SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2025

Dear SaaStr: I’m a Seed Stage, First Time VP of Sales. Don’t wait to hire an SDR team—start building pipeline immediately. Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, or ZoomInfo to find leads. Sell the First $1M Yourself At this stage, you’re not just managing—you’re selling. What’s the sales cycle?

Sales Hiring 216

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Metrics 216

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

5 Key Learnings from Scaling from 3 to 75 Go-To-Market Team Members in Less Than 12 Months The latest SaaStr CRO Confidential is out and Sam Blond did a great deep dive with Graham Mareno, VP of Worldwide Sales at Codeium. Create Compelling Economic Incentives For sales talent, compensation is critical.

Sales Recruiting 242

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 242

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

Recruiting is tough. But to be a great CEO, you need to find a way to force yourself to be a great recruiter. Let me share some learnings, and what I do now to force myself to be a better recruiter. First, you will budget a ton of time for recruiting. Hire external recruiters — and be very good to them.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Scale 363

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2025

Dear SaaStr: I’m Joining a Start-Up as Head of Sales At Just $1m ARR. Don’t wait to hire an SDR team—start building pipeline immediately. Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, or ZoomInfo to find leads. What’s the sales cycle? Hire Slowly, But Hire Right Don’t rush to hire a big team.

Sales Hiring 185

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Metrics 185

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 15, 2021

There’s a simple secret to hiring quickly and building a strong team. Invest in great managers early. Post-PMF, the organization must evolve: it has to grow headcount and then manage that headcount well. How many hiring managers are in each of the two hierarchies from above? On the left, the startup is flat.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Headcount 363

SaaStr

AUGUST 28, 2020

I know we’ve hit a number of these points individually before on SaaStr, but after getting asked about the top mistakes hiring your first sales team so many times over the years, I thought it would be worthwhile to assemble a Top 10 List. Yes, you may be terrible at sales. It’s sales, after all. But you are the CEO.

Sales Hiring 332

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 332

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

JANUARY 24, 2023

During the Boom Times of late ’20-early ’22, we all often confused Taking Risks in hiring … with Just Plain Ignoring Flags. The best VPs of Sales I’ve hired were Directors of Sales before. That’s far better in my experience than hiring a random top tier university grad.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 301

SaaStr

JUNE 8, 2025

Dear SaaStr: I Fired My VP of Sales. Here’s what you should do next: Step in as Interim VP of Sales (If Needed) If you don’t have someone ready to step up, you’ll need to take the reins yourself temporarily. You know the product, the customers, and the sales process better than anyone else. How will they recruit top talent?

Sales Hiring 175

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 175

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

This chart holds the secret to successful hiring of go-to-market teams. A stack rank of attributes within HubSpot account executive candidates that correlate to quota attainment. The pushier the account executive, the worse the result. I think it’s still one of the best books on how to repeatably scale sales teams.

Sales Hiring 349

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 349

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

In the “old” days, there was a rough rule that as soon as you are bringing on more than 1–2 reps a quarter, you needed to hire a director of sales ops. That at that point, at a minimum, there would be too much administrative work for your VP of Sales to handle it herself. One manager can only really manage 8 AEs.

Sales Hiring 290

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 290

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

What are the top 10 mistakes founders are still making today when hiring their VP of Sales? SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin, has done numerous surveys now that confirm that a startling 70% of first hires don’t make it. In this post, we’ll delve into the common pitfalls founders encounter when hiring a VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 304

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review 304

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. You need to hire up-and-comers.

Part-Time VPE 352

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 352

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

So we’ve spent a ton of time over the years on SaaS talking about hiring a great VP of Sales. Not only because it really matters, but because hiring the wrong VP of Sales can set you back a year — or longer. Don’t make this hire. 50% of what a VP of Sales really does is recruiting.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 303

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. Don’t.

Sales Hiring 352

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 352

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 Sales Recruiting 363

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

A strong sales leader is vital to any company hoping to scale. With this in mind, hiring for the Head of Sales role is one of the most important things a business can do. Unfortunately, too many companies focus on the wrong things when hiring their sales leaders, which can lead to hires that aren’t the best fit for the business.

