SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2022

Dorian Stone , Head of Organizations Revenue at Grammarly, is here to share lessons from his experience of scaling the company from consumer to SMB to Enterprise to help you steer your expansion efforts in the right direction. The admin, influential decision-makers, and consumer sales reps can be the same people in a Consumer or SMB setting.

Scale 213

Scale SMB Enterprise Sales Hiring 213

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Catch up on part one here , where he deep dives into what he really thinks about AI, Sales and lead Gen for SaaS in 2024. Building and scaling a startup isn’t for the faint of heart and often comes with many ups and downs that SaaS veterans have experience in. Q: When Should A Slow Growth Company Hire a Head of Sales?

Sales Hiring 248

Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital Generative AI 248

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

Only the very best reps that have sold sales or marketing tools, which are very similar to the tools they use every day already, can sell vertical saas or developer tools. Sales reps mostly know how to sell sales and marketing tools. Be wary hiring from these companies if you don’t sell something pretty similar.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales SaaS SMB 171

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2024

As a SaaS veteran who built and sold a software company for nine figures, invested in startups since 2013, 10x-ing his fund, and continues to build a powerhouse community of SaaStr fans, he offers some hot takes on the communities’ burning questions. Sales is much harder than in 2021. How Does That Impact Sales and Marketing?

Metrics 216

Metrics Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 216

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2024

Leandra has over 30 years of experience leading large sales and revenue teams. Apollo is a next-gen sales tool that combines sales intelligence and execution workflows with AI. What they did for marketers, Apollo is trying to do for sales. This hypergrowth platform raised $100M at a $1.6B How do you do that?

Sales Hiring 195

Sales Hiring Scale Pricing SMB 195

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

Their CEO will join us at SaaSr Scale 2021 on December 15 to talk about using data to get to 10,000 SMB customers! I asked Aasif Osmany to share his learnings as a top-performing SMB VP of Sales, below. Four years ago, after launching and failing my first startup I realized I had a lot to learn. Stay Laser-Focused.

Scale 264

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 264

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 4, 2015

The prevailing wisdom for hiring the first VP of Sales is roughly $1M in ARR, or whenever the company has figured out some repeatable sales process. While that all makes sense, I was curious to see if startups do this in practice, and whether the timing of the VPS differs by ACV.

Sales Hiring 100

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Startup 100

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? 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.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 252

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2024

Shrav added that if you want to close bigger deals, not just Enterprise, but mid-market and SMB as well, that the moment you’re ready to Go-To-Market, you need to become compliant. “I f you’re expanding and scaling and you’re closing more deals, it may justify a full-time hire to take the load off the team.

AI 148

AI SMB Sales Hiring compliance 148

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Serve customers a CRM or project management first, and as they scale and use it more, they’re exposed to more features. You don’t want to overwhelm SMB customers, and Monday made this a focus from day one. Since starting the company in 2014, there wasn’t a lot of money you could raise in a startup. Their first round was $1.4m.

Scale 164

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Banking 164

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

She was hired because they saw a bit of softening in new business growth, and she came to help diagnose what was going on and help scale the business. Lattice had a product-led growth flow on the website while the sales team was still trying to sell the PLG companies The good news is Lattice had a lot of activity and initiatives at play.

Scale 233

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 233

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2020

Even once you hit just $2m-$3m ARR — fairly early — the trade-offs start to become clear for startups with customers both Smaller and Larger: Small customers consume just as many sales, success, and marketing resources. 1000 small customers may be a death of small cuts to your sales and success teams. Probably more.

SMB 352

SMB Sales Hiring Marketing Enterprise 352

Kellblog

MAY 7, 2024

A PE acquistion is usually not an exit for the executive team who may be expected to stick around, sign employement letters as a condition of the sale, and rollover a certain percentage of their proceeds into the deal. The venture capitalists who invest in startups. You are a velocity sales leader. Be solid and low drama.

Sales Hiring 99

Sales Hiring Scale SMB Startup 99

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. I don’t know anything about sales.

Sales Hiring 263

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

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 23, 2024

At a16z’s recent Connect/Fintech event, a16z Partner Alex Immerman sat down for a broad conversation with Immad Akhund , co-founder and CEO of banking startup Mercury , and René Lacerte, founder and CEO of financial services company BILL. Both of you sell into SMBs, which is a notoriously difficult segment.

Payments 108

Payments Forecasting Payment Services Payment Solutions 108

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Closing a blockbuster multi-million dollar deal with a Fortune 100 company can be a massive win for a startup. Enterprise sales is not a simple switch to make from SMB sales—it’s a completely different beast. If he replaces the hire but still has no idea what the market needs, how is that going to stop the bleeding?

Sales Hiring 74

Sales Hiring Enterprise Scale Startup 74

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

403: Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Success @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. Before Quip, Sam spent an incredible 3 years at Dropbox where he was the first enterprise sales rep in the entire company. Should you hire 2 at a time?

Scale 174

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 174

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2020

I recently put out a call on Twitter and LinkedIn on folks’ top tip to take friction out of their sales processes. I think it would be a tremendous exercise to share these ideas with your team and see what folks think they should change / implement at your startup. “Presumptive close in a transactional sale.

Sales Hiring 338

Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development Technical Review 338

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency. Then, the sales team went to work. In his opinion, the hiring process is a preview of their sales technique.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2016

Channel distribution represents one of the biggest and most important changes in customers acquisition for SMB SaaS startups in quite a while. One of the most interesting examples is Microsoft’s Office 365 SMB business. It’s the most successful SMB SaaS acquisition channel ever built. by Thomas Hansen.

