SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2023

My top mistakes as a SaaS founder/CEO: Not convincing the very, very, very best VPE I knew to join as our VPE. I had a great CTO, but I also needed a truly great VPE to scale past $10m ARR and deal with all those issues. Not becoming a better recruiter. But I was a sequential recruiter. I tried and I tried for years.

Part-Time VPE 209

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting CTO Scale 209

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. This makes sense. By hiring two focused people, the startup is free to find the best person in each role.

Sales Recruiting 206

Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 206

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 132

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 132

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Typically on SaaStr.com, we try to focus our content on mistakes to avoid, lessons learned and how to scale faster, but for the CEO Summit, Jason addressed the audience with what’s most top of mind for him at the start of 2024. “I really think we are in a new world as managers and as leaders,” Jason said to kick things off.

Sales Recruiting 290

Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Software Review 290

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2022

Scaling your sales team can be one of the hardest things to do in SaaS. How can SaaS companies retain BDR/ SDR talent? What’s the best way to help your sales team navigate today’s changing markets and changing priorities? And what’s the right time to fill crucial sales leadership roles?

Scale 242

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 242

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.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 261

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

2021 will be the year SaaS sales evolves the most since the Appexchange ecosystem started to take off ~15 years ago, which spawned the entire notion of a true sales app stack. The permanent move to distributed sales teams. Almost every SaaS VP of Sales and CRO I’ve talked to in the past few months isn’t going back.

Sales Recruiting 350

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review Sales 350

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.

Sales Recruiting 230

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 230

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Mark Roberge , SaaStr fan-favorite and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital brought together some of the top CROs in SaaS during the SaaStr Annual to share some of their greatest learnings and pivotal moments leading some of the Cloud 100 SaaS companies. From a GTM execution standpoint, they weren’t focused.

Scale 233

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 233

OpenView Labs

APRIL 29, 2021

OpenView, Work-Bench , Primary Venture Partners , and Lerer Hippeau just hosted the fourth and final session of SaaS Growth Camp—a series for the firms’ portfolio companies tailored to the complex ideas behind SaaS growth and go-to-market strategies. Recruiting top talent is the common denominator across all scaling startups.

Sales Recruiting 81

Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale 81

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. With 3, 4, 6, 10 sales reps all reporting to you. Without a VP of Sales, recruiting stalls.

Sales Hiring 214

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 214

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

The role of finance in SaaS is changing. The team is typically highly cross-functional, working together with sales, product, engineering, and marketing, and the goal is to help the other teams make better decisions through data and financial modeling. You must build a lean, impactful team to help your business scale.

Scale 179

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 179

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

More here: If You’re Going to Do a SaaS Start-Up … You Have to Give it 24 Months – SaaStr Post-Revenue: Staying the Course When Revenues Are Trivial. From $1m in ARR, and Then Forever After: Recruiting Great VPs. You need to learn to become great at recruiting. Wait too long, you’ll never get there. It never ends.

Sales Recruiting 259

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 259

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2021

The other day I saw a VP of Sales flame out and resign with no notice from a SaaS company doing $10m ARR growing quickly. So I thought it might be helpful to brush off the topic of alignment between Sales and Marketing by updating a classic post on the topic. What 3 factors/skills must every VP of sales possess?

Sales Recruiting 300

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Revenue 300

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

This happens with some regularity in SaaS, I’ve learned (and to be clear: I’m not talking about any company I’ve invested in, am an advisor to, board member of, etc – Because when it’s still a very small team, with no true management team … co-founders can kind of hack it to $1m-$2m in ARR together.

Sales Recruiting 238

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 238

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Does it get easier or harder to scale SaaS as your company grows? Generally, it gets easier to grow at a “good”/modest rate at you scale, but harder to grow at an outsize rate. Efficiency goes down in other places (sales efficiency usually, marketing efficiency often). Account expansion starts to work.

Scale 204

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Branding 204

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2021

Flock Safety’s Founder and CEO, Garrett Langley, and its VP of Growth, Alex Latraverse, know a bit about sales. Enough to go from 0 to 100 sales reps in about 18 months — and they’re looking to be well beyond 100 by the end of this month. Flock Safety is a hardware-enabled SaaS company dedicated to stopping crime.

Sales Recruiting 176

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 176

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

Ah the VP of Sales. The first post is What a Great VP of Sales Actually Does. The second post is a script for you to use (and modify as you see fit) – 10 Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales Candidate. Just so you know, there are 48 Different Types of VP Sales. The toughest hire. Such a high failure rate.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

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 186

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 186

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. Routine Sales. You gotta hire 2 great sales reps as soon as you can. This didn’t work well until I had a Great VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 280

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 280

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. Recruiting. But not all of them.