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 244

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2021

Q: What are some common blind spots and mistakes startups make when hiring for and building out a sales team? Some of the top blind spots founders and even VPs of Sales make: #1. You hire a sales rep to sell before you can prove you can do it yourself. You don’t let reps go that fail in one sales cycle.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Branding 274

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

As the past few years have demonstrated, it’s wise to expect the unexpected, especially when it comes to hiring. In particular, hiring for your sales team is critical in an uncertain economic outlook. Additionally, sales professionals looking for a new role should choose their next company wisely.

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 244

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

Dig deeper on a lot of titles during recruiting. 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. A “VP of Revenue” for a VP of Sales job. But marketers never, ever know how to do sales.

Sales Hiring 325

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Growth Hacking Product Marketing 325

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2025

Dear SaaStr: I’m Starting as a New VP of Sales. A new VP of Sales can add value immediately by focusing on a few critical areas that drive results and demonstrate leadership from day one: Assess and Support Top Performers : A great VP of Sales will immediately identify the top-performing reps and double down on them.

Sales Recruiting 162

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Leadership 162

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.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 265

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2025

One of the classic original SaaStr posts was on the Top 10+ Questions to Ask a VP of Sales Candidate. It’s a different world today, AI-fueled, often distributed and hybrid, and with inflation both in titles (CRO or VP Sales) and compensation expectations. Use this updated script for hiring that first VP of Sales.

Sales Recruiting 184

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 184

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2021

We’ve talked a lot about hiring a great VP of Sales at SaaStr, and I’ve relinked to some of the most popular posts below. But after 5+ years of SaaStr.com, I think we can almost boil it all down to 2 things to look for when you make the hire — and 2 things not to look for as much. That takes years to learn.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Development Team Review 274

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.

Sales Recruiting 360

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Engineering 360

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2022

Many mediocre hires were made to fill slots, reference checks not made, etc. And everyone got so tired with the accelerated hiring frameworks, that even more corners were cut than that. Everyone talks about making 10x hires, and each hire being better than the last. A related post here: How To Get Better at Recruiting. (We

Sales Hiring 320

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 320

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.

Sales Hiring 359

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount 359

SaaStr

AUGUST 14, 2020

A mistake many founders make is hiring a VP of Sales who has many strengths — but not at sales per se. A VP of Sales who is smart, polished, and worked at the right place, in a management-level position. That can talk about quota attainment and sales operations and scaling and number. you might ask.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 363

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2025

In our most recent episode of CRO Confidential , hosted by Sam Blond , Graham Moreno , VP of Worldwide Sales at Codium, shared invaluable insights on what drove this growth, the challenges they faced, and how other SaaS companies can replicate this success. Their strategy?

Sales Hiring 185

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting AI 185

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. Is a CRO right for you?

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Acquisition 299

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2025

Key hires like a VP of Engineering or VP of Product might get 1%-2% each. 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. This ensures you have enough to reward early hires without running out too quickly.

Part-Time VPE 210

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Compensation 210

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. So I’d hire earlier here rather than wait.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Recruiting 284

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

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. With SMBs, you can hack it a bit more. It’s still a real issue today.

Sales Hiring 349

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 349

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We’ve talked a ton on SaaStr about how to hire a great VP. We even have 3 great checklists to make sure you hire right: VP of Sales hiring checklist here. VP of Marketing hiring checklist here. VP of Customer Success hiring checklist here. Those can be amazing hires. And for your stage.

Sales Hiring 60

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting Startup 60

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2025

Dear SaaStr: How Can I Crush a VP of Sales Interview? To nail a VP Sales interview, you need to demonstrate that youre not just a smooth talker with a great LinkedIn profileyou need to show youre the real deal. Too many VPs of Sales and CROs show up to interviews knowing almost nothing about the product.

Sales Recruiting 202

Sales Recruiting Interviewing Sales Hiring Scale 202

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

This requires effort from your entire organization, and Handshake VP, Employer Partnerships Jessica Peluso outlines some changes that you can make to your brand, and your application, interview, and offer process that will help find the talent you are trying to attract and hire. Below is the transcript of Jessica’s session. Hi everyone.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 261

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2023

At SaaStr APAC 2023, Scott Pugh, VP of Sales at Figma, shared how to scale these two sales teams while building culture. Pugh’s strategy is simple, albeit not always easy: Recruitment — how to hire the best talent to scale your sales organization. Let’s look at five tips to consider for successful recruiting.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 273