Outsourcing Services 107

Outsourcing Services SMB Acquisition Scale 107

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

Indeed this was also my #1 mistake and the #1 I see from so many startups learning to go upmarket. Another top mistake SMB folks make trying to sell enterprise. You have to be careful to pair that with someone strong to manage the relationship, that has more time and that also can be trusted. ” — Vinish Garg.

CTO Hire 284

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

Bridget Gleason is VP of Sales @ Logz.io, the startup that uses predictive analytics and machine learning to provide monitoring, troubleshooting and security. Before Logz, Bridget was VP of Corporate Sales @ Sumo Logic where she drove ARR up by a record 237%. 2) Your first VP of Sales? Welcome to Episode 210!

Sales Hiring 115

Sales Hiring Scale Sales SMB 115

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2020

Hiring senior leaders can set companies up to fail and see how sticking with a current, successful model can be the key to hypergrowth. That was the most over the top entrance that the sales leader for a company that moves boxes around the world has ever gotten. So we did about 442 million in sales last year.

Scale 199

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 199

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2021

In this episode, David Skok , General Partner @ Matrix Partners , uncovers the crucial step missing when it comes to finding product-market fit for B2B companies, how to set-up your sales team for success early on, and what metrics really matter when it comes to a payback period. Finding the right VP of Sales can be an especially hard task.

Scale 252

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling B2B 252

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Sales strategy. When you are selling to SMB and MM, you can get away with fairly lean marketing. RELATED: From SMB to Enterprise: A 2-Step Strategy to Boost Adoption & Growth. 3) Hiring: Do you have the right sales people in place? Both hiring profiles will run into hurdles.

Sales Hiring 72

Sales Hiring Enterprise Technical Review SMB 72

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 29, 2021

Ever since he was hired as the Director of EMEA Sales at BrowserStack , a web and mobile testing platform that lets developers test their websites and mobile applications across browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices, he had to completely rethink how to successfully onboard hundreds of salespeople just as everyone was going remote.

Sales Hiring 223

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 223

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 12, 2014

I wondered whether startups serving enterprises might be more or less valuable than those serving small-to-medium businesses (SMBs). In particular, do SaaS startups serving SMBs spend more or less than their counterparts in the mid-market and enterprise? And which type of SaaS startup grows the fastest?

Startup 100

Startup SMB Sales Hiring Acquisition 100

SaaStr

OCTOBER 8, 2019

Typically founders are the first sales people. However, at some point a founder needs to hire a sales team. Katie Helton | Account Executive @ Mixmax. I’m Katie Helton, an account executive at Mixmax and with me today is Olof Mathe, CEO of Mixmax. Want to see more content like this? Olof Mathe | CEO @ Mixmax.

Sales Hiring 127

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Interviewing 127

Sales Hacker

APRIL 21, 2020

Can you ever be sure you’re hiring the right salesperson? When I first wrote this article, we were in a very different place, with unemployment at an all-time low and sales hiring a top priority. That secret weapon is a hiring scorecard. Fortunately, my client used their hiring scorecard to sidestep a costly mis-hire.

Sales Hiring 96

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 96

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2023

Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, and co-founders and CEOs, Eran Zinman and Roy Mann of the wildly successful monday.com chat with Startup For Startup about ARR, NRR, CAC, and what it takes to beat the odds in a tougher environment. That works for a hyper-SMB model. For a quick recap on SaaS metrics: What is ARR in SaaS?

Metrics 199

Metrics SaaS Sales Hiring Finance 199

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

One of the biggest decisions you can make when setting up your sales team is whether to focus primarily on inside or outside sales. They seem to be completely at odds, with one focused on clients with a high acquisition cost and high ACV (annual account value), the other focused on a high sales velocity. Hiring guide.

Sales Hiring 83

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Payment Methods 83

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2020

And so, she can, and Anthony just finished up basically going from the first sales hire at Gainsight at almost 100 million in revenue and has just retired. Maria : It’s like saying, “Hey, you want a sales rep to carry 10 times the quota they do today. You can’t, you have to invest in that sales infrastructure.”

Sales Hiring 205

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 205

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

APRIL 30, 2024

How do you build GTM efficiency in SMB sales? While this title is SMB-oriented, the advice applies to Mid-Market and Enterprise, too. You shouldn’t be adding a bunch of sales reps or spending a bunch of money on marketing if the economics aren’t sustainable. Kyle made this mistake in his first startup.

Scale 262

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Sales 262

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 7, 2020

Should you take the risk of applying to a fast-growing startup, or slowly work your way up at a more established enterprise company? I have been an early employee at a very successful start-up (and several not-so-successful ones), and I’ve also been in Sales and Management at large, enterprise corporations.

Scale 79

Scale Enterprise Sales Hiring Technical Review 79

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

What does it take to scale a sales team successfully? Should one hire sales reps 2×2? How does Andy think about hiring sales reps from adjacent companies and industries? How does Andy think about minimizing and optimising sales ramp times? How does Andy view the importance of offering trials?

Sales Hiring 202

Sales Hiring Scale Leadership Technical Review 202

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

One of the toughest challenges for founders — and especially technical founders who are used to focusing so much on product features over sales — is striking “product-market fit”. So in that shift from product-market fit to product-market-SALES fit, how much should you optimize your go-to-market for product… and even the other way around?

Product Marketing 77

Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 77