SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2020

A VP of Sales and Success A VP of Sales and Marketing A VP of Sales and Anything Else. Is usually not really a VP of Sales. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to recruit a lot of types of folks over the years where my domain knowledge was limited. I’ve had to recruit Ph.Ds.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 259

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Focusing on generative AI applications in a select few corporate functions can contribute to a significant portion of the technology's overall impact. Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2022

Two SaaS Metrics That Actually Don’t Matter That Much in the Earliest Days: Absolute Churn and Sales Cycles. SaaStr 564: Top 10 Learnings Architecting a High Throughput Critical API with RevenueCat CTO Miguel Carranza. with Jenn Knight, Co-founder and CTO of AgentSync, and Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone.

CTO Hire 295

CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring Innovation 295

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

The Best Speakers In The World With hundreds of sessions from proven SaaS leaders who have scaled companies to significant revenue milestones, SaaStr Annual offers practical, actionable insights you won’t find elsewhere. Meet and Find Your Next VP / CXO!

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2022

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: Be Careful Hiring “Dualies” — Folks That Are a VP of More Than One Thing. SaaStr 565: Classic Episode: The Importance of Company Values, a Great Hiring Process, and Ownership Culture with Gusto Co-Founder & CEO Josh Reeves.

CTO Hire 296

CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring Scale 296

SaaStr

MAY 18, 2025

Big Company M&A Is Incredibly Complex “Acquiring a company is a much bigger deal for a tech company than you think” “The soft costs are much, much more than the cash or stock” Integration can consume “10,000 hours of like expensive people’s time” 2.

Technical Review 182

Technical Review CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring 182

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? You can find the full slide deck from David’s presentation on Slideshare. Head of Sales. Subscribe Please do not fill in this field.

CTO Hire 290

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 290

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. That it’s time to bring in someone that knows.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. 95% of the time, your super-smart hacker co-founder is not that person. She can be your CTO forever.

Part-Time VPE 311

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 311

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

In SaaS, once you have even a few million in ARR, the #1 challenge is recruiting top-tier VPs and building a truly top-tier management team: SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. She can be your CTO forever.

Scale 279

Scale Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE 279

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2021

There are roughly 2 types of start-up management teams. The first type is the kind of management team hired by second+ time founders. Often folks they convince to once again be a VP of Eng or VP of Sales. But most of us are first-time founders, or close to it. Veterans of the SaaS journey.

Part-Time VPE 285

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 285

TechEmpower SaaS

DECEMBER 11, 2023

While the appearance matters, remember you are hiring the development firm primarily for its development skills, not its graphic design skills. How does the percentage of their projects launched on-time and on-budget compare to upfront estimates? Is there a project manager? An account manager?

Software Development 443

Software Development Development Software Review Software 443

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. Lead generation tools do change, but the basic motions of sales and marketing haven’t changed much.

Scale 290

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 290

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

I thought it would be worth drilling down deeper into each of them, and sharing the learnings and mistakes: 1/ Spending less time fixing things, more time recruiting senior folks to own them. No one spends enough time recruiting as it is, after $1m ARR or so. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself.

Part-Time VPE 299

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 299

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you’re running a smaller digital business, you may find it challenging to hire great talent. Larger technology companies can pay more, offer more benefits, and provide a more marketable brand on a candidate’s resume. Podcast Full Interview: Audio Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

SMB 107

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 107

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

There’s a slide I see again and again from start-ups: 2 of the early sales reps are at 100% of quota, sometimes 150%-200%. You’ll continue to see that over time to some extent. So why so often, do only 2 of the first 8-10 sales reps perform? They get CTO training. You have to join their first few sales calls.

Scale 348

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 348

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

They’ll revolt when you make a senior or mid-level hire that as a group, they simply cannot suffer one day longer. It’s happened to me, and I think for whatever my faults, I have a pretty high EQ and am a half-decent manager. In my first start-up, there was one engineer we had no choice about. You see this all the time.

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 290

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

Startups come in all shapes and sizes on various stages of a timeline, yet it’s not surprising how many have the same questions and concerns about how to scale from x to y to z, the right time to hire and fire, and how to keep a team motivated during hard times. Q: Where Should SDRs Report — Marketing or Sales?

CTO Hire 242

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 242

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

As a founder/CEO, building your first management team is something that you often lose sleep over. Which role should you hire for first? For starters, your first hire should be someone who can complement your skills, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak, but it goes much deeper than that. And for good reason.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 264

SaaStr

JULY 3, 2022

The Ultimate Guide for Hiring a Great VP of Sales. Dear SaaStr: How Many Sales Reps Do I Need? Top Podcasts This Week: SaaStr 568: Mind the Gap: Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times with Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz. 10 Common Misconceptions About Getting Funded. Top Videos This Week: 1.

CTO Hire 261

CTO Hire Sales Hiring CTO Scale 261

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2023

Ode to the $100,000,000 Exit Dear SaaStr: Should You Hire Someone That Seems Good … But Always Job Hops? SaaStr 639: Scaling a SaaS Sales Team While Building Culture with Figma VP of Sales Scott Pugh   3. SaaStr 639: Scaling a SaaS Sales Team While Building Culture with Figma VP of Sales Scott Pugh   3.

