SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2023

There are two types of SaaS companies in the world: those that are category creators and the challengers of incumbent technology. At SaaStr APAC 2023, Scott Pugh, VP of Sales at Figma, shared how to scale these two sales teams while building culture. Let’s look at five tips to consider for successful recruiting.

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Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 231

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Motivate a Sales Team Working Commission Only? While I am sure there are examples of “1099 reps” that have done extremely well, I haven’t seen it work in SaaS. If you’ve ever worked with a contingent recruiter, you’ll see this. But if you don’t want to hire any of them, they drift away.

Sales Recruiting 215

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 215

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

In the latest episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with Ashley Kelly, VP of Global Sales Development at Rippling. For context – Ashley had previously helped Sam scale Brex’s outbound sales from $2M to over $300M in ARR as Senior Director of SDR.

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 257

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2021

One of the starkest differences I see between First Timers in SaaS and Second Timers is when they hire their VP of Marketing. They often hire a VP of Demand Gen Marketing even before they have their first paying customers. But it’s very, very easy to make the hire late. Second Timers know. But she can help.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 348

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

And how often is he recruiting? In fact, every single day he and his team go into their Recruiting War Room, and analyze every single possible recruit coming up the next four years. But in this phase — you need to be Head Recruiter yourself. At first everyone is sort of great at recruiting — by definition.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 339

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Perhaps the single most important thing you can ever do in SaaS, at least after $1m in ARR or so, is hire the best VPs you can. We’ve talked a lot over the years about how not to hire a wrong VP of Sales — 70%+ of the first VPs of Sales don’t make it even 10 months. Check who they hired.

Part-Time VPE 332

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 332

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

In SaaS, I think one of the biggest traps you can get yourself into as a founder is doing Low ROI things for one minute longer than you have to. But quickly, in SaaS, it becomes worse. Why didn’t we just hire another 3 guys in TechOps much, much. I was lucky to have a great hire who handled our first few large customers.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 278

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2022

Many mediocre hires were made to fill slots, reference checks not made, etc. If there really is a slowdown (and I’m not sure will be in SaaS), folks will have to work harder. So I’m not yet convinced times are really tougher for SaaS companies. Everyone talks about making 10x hires, and each hire being better than the last.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 266

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

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Generative AI AI CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

IME, rough order to make hires in: VPM: $0.2m He asked which to hire first. If you have a few nickels in the bank, and you somehow find a great VP a half stage or even full stage early, just hire her. Hiring is so hard as it is. Make the hire now. ARR VPS: $1-$1.5m More here: [link].

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2023

In this week’s episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, continues a mini-series on founder-led sales with Colin Zima, founder and CEO of Omni. Leverage Your Network First When you’re ready to hire your first AE, don’t create a job posting and see who comes in. Instead, leverage your network.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Social Media Sales 231

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2022

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how to hire a Great VP of Sales, and how you have to close the first 10 or so customers yourself, and how when you do go to hire your first sales rep — make sure you hire two. But how do you get those first few reps right, when you haven’t made the hire before?

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Pricing 271

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

That you absolutely, positively, have to only hire “Rockstars” in your startups. 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. We’re just not far enough along in SaaS 3.0

Sales Hiring 271

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Recruiting 271

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

At SaaStr Miami, former Founder’s Fund Partner and CRO of Brex Sam Blond — host of the SaaStr CRO Confidential Podcast — sat down with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin for a fireside chat about finding success as a SaaS company in 2024. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 263

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What’s the Best Way to Get Ahead in SaaS Sales? It is important to decide which of 3 life tracks you want to be on: Super-successful sales rep / individual contributor. Successful sales manager. I.e., become a VP of Sales someday. Leverage “sales” to become a founder, business owner , etc.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SMB 253

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2022

Having learned from thousands of customers and prospects, Sarah Lash, Envoy’s head of enterprise sales, will talk about what it takes to guide and scale enterprise sales programs during an uncertain future. In my first six months at Envoy , I grew the sales team from six to 17. Combine Strategies To Drive Sales.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 234

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

What was the first warning sign your VP of Sales wasn't going to work out? A lot of veteran SaaS revenue leaders protested, but most of them, upon reflecting on it, came to agree the point was right. A new VP of Sales doesn’t always double sales in 30 days — although it can happen in SMB sales.

Sales Recruiting 253

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 253

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

So there’s a sort of org chart you’ll probably end up with at least twice as you start scaling in SaaS: The “Headless” Sales Org. It’s a bunch of sales reps without anyone to manage them other than … you. But if you end up not hiring a VP of Sales at that perfect moment in time (and most don’t), you’ll end up headless.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 218

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2024

On the first episode of the Angles and Insight podcast, SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin chats with Zapier CEO Wade Foster about the future of B2B SaaS in 2024 and beyond. He is a top VC in the industry and runs SaaStr, the largest SaaS event in the world. They had no hiring expertise and little money.

