SaaStr

MAY 1, 2021

Who can help me find that first VP of Sales? Later this doesn’t matter but some VCs really can promote you and help attract the best hires, etc. This does help with recruiting and partnerships. There are influencer VCs, and at the margin, it’s better to have one for recruiting and partnership building. #5.

Sales Recruiting 281

Sales Recruiting Venture Capital Sales Hiring Investment 281

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to understand how venture capital works. 2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” You can’t always expect a great VP of Sales to double sales in 30-60-90 days. But you have to see progress in one sales cycle. If, in one sales cycle, things aren’t improving on several core metrics, they never will.

Part-Time VPE 183

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 183

Sales Hacker

APRIL 19, 2022

In this article, I’ll outline the principles of compensation design , how to build sales compensation plans , and include resources to set OTEs and quotas that keep your reps happy and hungry for more. Why Sales Comp Planning is Key to Rep Retention. Who should be responsible for sales compensation planning?

Compensation 88

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Retention 88

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2022

I am a partner at Accel, the Global Venture Capital Fund, and I’m very happy to be here with one of these mythical creatures that people were talking about earlier. We took the series A, interesting enough, the first executive hired by, thanks to the sales coaching, actually was marketing. Luciana: Right.

Sales Hiring 256

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 256

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

When it comes to launching sales teams in hyper-growth startups, few people have walked the walk as much as Maggie Hott. She “stumbled” into it, as she told us, first as one of the earliest sales hires of Eventbrite, where she stayed for four years, and then into Slack in early 2015 as the first sales rep in the Bay Area.

Scale 118

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 118

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2021

For us, it’s about fixing this problem, serving the customer well, so a very service driven mindset, which I gave a talk on a few days ago here, has been a big part of Gusto and affected our hiring from the early days. Certainly, at YC where our version of hiring is basically choosing which founders to fund. Get tickets here.

VP of Engineering 260

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 260

Kellblog

OCTOBER 13, 2019

However, as soon as a founder/CEO raises venture capital (VC) they have decided to take investing partners along on the journey. Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run. We think we should hold off doing channels until we’ve debugged the sales model. However, some do [5].

Sales Hiring 75

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Sales Recruiting Startup 75

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

However, as soon as a founder/CEO raises venture capital (VC) they have decided to take investing partners along on the journey. Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run. We think we should hold off doing channels until we’ve debugged the sales model. Nothing can take that away.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Venture Capital Technical Advisors 59

Kellblog

JUNE 27, 2020

This under-pricing usually triggers a number of other problems: In order to work within the self-created, low-cost implementation services model, the company “hires cheap” when it comes to implementation consultants, preferring junior staff and/or staff in offshore locations. They’re worth it.).

Consulting 144

Consulting Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 144

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 21, 2019

Happily, in the past several years startups are increasingly recognizing the value of strong sales enablement and sales productivity teams. So it’s no surprise that I hear a lot about high-growth companies building onboarding programs to enable successfully scaling their sales organizations and sustain their growth.

Sales Hiring 45

Sales Hiring Onboarding Sales Recruiting Scale 45

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

I started a software company in college to make it easy to update websites called Content Management Software Now, and I had this idea for Pardot, I wanted to make it easy for marketers to run campaigns online and measure their results. We raised $0 of venture capital. From a product point of view, our timing was impeccable.

Sales Recruiting 162

Sales Recruiting Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring 162

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2020

And so many of my classmates couldn’t get jobs, I had done my summer internship at Google and I remember getting the call from Google, my manager at Google saying, “Hey, we’ve decided not to extend any of our summer internships full-time offer, because again, it was 2008. Michelle: Yeah. You need a team to go really far.

Sales Hiring 170

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Recruiting 170

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 13, 2020

If you missed episode 130, check it out here: Turning Junior-level Talent into Top Sales Professionals with Eddie Baez. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Sales enablement is easy. REGIE uses artificial intelligence to create entire outbound inbound, and even follow-up sales campaigns faster. We’re on iTunes.