Scale 246

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 246

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

GTM Mistake #1: A VP of Sales That Can’t Sell or Demo the Product Mistake number one has always been an issue, and it’s the number one reason startups struggle in today’s world. They hire a VP of Sales who doesn’t want to sell or learn the product. You also don’t want to hire a VP of Sales who won’t carry a bag.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO Venture Capital 211

SaaStr

JULY 30, 2020

I’ve been reminded of this question in several meetings lately where founders are doing pretty well, getting to and past Initial Traction, but with hindsight it’s interesting that the founder that took the CEO gig perhaps was better suited to a different role, say CTO or SVP of Sales or President or COO or SVP Product.

Sales Recruiting 328

Sales Recruiting Venture Capital CTO Hire CTO 328

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

with Jenn Knight, Co-founder and CTO of AgentSync, and Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone. Attract, Hire & Build a Diverse Sales Team | Handshake VP, Employer Partnerships Jessica Peluso. Attract, Hire & Build a Diverse Sales Team | Handshake VP, Employer Partnerships Jessica Peluso.

Scale 237

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO 237

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Lightspeed Partner, Anoushka Vaswani, is joined by Raj Sarkar, CMO at 1Password, Kim Walsh, SVP, Sales, Partnerships and Customer Success at Apollo.io, and Chris De Vylder, CRO at Sentry, to pass along key lessons from their growth journey. Then build your segmentation and sales processes around that. 20 million?

Scale 244

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scaling 244

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” You can’t always expect a great VP of Sales to double sales in 30-60-90 days. But you have to see progress in one sales cycle. If, in one sales cycle, things aren’t improving on several core metrics, they never will. The best VPs of Sales hit the ground running.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2019

Third, I then managed a small team. This was critical to learning what management really was. The first team I managed I inherited, and I was terrible at it. But I started to learn what it took to recruit, inspire, and yes fail a team. And I learned to recruit. To hire our CTO, our first VPE, etc.

Part-Time VPE 208

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 208

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

You have to be careful to pair that with someone strong to manage the relationship, that has more time and that also can be trusted. As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself. We all underresource customer success vs. sales. Are we sure?

CTO Hire 328

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 328

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

Many teams got to come together and meet each other in person for the first time. Founders were able to recruit on-site. We had Lew Cirne, Founder & CEO of New Relic, Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot and for the first time at Annual, we added office hours with the top VCs in SaaS.

Scale 312

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 312

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

So to serve both segments at the simultaneously, ZoomInfo has been rolling out a Product-led sales motion, that gives the ability for an SMB customer to sign up directly on their website for a free trial and grow into a paid customer, without ever having to talk to an sales rep or go through a demo process. So, what’s new at ZoomInfo?

New CTO 316

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 316

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 14, 2024

Kevin Scott, CTO of Microsoft, framed the opportunity in AI this way : work on problems that used to be impossible, but are now really hard. Nearly 10 years ago, I wrote a post about the minimum viable average contract value to justify a sales team. AI-based sales development changes the economics of this calculation.

CTO Hire 224

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Outsourced Development CTO 224

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

A big part of why we are seeing this growth is that our customers have found that when they use Intercom to engage their website visitors, conversion rates and sales increase by more than 80%! That means we’ll be hiring 350 people over the next 18 months across our offices in San Francisco, Dublin, London, Chicago and Sydney.

Scale 195

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Engineering 195

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2019

I remember my CTO once arguing with a Fortune 500 company on a “security” concern they had which really made no sense. More here: I Never Lost a Customer I Actually Visited | SaaStr Not hiring a full-time RFP person. They are too much work to just dump on a product person, success person, sales leader, etc. Didn’t matter.

Sales Hiring 174

Sales Hiring Enterprise CTO Hire CTO 174

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Just like filing your income tax returns or hanging that state-mandated safety poster up in your break room, sales tax is a back-office pain point, not a profit center. . That makes sales tax compliance easy to ignore… until it becomes a problem. . Why is sales tax such a pain for SaaS companies? There are a few reasons.

Merchant Services 207

Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 207

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

You can watch the full session , and if you missed the podcast with the first half of the interview, you’ll find that here. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. We might’ve touched on this one too on the hiring and the people.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2019

We tend to find that there are three key technology initiatives that we can help our customers with when they’re undergoing a digital transformation. We had a headquarters office in San Francisco. It was an inside sales team calling on all regions around the world. First, a little bit about New Relic.

Scale 240

Scale Enterprise Scaling Sales Hiring 240

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Building a sales team that can go from $0-$50M (Video + Transcript). Gaetan Gachet | SVP of Sales @Algolia. It’s an honor to be here with this mythical creature, this sales leader that goes from zero to 50 million in the same job. He has a whole French sales team and office that only speaks English in Paris.

Scale 150

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 150