Part-Time VPE 329

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 329

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2023

In 2020-2021, many SaaS startups faced a unique challenge. With teams spread across the globe, they had to find new working patterns to scale their businesses in a distributed environment. Wiz, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies focused on security solutions, was one of them.

Sales Recruiting 222

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 222

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. A data-driven framework for scaling. Mark’s latest ebook, The Science of Scaling , outlines a precise framework for success.

Scale 226

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 226

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. Most of us can’t afford to hire a VPM 12 months before we have our first customer, and we can’t survive through 10 sales reps without one. At least, no later than once you have 2 scaled sales reps.

Sales Hiring 350

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 350

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. Ask who they are.

Sales Recruiting 323

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 323

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

In SaaS, #1 most common misfire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” or variants thereof. Because in SaaS start-ups, it seems like the majority of first VP Sales fail.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

What started as a simple WordPress blog in 2012 has now become the world’s largest community of SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. And SaaStr Europa brings 2,500+ SaaS execs, founders, and VCs together to Europe every summer. We were the first major SaaS event back in the SF Bay Area. SaaStr is turning 10!

Scale 283

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 283

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2022

One of the first what How to Hire a Great VP of Sales at the New York Enterprise Tech Meet-Up (thank you to John Lehr and Work-Bench for setting this up). The Number One Thing You Can Do to Accelerate Your Business Post-Initial Traction is Hiring a Great VP of Sales. Then, we have this community in SaaS — SaaStr.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting 263

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2021

I thought updating that list would create a useful checklist for things not to do in SaaS in the early days … since they are all avoidable. – My Top 10 Mistakes Starting An (Ultimately Successful) SaaS Company. – My Top 10 Mistakes Starting An (Ultimately Successful) SaaS Company. – Launching Too Early.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale SaaS 265

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2021

We’ve had some legendary SaaS greats over the years. From the very first episode with Tiago Paiva, Founder, and CEO of now $10B Talkdesk to Mark Roberge, our most downloaded podcast episode of all time , our podcast has been host to the very best in SaaS since 2016. You never get to spend less time in sales as a SaaS CEO.

Scale 192

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 192

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Whether you’re just starting out in SaaS or have a successful SaaS startup, founders and startup teams can learn a lot from those who have found success in the industry through its ups and downs. In this Ask Me Anything Part 1, Lemkin answers the questions: Many VCs talk about funding, yet you’re so focused on sales.

Outsourcing Services 213

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 213

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. What’s a stretch VP of Sales?

Scale 248

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 248

SaaStr

MAY 14, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: 15+ of The Top Sales & Marketing Mistakes SaaS Startups Make (Updated) Cloudflare: Our Top Reps Are Hitting 129% of Quota. 7 Things All Founders Should Know About Sales with Dave Kellogg: SaaStr Workshop Wednesday LIVE 2.

Sales Recruiting 206

Sales Recruiting Scale Generative AI AI 206

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2023

5 Interesting Learnings from ServiceNow at $8 Billion in ARR Pitchbook & IVP: Top Tier SaaS Companies Usually Raise at 15x ARR. SaaStr 630: Sales-led vs. Product-led? SaaStr 629: CRO Confidential: Sales Recruitment in 2023 For Candidates and Hiring Managers With Flexport’s Ben Braverman   3.

Sales Recruiting 201

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital 201

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

We’ve recently been posting polls on SaaStr’s LinkedIn account to get a feel for what SaaS companies are doing in the current environment. In the video below, he discusses the results and where he thinks SaaS companies are on track or need improvement. #1. This is particularly important for a VP of Sales.

Sales Recruiting 219

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 219

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2023

So one recent survey we did really brought out a healthy debate: does your VP of Sales really need to be a product expert? Many of the comments said it was more important a VP of Sales understand process and leadership more than the product itself. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. Not just with buzzwords.

Scale 234

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 234

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2023

4,000+ of us will get together there to share, scale and learn. People mainly come to meet other leaders in SaaS, but also to enjoy London or Paris or Barcelona, depending on where we are. Tons of VPs of Sales, Marketing, Product and CS still come to Europa. The highest % of global VCs in SaaS. A great Europe-to-U.S.

Sales Recruiting 252

Sales Recruiting Scale Cloud Scaling 252