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Sales Recruiting AI Search B2B Sales Hiring 244

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 10 Things to Know Before Starting a SaaS Company? Finally you have great customers and traction — but you can’t afford to hire all the people you need to meet their needs. It takes 7–10 Years in SaaS to Get Anywhere. And 99% of SaaS companies will need 7–10 years to get to $100m ARR and beyond.

Part-Time VPE 226

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 226

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how to hire a Great VP of Sales. And we’ll keep talking about it — so long as 70% of first-time VPs of Sales don’t make it 1 year. Reason #1 is jumping to Stretch VP of Sales one stage too early. Not hiring people better than you. Do not do this.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount 354

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 133

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 133

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. It’s the people.

Scale 255

Scale Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE 255

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

The backup of 2020 was great, 2021 comes in and somehow we have 600 unicorns and everyone can burn 500 million a year or have huge sales teams. But the meta point is this, if you’re recruiting in 2024, beware of the “Lost Generation” candidate and persona you may come across. “Don’t hire the broken.

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Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Software Review 289

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 249

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 249

Tom Tunguz

MAY 31, 2021

The cost of a failed account executive hire is about 8 months of lost productivity. What does it cost the organization to hire the wrong executive? In terms of time cost to the startup, a failed executive hire is roughly similar, 9 months. Hiring takes longer and is less fruitful. Looker was one of those examples.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Branding 158

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2020

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how to make that critical hire: the VP Sales. But when you make a mis-hire, it’s about the worst mis-hire you can make. You’ll end up with a crummy sales team under a mis-hire. We’ve posted a script to use when interviewing a VP Sales.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Engineering 312

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Each year, tens of thousands of SaaS fans attend SaaStr Annual. 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. So what’s a founder to do?

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Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 250

Tom Tunguz

JULY 25, 2020

But I see this company structure more frequently across SaaS startups. In interviewing great CMOs , the product marketing leader is the first marketer most startups should recruit, and often the first key mishire. By hiring two focused people, the startup is free to find the best person in each role. This makes sense.

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Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 205

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2022

So we’ve talked so much over the years on SaaStr on how to hire a great VP of Sales, the difference they’ll make, and how the level-up comes quickly. And VPs of Sales do, too. Don’t hire a VP of Sales that isn’t truly comfortable selling to your buyer persona, especially in B2D and fintech.

Sales Hiring 262

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 262

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

One of the biggest challenges in scaling a SaaS company has always been VP and SVP level talent. The companies that create the SVPs you’ll need, especially in Sales and Marketing, are still mostly based in the SF Bay Area. But for now, if you are beginning to scale, aggressively recruit that Bay Area VP you always wanted to hire.

Sales Hiring 313

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 313

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2021

We’ve talked a lot about hiring a VP, Sales. It’s just such a critical accelerate-or-decelerate decision for a post-Initial Traction SaaS company. We’ve talked about the 48 Different Types of VP Sales , What a VP Sales Really Does , and a Script to Use When Interviewing a VP Sales.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Point of Sale Sales 170

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2020

One of the biggest changes since we started SaaStr is the massive number of SaaS veterans out there. The decade-long run of next-generation SaaS start-ups, and the explosion since 2015 of SaaS unicorns and decacorns has led to a lot of experienced execs on the market. Because SaaS is hard. This is great.

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS 226

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

Director+ of Sales at Slack / Zoom / DropBox / Pick Your Brand Name SaaS Company. Because it’s not ARR growth or even an IPO alone that determines if a VP of Sales him or herself is great. And there were probably 100+ RVPs of Sales at that point. Because often, the managers were given a team, or a lot of it.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Interviewing 296

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

379: From how many reps to hire, to compensation models, here are the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales teams and how to avoid them. Announcer: In today’s SaaStr Insider, SaaStr CEO and founder, Jason Lemkin, shared the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales team.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 185

For Entrepreneurs with David Skok

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Stephanie has been an executive in 3 successful startups and was most recently the SVP of Sales and Customer Success at Xamarin which has since been acquired by Microsoft. Stephanie joined Xamarin as its first non-engineering hire in.

Sales Hiring 268

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Onboarding Sales 268

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

We’ve talked a ton on SaaStr over the years on how to make sure your VP of Sales and top hires really work out. We can pretty much summarize a lot of it into the following: Your VP of Sales should have lots of experience selling at your average ACV. for that type of sale. That they are the right ones.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 321