SaaStr

JULY 11, 2023

How do you win with a high-velocity sales strategy in a fast-moving, competitive market? In a special session of Workshop Wednesday, Gorgias Founder & CEO Romain Lapeyre and Gorgias VP of Sales & Partnerships Aasif Osmany share their learnings, advice, and hacks for optimizing your sales process.

Sales Hiring 167

Sales Hiring SMB Sales Recruiting Payment Methods 167

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2023

We’ve discussed most before individually, but let me throw ’em together: It may well take 24 months to get to true product-market fit and Initial Traction. You have to love, or at least commit to, recruiting constantly. If you’re not willing to constantly recruit cross-functionality … you’ll never attract the talent.

Part-Time VPE 222

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 222

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

Great product, driven team, good early product-market fit, great vision. But after that, it starts to break down when you have to recruit a true management team, and in many cases, additional capital. They’ll know … Who can best recruit a management team? Check, check, check and check.

Sales Recruiting 236

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 236

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales. If they don’t, they never will , and they’ll never learn the product.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 259

OPEXEngine

APRIL 12, 2022

Emboldened by this seeming endorsement, I dashed off what turned into a lengthy email on interviewing and recruiting, a topic about which I am passionate not because I think I am good at it but because I think I am not. Thoughts on The Recruiting Process. Remember it’s a mutual sales process. Know what you’re looking for.

Sales Recruiting 40

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Finance 40

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2021

Are you both willing to go 18–24 months before initial product market fit? But one of you has to lead on Customers/Sales/Marketing and the other likely on Product/Engineering for it really to work. Most products do not sell themselves. Better recruiter than you. Are you both 100% all-in?

Sales Recruiting 273

Sales Recruiting Engineering Product Marketing Marketing 273

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 23, 2023

P9 Panel on Hiring Sales Leaders — Founders Summit 2023 “You are going to fire your first sales manager!” — A lesson too many founders learn the hard way. The Founder isn’t willing to be the first salesperson Many of the best founders we work with don’t have a sales background and are either product or engineering focused.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 22, 2015

On December 2, SaaS Office Hours at Redpoint will welcome Maia Josebachvilli , VP of Strategy and People at Greenhouse, a fast growing recruiting software company. Maia is especially well known for her thought leadership in developing best in class recruiting metrics. She was also selected for Inc’s 30 under 30.

Sales Recruiting 100

Sales Recruiting Metrics SaaS Sales Funnel 100

Sales Hacker

APRIL 23, 2024

Linda Lian is Co-Founder and CEO at Common Room, the all-in-one customer intelligence platform that automatically surfaces signals across 30+ channels, reveals the person and account behind the signal, and automates actions like email messaging and team alerts. Lessons learned from scaling innovative products and go-to-market motions at AWS.

Sales Recruiting 83

Sales Recruiting Scale AWS Management 83

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

Dig deeper on a lot of titles during recruiting. A "VP of Product Marketing" rarely knows anything about demand gen, ABM, etc. A "VP of Revenue" often knows nothing about inside sales or building a sales team. A "CRO" often doesn't want to do sales anymore. Sales is hard.

Sales Hiring 280

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Growth Hacking Product Marketing 280

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development.

Sales Hiring 241

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 241

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

When You Fall Out of Product-Market Fit. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. 5 Interesting Learnings from Duolingo at $360,000,000 in ARR. Top Podcasts This Week: 1. Top Videos This Week: 1.

Sales Recruiting 227

Sales Recruiting AWS Compensation Enterprise 227

Sales Hacker

MAY 6, 2021

From B2C consumer-focused tech to the next B2B enterprise cloud giants, B2B, and B2C technology companies are springing up left and right and sprinting toward multi-billion dollar valuations (whether on the private or public markets) faster than ever. What’s the difference between a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)?

VP of Engineering 93

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 93

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Sales reps were hosting 4-6 calls daily but most of these calls were early demos or top-of-funnel discovery calls Sales was closing really small deals on one end while talking to really large companies with hundreds of thousands of people on the other. Define your ICP as early as you can and segment your sales team accordingly.

Scale 231

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 231

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2021

Product-Market Fit: There’s no shortcut –– finding the perfect target will always take time and hard work to get right. Finding the product-market fit is still the same iterative process. Recruitment: Getting the right talent onboard is a critical step. In fact, you need both to optimally grow your sales efforts.

Sales Recruiting 200

Sales Recruiting Scale Software Delivery Travel 200

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

As he told me a few days ago, he has observed the lack of sales management and sales execution skills as one of the most consistent deficiencies limiting the potential of early stage SaaS companies. Sales execution deficiency manifests itself at roughly the same time as product market fit.

Sales Hiring 184

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Compensation 184

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

That’s why some of Intercom’s first marketing hires were product marketers and why we’ve had a “seat at the table” from the early days of the company. . Product marketing looks different in every company, but one common trend is that many product marketing managers (PMMs) feel undervalued.

Product Marketing 138

Product Marketing Marketing Sales Hiring Scale 138

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Welcome to Sales Hacker’s first-ever Influential Women in Sales list! In this exclusive list, we wanted to honor not just female leaders that promote their own sales platform (no shame in that!) They say “You can’t be what you can’t see,” and the sales floor is no exception.

