaaS 252

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2024

But you should be a bigger, better, and more highly regarded company and product this year than last. But this is your job as CEO, to balance the different incentives and forces here. So increase pricing annually to reflect that. Well, that depends on how much you’ve earned. Try to increase pricing annually for new customers.

Pricing 248

Pricing Branding Sales 248

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2024

I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve done in the past months where I was told how their last company was “toxic”. That job was toxic. It wasn’t my company. Twice this week, at least. It’s the new hot term to describe situations that are challenging. Or that we didn’t enjoy. They are toxic, after all.

Interviewing 235

Interviewing 235

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

In a lineup of all Enterprise B2B SaaS companies with similar features, investors can only choose one or two per year. She’s also sat on boards with 15 or 16 companies, figuring out what does and doesn’t work for her as an investor. Your culture is why people will leave a lucrative job at Google to work with you. Who likes it?

B2B 196

B2B Enterprise Communication Technology 196

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Jason now has 5 investments at $200m+ ARR that are all cash-flow positive (which is necessary today), and there’s one clear trend he’s seen in today’s new efficient world: The New Normal is 700 Employees at $200,000,000 in ARR (or $300,000 per employee) at the average public SaaS company. It’s part of the job now.

Sales Recruiting 278

Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Software Review 278

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

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. Almost every SMB SaaS company I work with has moved most of its sales team outside the U.S. simply don’t really want these jobs.

SMB 260

SMB Scale Sales Hiring Sales 260

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

So in Enterprise, they have around 2,000 companies spending $100k or more per year and dozens of companies spending over a million per year. They’ve built a dedicated enterprise team and a repeatable process where they can just grow a Fortune 50 company at $100k a year to $1M – $3M annually. What size company?

New CTO 241

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring AWS 241

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2024

If your win rates stay extremely high, that means your are doing a pretty terrible job of getting into more and new deals. Measure your NPS, and then have the whole company align on raising it every quarter. Your happy customers beget more happy customers in SaaS.

Scaling 264

Scaling Revenue Underperforming Technical Team Market Segmentation 264

SaaStr

AUGUST 2, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Is The Job of a Venture Capital Fund Manager? Ultimately, the job is to beat Nasdaq by at least 20%. It’s liquid and full of great tech companies! Now what does the job look like? The post Dear SaaStr: What Is The Job of a Venture Capital Fund Manager? Roughly: Source new investments.

Venture Capital 172

Venture Capital Management Investment Startup 172

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2024

Last time we had a great one with Job van der Voort, CEO at Remote, check it out here. We implemented 6Sense early, using it to craft highly targeted campaigns based on company category, intent stage, and job family for individual contacts within those accounts. This week we have Rik Haandrikman, VP of Marketing at RevenueCat!

Marketing 196

Marketing ChatGPT Mobile Onboarding 196

SaaStr

JANUARY 22, 2024

The make or break ones: Should we sell our company? Not for help doing their job. There’s no one to talk to about their jobs, even if they have a big team. That’s part of your job for your top performers in your 1-on-1’s. And especially — peed up any that are reversible, and have a good manager to manage them.

Management 244

Management Sales Hiring Pricing Communication 244

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2022

An important gap to fill, and a full-time job. And most of these CS execs and I share the same frustration: their job is mainly reactive. What I mean is, with most SaaS companies, there’s just a huge customer workflow break. Sales works as hard as it can to close the deal this month, this quarter — and often does an amazing job.

Customer Success 273

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 273

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Often, for another job where realistically, they won’t make nearly as much money. Why would a sales rep quit a job where they are making top 1%-5% money, respected, treated well, and have it dialed it? She quit to go a big public company as one of hundreds of reps, and start over. I asked her why. The constant here?

Sales Recruiting 191

Sales Recruiting Sales Startup Engineering 191

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2021

That's part of the job, after all. Just make sure at least 50% of their energy goes into promoting the company, and not just their personal brand. CMO is a tough job. And the job often is so multi-facteted. It’s a big job. Both their company, and many times, themselves. The real job.

Sales Recruiting 266

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Branding Product Marketing 266

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Going public isn’t the end goal, and founders must see beyond that to build a generational tech company. They present it to the company, and cool things come from it. Every company that makes it to a billion or more in ARR has done this successfully. A lot of companies create a new product innovation team. The challenge?

Scale 227

Scale Innovation SaaS Scaling 227

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

One bit of advice: Please, please, actually research the company you are interviewing at. Be a consultant, build your 30/60/90 plan and job description and iterate and validate during the interview. For real. At least for 30-45 minutes, ideally more. He said that was the first time he’d heard that. Usually works pretty well.”

Interviewing 216

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting 216

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2023

You could just run the standard playbook from your last job and it would almost always just work. I remember I first started to see this with one company I invested in where some folks described it as “Gong for XYZ”. I know great jobs are harder to find. The demand was already there, and often red hot. You can interview.

Marketing 218

Marketing Sales Interviewing Enterprise 218

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

1: Put the company right back into your drip market campaign. If your competitor did an OK job but isn’t loved and you now are doing something much better (one thing) than them. I.e., if someone that loves you instead moves over to run the company / division / org you lost the deal at. If your competitor really screwed it up.

Sales 253

Sales SaaS Marketing 253

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

And the more it’s just a job. To another VC firm (pretty common) To work at a portfolio company To start their own company To a corporate VC fund Are some of the most common landing spots. Now, the more junior you are, and the less of a true Managing General Partner you are, the less it is true. Where do they go?

Investment 220

Investment Management Software 220

SaaStr

DECEMBER 6, 2023

Sometimes, it’s a media company making movies with your software, and other times, it’s a defense company saving the world with your software. I don’t think you could have a better job on the planet than the software industry,” he shares. “We This isn’t particularly hard work compared to 90% of the jobs Aaron sees.

AI 201

AI Sales Hiring Scale Artificial Intelligence 201

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2023

A new role, a new company, maybe even starting one yourself. In my first tech job, I was working at a firm helping startups … and then I knew one night, it was time. I gave my notice the next day, with no job lined up, and zero savings. I’ve then left two jobs since. They start new companies. That time comes.

Startup 230

Startup Pricing Investment Sales 230

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2023

So Jamin Ball at Altimeter Capital probably does the best job of tracking SaaS and Cloud metrics of public companies of anyone out there.

SaaS 238

SaaS Cloud Scale Metrics 238