SaaStr

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

Companies like Atlassian and Qualtrics have cruised past nine-figures in ARR (and IPO’d in the case of Atlassian) without needing any venture capital. THEN, after $10m, bootstrapped SaaS companies seem to basically scale at the same rate as their venture-backed peers. Longer to afford your first VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 360

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Scale SaaS 360

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

As you finally begin to scale, you’ll have enough revenue to hire some great folks, but not enough to build very redundant teams. More here: From Initial Traction to Initial Scale (~$10M in ARR): The Hardest Phase. SaaStr From $10m ARR on: Capital Inefficiency. Why is my sales team less efficient at $20m ARR than at $2m in ARR?

Sales Recruiting 258

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 258

OPEXEngine

JANUARY 28, 2020

These flexible, non-dilutive financing solutions scale with a business’ growth, enabling entrepreneurs to focus on their business without giving up equity, personal guarantees , or board seats; it’s understandable why entrepreneurs are increasingly seeking such solutions to reach their next growth milestone.

Venture Capital 61

Venture Capital Finance Payments Revenue 61

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2024

For sales, product, or customer success, the best question you could ask is, “What would you do your first couple of weeks?” What do the best Heads of Product and VPs of Sales say? Don’t hire those people to lead. Almost everyone who starts as self-serve or PLG adds more sales over time. Don’t listen to your VCs.

Sales Hiring 213

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Interviewing 213

SaaStr

JUNE 10, 2023

Sure, once you are at scale, bringing in an outside CEO they may know can work. The 10x Rule: What Raising $1 of Venture Capital Really Means Personal example: in my first startup, we sold for $50m after 12.5 Most VCs can’t run a startup on their own. But rarely does it work well until the growth stages.

Venture Capital 250

Venture Capital Scale Startup Pricing 250

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2024

The best leadership finds a way even in slightly tougher times. If they have a sales tool, say, “ I saw Clay raised $50M. They appear confident and bold in the early days, but eventually, they manipulate everyone and cannot scale. Then, they hire 20 or 50 reps, scale the marketing budget, and churn remains 3-6% per month.

Sales Hiring 253

Sales Hiring Startup Scale SMB 253

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2023

Magnuson shares his insights on how to find opportunities during headwinds and how Braze scaled to $400M+ ARR. When The Pace Of Change Accelerates, It Creates Opportunity When times are changing, the ones who will win are the ones who predict what the change is leading to, and they start building for that tomorrow right now.

Scale 212

Scale Mobile Venture Capital Scaling 212

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. Cash was tight and I didn’t know any great VPs of Biz Dev, so between myself and my VPs of Sales, Product and Customer Success, we all jointly managed our key partners. Fight and create mindshare with partners that deliver you leads. Get on jets and go meet them. A lot more.

Part-Time VPE 267

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 267

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2024

Rebecca Lynn, Co-Founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures, and Jake Heller, CEO and Co-Founder at Casetext, share the top 10 questions every SaaS founder needs to ask their customers to course correct when facing near-death experiences. Lead your marketing with the problems you’re solving. Features are only a reason to believe.

Scale 257

Scale SMB SaaS Sales Hiring 257

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2019

Niall Wall, Box SVP of Business and Corporate Development alongside Vicki Lin, Stripe’s Head of Ecosystem and Cecilia Stallsmith, Slack’s Director of Platform Marketing discuss scaling your revenue via indirect channels and platform ecosystems. Then also went into venture capital where I invested in API first products.

Payments 116

Payments Scale Scaling Revenue 116

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2021

At least break out who is handling all the key functions, and how and when you are hiring to fill them: Sales lead, Marketing lead, Product lead, Engineering lead. One gap is OK, you can fill it later, with the capital. Lead with trailing and projected MRR first. Both bottoms up and tops down.

Scale 274

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Headcount 274

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

Is your leadership team world-class? Could you grow faster if you replaced your head of sales? Does your board think you have the right leadership team? Heck, does your leadership team think you have the right leadership team? Are some of your executives holding your company back? Do your rank-and-file employees?