Sales Recruiting 111

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale Sales Hiring 111

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. Recruiting is easier, but the things that don’t change are customers don’t care.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2021

Own product marketing. Own customer marketing (hopefully). Support and partner with sales. And part of being a good marketer is … well, marketing yourself. Many of the top CMOs are out there are always marketing. Many of the top CMOs are out there are always marketing.

Sales Recruiting 278

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Branding Product Marketing 278

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

I see this all the time in marketing hires that come out of non-demand gen roles. Sometimes a marketing lead with a corporate marketing or even product marketing background actually signs up for a lead or other commit. A head of sales that doesn’t recruit at least one strong rep in the first 90 days.

Sales Recruiting 324

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring SMB Engineering 324

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 7, 2020

Fortunately, more organizers than ever before are consciously seeking out female sales experts for panels, presentations, and podcasts. At Sales Hacker, we’re serious about diversity, and for that reason, we’ve compiled a list of 530+ female sales experts to consider for your next event. Sales Development. Sales Growth.

VP of Engineering 121

VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Payment Services 121

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2019

If you must choose a long term headquarters for your startup, call an executive recruiter who focuses in that city. VP Engineering, VP Product, VP Sales, VP Customer Success, VP Marketing, or VP Operations. After establishing product market fit, the startups grow their management team to scale.

Sales Recruiting 215

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 215

Sales Hacker

JUNE 7, 2021

Sales customer insights. Let’s drill down into the market and customer insights that can really add value for salespeople, under the following sections: Qualifying characteristics: Things to look for in an organization that make it a good target. But what are these insights that will transform the conversations salespeople have?

Sales Recruiting 107

Sales Recruiting Payment Services Payment Methods Sales 107

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2019

Are you both willing to go 18–24 months before initial product market fit? But one of you has to lead on Customers/Sales/Marketing and the other likely on Product/Engineering for it really to work. Most products do not sell themselves. Better recruiter than you. Are you both 100% all-in?

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Engineering Product Marketing Marketing 195

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 11, 2020

A recruiter in the audience submitted a question often discussed in startup boardrooms. The head of product would prefer someone with product marketing experience. And when I say pillar, I mean like a product marketing problem, a growth problem, or brand marketing problem.

Sales Hiring 248

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Acquisition 248

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 21, 2020

The customer story typically originates from two founts; either the founders or product marketing. Regardless, the message should be promulgated through every channel: sales, marketing, press, recruiting, events, etc. The more you can spread the narrative, the greater the potential force for your business.

Sales Recruiting 307

Sales Recruiting Banking Engineering Customer Support 307

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

David’s first foray into SaaS was in 1999 when he joined a startup that would become PayPal, starting as the product leader and later as the COO. In 2008, he founded Yammer, an enterprise software company that David grew to 500 employees and $60 million in sales. Head of Product. Head of Sales. Head of Marketing.

CTO Hire 249

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 249

OpenView Labs

JUNE 3, 2021

If you aren’t clear on what product marketing is, how it’s different from product management, and what the responsibilities of a product marketer are, you’re not alone. Specifically, I’m talking about product management and product marketing.

Product Marketing 93

Product Marketing Sales Hiring Startup Scale 93

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 4, 2020

I was the new Vice President of International Sales & Managing Director for a work management software company called Wrike. Starting Your International Sales Team. The key to starting an international sales team is having the right people in your landing team. A mercenary is driven by the sale.

Sales Hiring 99

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 99

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Likewise, the new products you launch do not determine your success. Instead, how you launch them into the market is a huge factor in success. Today, we’re diving straight into the details with product marketing leaders. Use timing as a forcing function. Frame solutions, rather than features alone. Show, don’t tell.

Sales Recruiting 99

Sales Recruiting Generative AI AI AWS 99

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

If you don’t think you need a great VP of Sales, Product, Marketing, Customer Success, and Engineering — then all that all that means is you’ve never worked with a great one. Head of Sales – What Corners Can I Cut? A bad VP of Sales is a total disaster. And to some extent, vice-versa.

Sales Hiring 273

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Recruiting 273

SaaStr

JULY 30, 2020

Able to close first $1m in revenues (sales); or. Able to architect and lay out The Next Big Thing (product); or. Able to magically bring customers and users to almost any product (marketing). If the founder/CEO is a magician in one area, and is tenacious and driven, she or he can recruit the rest. engineering); or.

Sales Recruiting 167

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Engineering Product Marketing 167

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

It’s an approach that’s served him well along the road to building the HubSpot sales team, where he was CRO for nine years. That experience led to his bestselling book, The Sales Acceleration Formula. The framework consists of three elements: product-market fit, go-to-market fit, and growth and moat.

Scale 226

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 226

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

The most frequent mishire in startups is the first head of marketing. Many different disciplines fall under marketing’s purview. The question facing founders recruiting marketers is: which is the most important to prioritize? Each of these kinds of marketers have critical skills for a startup. Why is this?

Scale 215

Scale Startup Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 215

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2020

Nothing matters but recruiting and using your personal network. Sam Blond, CSO at Brex explains why recruiting, networking and employee happiness is the key to this playbook on recruiting your sales team. Sam Blond | Chief Sales Officer @ Brex. I’m doing The Playbook To Recruiting Your Sales Team.

Sales Recruiting 131

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 131

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

Some VCs will pay up even for very little growth and revenue so long as the management team is strong. They believe a strong team can literally will revenue into existence as long as there is the most basic product-market fit. And there is a lot of truth to this. Pilots-Don’t-Count Risk. It just varies.

Scale 339

Scale Sales Recruiting Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 339