Marketplace as a Service 96

Marketplace as a Service CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 96

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2019

Felix Van de Maele, Co-Founder and CEO of Collibra, will be joined by Teddie Wardi, Managing Director of Insight Partners, to unpack how he built a unicorn company from idea to conception to record growth. Teddie Wardi | Managing Director @ Insight Partners. Want to see more content like this? Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020.

Sales Hiring 174

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Government 174

SaaStock

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

With an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Rodrigo Baer launched a successful career in consultancy and entrepreneurship, and today is among the top figures in venture capital for early-stage tech companies in Brazil. Starting as VP of Sales, in less than two years he became CEO. Patrick Campbell, CEO, ProfitWell.

Technical Review 207

Technical Review Scale Entrepreneurship Sales Hiring 207

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 4, 2020

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Matt Rizzetta , founder of North 6th Agency, which is a communications and PR firm based in New York City. Years later, he’s got a thriving business that is not venture capital backed. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. How to get better at sales [21:37].

Scale 106

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 106

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 17, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Pete Kazanjy , co-founder of Atrium and author of Founding Sales. As a serial founder, Pete has built up an impressive library of knowledge on scaling businesses and optimizing sales motions. How selling as a founder will help you understand your sales motions.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review 52

Kellblog

MAY 29, 2021

Someone who, when times are tense, can work as an intermediary between the differing parties, often but certainly not always, the investors on one side and founders/management on the other. Former sales leaders often perform well in this situation [6]. Someone who challenges the CEO on strategy and executive hiring.

Sales Hiring 128

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting Government 128

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2019

* Nick has previously said, “Burying customer success under sales does not work.” What should the optimal sales to customer success relationship look like? What does Nick mean when he says, “Product is to customer success what marketing is to sales.” Why does Nick push back against the “hire fast and fire fast” thesis?

Sales Hiring 115

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Sales Recruiting 115

The Angel VC

DECEMBER 12, 2018

It’s an important question, as your target growth rate determines your hiring plan, budget, and fundraising strategy. As I wrote here , trying to forecast what happens to your CACs if you 10x your sales and marketing spend is very difficult. The main reason is that your customer acquisition costs are highly front-loaded.

Sales Recruiting 106

Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale 106

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2019

We burned through $23 million in venture capital and only had 1 million in revenue to show for it. And I thank a lot of that to actually Met Gourniak, who I hired at that time. And I started as an engineer and as an MBA and frankly in business school back then they didn’t even have a class on sales.

Sales Recruiting 167

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale SaaS Payments 167

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

Does Bob agree with the notion that channel sales have completely died in the world of SaaS? How does Bob think about when is the right time to hire a Head of Partnerships? Where do most startups go wrong both in hiring for partnerships and in the engagements themselves? Why is this? What are the drivers of its death?

Sales Hiring 132

Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 132

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

* How does David think about scaling sales teams? How does one know when is the right time to hire your first sales reps? What content and learnings should you have in place when you make the hire? What have been his lessons on optimizing payback period for sales reps? Why is 12 months so crucial?

Scale 187

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 187

Kellblog

AUGUST 23, 2019

When we met, he was a pre-sales engineer and I was a technical support rep. We’ve each spent over 25 years in enterprise software, in mixed roles that involve both technology and sales & marketing (S&M). Jim went on to write a great book, Making the Technical Sale. I went on to create Kellblog.

Technical Review 65

Technical Review Software Review Sales Hiring Venture Capital 65

Outseta

JANUARY 20, 2020

I was offered a job as Buildium’s first full-time marketing hire, pulling in a cool $38,400 annually. In light of the sale of Buildium last month I figured now is as good of a time as any to reflect on the most important ones. We could branch out into commercial property management.