Leadership 116

Leadership Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Scale 116

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

The problem is going too long without capital when you really need it. You’re doing all the core sales yourself. But they got to scale relatively quickly – in 24 months. But if after 18-24 months of bootstrapping, you can raise venture capital — I would take it, in SaaS at least.

Venture Capital 300

Venture Capital Sales Hiring Scale Cloud 300

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2023

Once you truly hit Initial Scale (say $10m- $15m ARR), then you’re no longer a proven product — you’re a real line of business. A nice example of a sale at this Local Maximum is Pardot selling for $100m to ExactTarget — on zero venture capital. Everyone can see 10x out into the future.

Acquisition 360

Acquisition Venture Capital Scale Generative AI 360

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

What does it take to scale a sales team successfully? Should one hire sales reps 2×2? How does Andy think about hiring sales reps from adjacent companies and industries? How does Andy think about minimizing and optimising sales ramp times? Like how did it impact how you think about operating and leading today?

Sales Hiring 203

Sales Hiring Scale Leadership Technical Review 203

SaaSHolic

MAY 5, 2023

The decision to invest is based on the founding team’s potential and their product’s potential to scale and become a significant market player. Paulo) TL;DR Headline Ventures is a global venture capital firm with a portfolio of notable companies, focusing on building companies with the Silicon Valley idea around the world.

Technical Review 90

Technical Review VP of Engineering Development Team Review Software Review 90

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 4, 2020

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Matt Rizzetta , founder of North 6th Agency, which is a communications and PR firm based in New York City. Years later, he’s got a thriving business that is not venture capital backed. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. How to get better at sales [21:37].

Scale 112

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 112

SaaStr

AUGUST 19, 2022

Jason recently opened up an AMA on Twitter Spaces to answer questions about how to scale faster. Michiel Rauws (@michielrauws2): So, my question is, we’ve been scaling our SaaS business. We can scale accounts, when we get them, very well. So the new sales leader is trying to figure out, can we go further up market?

Scale 222

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling VP of Engineering 222

Kellblog

JANUARY 3, 2022

When an idea succeeds, great — let’s scale it up. But you’re not fully committed, the board is split on the decision, you’re worried about the CAC impact of initially unproductive sales investments, and you’re not sure what to do. Good sales DNA you convince yourself. With experienced leadership.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Consulting Leadership 125

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 22, 2018

On this 1×1 interview with Mark Cranney, the Chief Commercial Officer of SignalFx, we chat about the key elements of sales leadership and his journey to being a top VP of Sales. How to find success in sales management. What criteria to look for in sales leaders. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast.

Scale 72

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Venture Capital 72

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 2, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Semil Shah , General Partner at Haystack and Venture Partner at Lightspeed. He’s also one of the most well known and well respected writers on venture capital and early stage investing. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Taking Your Venture to Scale [29:48].

Scale 60

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Finance 60

Mattermark

AUGUST 22, 2017

Natasha Azur of Osage Partners takes a look at trends in venture capital activity ( which we’ve also been digging into lately on the Mattermark blog ) in “ What’s the Pulse on 2017 Midyear VC Investment? Yelena Shkolnik was promoted to Vice President at Jump Capital. From the News.

VP of Engineering 40

VP of Engineering Leadership Venture Capital Technical Review 40

Chart Mogul

AUGUST 15, 2019

You may have heard of Revenue-based financing (RBF), venture debt or hybrid structures blending a revenue or profit share concept with an equity ownership stake. Or, maybe you haven’t and are still thinking your only options are to bootstrap or pursue angel and/or venture capital. How Bigfoot Evaluates Initial-Scale SaaS.

Finance 85

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 85

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2019

Felix will share insights on how he founded Collibra in Belgium, successfully relocated the company headquarters to New York City, and raised $233 million total in venture capital to become a unicorn company. And so again we would just have added to more kind of friction in the sales cycle and there was a whole video long sales cycle.

Sales Hiring 169

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Government 169

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

In order to execute on this mission, founders can bootstrap their company, raise outside money ( venture capital is the most popular), or use a combination of both to help build their business. Instead of asking, “ Who should I be prospecting into? ” Begin with a search for accounts ( not leads ).

