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From 0 to $10m ARR, At What Point Do We Start Hiring and Whom?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: From 0 to $10m ARR, At What Point Do We Start Hiring and Whom? From 0 t o $ 10M ARR, the hiring roadmap is critical because every hire has a disproportionate impact on your trajectory. No VP of Sales yetdont even think about it. Marketing : Likely no VP of Marketing yet either — unless.

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Dear SaaStr: How Much Equity Do You Give to Employees at Different Stages of Growth?

SaaStr

Key hires like a VP of Engineering or VP of Product might get 1%-2% each. Senior engineers or designers might get 0.5%-1%. Another way to think of this stage; the first 10 or so should probably get at least twice the equity of others for joining early, if they are mission-critical hires. Executives : 0.3%-1%

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What’s The #1 Challenge After $1m-$2m ARR?

SaaStr

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. Upsell and retention is an art, science and craft. You’ll need more than 5–6 core engineers to go big.

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Dear SaaStr: What’s The Number One Challenge for Scale-Up Stage Founders?

SaaStr

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.

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What Happens When You Hire the Wrong VP

SaaStr

You know how everyone says you'll never look and wish you'd kept a bad VP as long as you did? That when you make a mis-hire, you'll always look back and say you should have made a change 3-4 month earlier? A lot of classic SaaStr advice has been how to spot the best potential VPs. When to hire them.

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10 SaaS New Year Resolutions For You. Pick a Few.

SaaStr

Pick a few that work for you: Get That Key VP Hire Done in Q1. Enough with the excuses for not having hired your real VP of Sales, or that VP of Engineering, or whatever. Hire a real recruiter. Drop other stuff to get this hire done. But anyhow — in January, find a way.

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10 Things I Wish My Board and VCs Had Told Me

SaaStr

Just go find the VP you need. Go find the VP you really need. I got the VPs of Sales, Product and Marketing I needed. I got the VPs of Sales, Product and Marketing I needed. But I should have taken a pause and just found our true VP of Engineering. You can miss a quarter if need be.