SaaS Payments 145

SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Payment Methods Payment Services 145

ChurnZero

APRIL 27, 2021

Other signs of explosive growth potential at this early stage are a highly efficient sales motion, though this is most often still a work in progress at this stage. Interest from channel partners and sales via channel partners can be another meaningful indicator. . I’ve seen this so many times that is has become predictable. .

Scale 98

Scale Customer Success Payments Underperforming Technical Team 98

Point Nine Land

DECEMBER 12, 2018

It’s an important question, as your target growth rate determines your hiring plan, budget, and fundraising strategy. As I wrote here , trying to forecast what happens to your CACs if you 10x your sales and marketing spend is very difficult. The main reason is that your customer acquisition costs are highly front-loaded.

Sales Recruiting 61

Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale 61

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 4, 2019

There are a number of funding types that serve the SaaS business model, including: Venture Capital: The glamour means of procuring funds for your startup, venture capital is provided by firms or funds that see high growth potential or a strong track record of recent growth in a SaaS company, enough to merit substantial financial assistance.

Business Model 54

Business Model SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payments 54

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

I think it’s more around a consciousness of what you know, or what you may not know, and then hiring around it to become successful. ” I’m kind of like, “Even if you make one or two sales in the next couple of months, with your VP sales, it’s going to take you three months to go and hire.”

New CTO 144

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 144

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2020

394: Where is Venture Capital today? Sunil Dhaliwal: I was at one of the biggest firms around and I think we had a $200 million fund and people were like, I can’t believe we’re running $200 million in venture capital. Just like a whole bunch of people said, “I’ll never hire remote.”

Sales Recruiting 165

Sales Recruiting Development Team Review Technical Review Sales Hiring 165

ProfitWell

JANUARY 23, 2020

Blake Bartlett over at OpenView , the expansion-stage venture capital firm, chatted with me a bit about product-led growth. And you claim that sales should be hired last when dealing with a product-led growth initiative. In product-led growth, product leads and sales follows. How can you do better inside sales?

Sales Recruiting 43

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Venture Capital Pricing 43

Outseta

MAY 8, 2020

Remote work is a setup that’s better aligned with deep work and productivity, and also dramatically opens up the talent pool that companies can hire from. Founders hire executives looking for them to drive their overnight success, then move on before the person ever had a fleeting chance of meeting their goals.

Part-Time VPE 102

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team 102

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

And we were about a $50 million sales run rate, but I’d never done a media interview. For the first 10 years when we didn’t do one media interview and we got to 50 million in sales. You could recruit, you could do fundraising rounds, you could do all this stuff and then you would have arrived. Think about that.

Acquisition 126

Acquisition Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring 126

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2020

It’s funny because Rachel came to us and said like, :Hey, I know we just had a meeting and we discussed, we need to hire a VP of engineering and a VP of product and a VP of marketing. But folks that come out of the traditional folks where we poach… I mean, once you scale, you want to hire someone to set up [inaudible 00:31:06].

Investment 158

Investment Technical Review Part-Time VPE Development Team Review 158

Point Nine Land

JANUARY 30, 2019

Providing a “cloud based” service was really challenging in terms of infrastructure, and the first SaaS startups had to hire large engineering teams dedicated to this aspect only. It was clearly a huge barrier to entry as not every startup could build and maintain such infrastructure (capital intensive + scarcity of talents).

AI Search 70

AI Search AI B2B Software 70

SaaStr

AUGUST 20, 2019

I’m a vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners, which is a venture capital firm, which was very lucky to be a part of SendGrid’s journey. ” Sameer Dhokalia: It was really helpful to not have any of the usual dynamics, and it is fairly common, to have dynamics between founders and a hired CEO.

Scale 130

Scale Acquisition Scaling Sales Hiring 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

Then I went over to the sales department. The demo is the sale and we close everybody in month. I would’ve had to hire IT staff to deal with hardware. Heidi Jannenga : When we’ve again, first started going out and looking for funding, everybody wants to amplify your sales strategy. They were very expensive.

Scale 168

Scale SMB VP of Engineering Leadership 168