Outsourcing Services 85

Outsourcing Services Scale Startup Outsourced Development 85

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

297: Bob Moore is the Founder & CEO @ Crossbeam, the startup that helps companies find overlapping prospects and customers while keeping the rest of their data private and secure. Before that Bob co-founded RJ Metrics, where he built a global base of online retailers leading to their acquisition by Magento Commerce in 2016.

Sales Hiring 133

Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 133

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2023

Scaling Early-Stage to Hyper-Growth Companies With Ed Lenta, SVP and GM of Databricks Back in the early 2000s, people didn’t entirely accept that a virtual machine could be as good as a physical one. Ed Lenta, the SVP and GM of Databricks, had the rare opportunity of scaling three hypergrowth companies — VMware, AWS, and Databricks.

Scale 209

Scale Scaling AWS Sales Hiring 209

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 12, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Jonathan Sherry , Co-Founder and COO at CB Insights. John has some incredible first-hand experience on how to scale a business, build culture intentionally, and retain the allegiance, alliance, and credibility of the people who work for you. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast.

Scale 60

Scale Sales Hiring Management Forecasting 60

Kellblog

DECEMBER 27, 2021

Look at the scale. What drives these disruptive cycles: Feature creep , which leads to market overshoot over time. Management changes , as leadership teams drift from a spirit of value creation for customers to value extraction from them. Flood of venture capital (VC). Venture capital continues to flow.

Blockchain 143

Blockchain Technical Review Venture Capital Sales Hiring 143

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

Where appropriate, seek out philanthropic donations, social impact investing, and venture capital. Customer testimonials and success stories are used in marketing and new sales to demonstrate the value of the client’s solution. Team leadership, resource allocation, spending limits, procedures, and accountabilities.

Scale 19

Scale Venture Capital Customer Success Leadership 19

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

Where appropriate, seek out philanthropic donations, social impact investing, and venture capital. Customer testimonials and success stories are used in marketing and new sales to demonstrate the value of the client’s solution. Team leadership, resource allocation, spending limits, procedures, and accountabilities.

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Scale Venture Capital Leadership 19

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2022

Jason recently opened up an AMA on Twitter Spaces to answer questions about scaling and VC funding. But I think going to your point, Nathan, what folks miss a little bit is how much crap VCs are digging out of, and that leads to a lot more hard nos. We need this money to get sales and marketing going. You’ve had an exit.

Scale 209

Scale SaaS Payments Scaling SaaS 209

Chart Mogul

AUGUST 15, 2019

You may have heard of Revenue-based financing (RBF), venture debt or hybrid structures blending a revenue or profit share concept with an equity ownership stake. Or, maybe you haven’t and are still thinking your only options are to bootstrap or pursue angel and/or venture capital. How Bigfoot Evaluates Initial-Scale SaaS.

Finance 52

Finance Payments Revenue Payment Solutions 52

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

Now that it’s clear that plan-relative performance is only one lens, you may decide to get some benchmark data to see what kind of growth is normal or good at your scale. Startup markets are not won by the timid. The Benchmark Lens. One great place for such data is the KeyBanc SaaS survey. They shouldn’t have to ask. [2]

Benchmarks 121

Benchmarks Scale Headcount Startup 121

ChurnZero

JULY 21, 2020

Without visibility into product usage, the teams’ guidance for customer project leads is based solely on the project lead’s feedback. Using multiple spreadsheets on a shared drive to track a customer post-sale. With CRMs, product usage ends as soon as the sale is done. Keep customer momentum alive post sale.

Scale 52

Scale Venture Capital AI Search SaaS 52

SmartKarrot

MARCH 2, 2023

The Venture Capital sector has seen substantial expansion in recent times and some VCs have started to podcast and share valuable resources for entrepreneurs, other investors, and those interested in learning more about the industry. Hoffman hosts a podcast named Masters of Scale where he interviews a new founder every episode.

Venture Capital 10

Venture Capital Scale Entrepreneurship EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) 10

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2019

Before I joined the venture capital industry many years ago, I was a software developer, and I worked for a startup around the 2000 time period. Now, I’m a venture capital investor. I think that’s probably the fastest we’ve ever seen a company get to that scale. How long can this last?

Cloud 101

Cloud Scale AWS Machine Learning 101