SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2025

Codium is one of the fastest-growing startups in the AI coding assistant space, having scaled its go-to-market team from 3 to 75 in just under a year. Before hiring their first sales reps, the founders personally closed millions in revenue. Their strategy?

Sales Hiring 180

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting AI 180

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

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

The Best Speakers In The World With hundreds of sessions from proven SaaS leaders who have scaled companies to significant revenue milestones, SaaStr Annual offers practical, actionable insights you won’t find elsewhere. Sessions typically focus on real metrics, strategies, and lessons learned, not theoretical concepts.

Sales Recruiting 187

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 187

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Scaling to $150M ARR and beyond is no simple task. Back then, remote first was a recruiting advantage. Will this change as Grafana Labs scales? But they’re still one of the last remaining open-source companies at scale. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team. How did it come to be?

Scale 291

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 291

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

So just as supply chain logistics juggernaut Flexport was beginning to scale, founder CEO Ryan Petersen came to SaaStr Annual to share his top lessons — and mistakes. Make sure you know how your customers buy and tailor your go to market strategy and messaging to that. Very early on it’s weighted towards product vision and sales.

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Sales Recruiting Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring 322

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 189

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 189

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 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 246

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2021

A ways back, I asked Brendon Cassidy, VP of Sales at LinkedIn, Adobe Sign / EchoSign, and Talkdesk to put together his playbook for double sales. … How We Increased Sales Nearly 100% In One Quarter at HackerRank – Brendon Cassidy. I thought it was a great checklist for all of us to take a look at.

Scale 284

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 284

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2024

What does it take to scale a team from 2 to more than 1,100 people in just a few short years? When Remote had 120 people two weeks into 2021, they planned to scale to 600 that year. At the same time, you want to give trust and power to people who recruit, and you do that by ensuring they understand what the culture is.

Scale 261

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 261

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. Here are some things to remember when you think about scaling your next big SaaS company.

Sales Recruiting 251

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 251

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2022

When approaching a GTM exercise, one thing needs to be very clear: the company’s revenue strategy. This revenue strategy consists of three core questions: What is the market opportunity—the problem that needs to be solved? What is the product strategy? Sales Cycle. Post Sales. Execution is not just a sales process.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 273

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. If they are just saying the wrong things to customers and prospects. Be present.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 291

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 16, 2025

While competitors invested in huge sales teams, Atlassian actually restricted direct customer interaction. The “Feature Request Arbitrage” Strategy Hidden gem in their marketplace origin: They turned their biggest product weakness (feature request backlog) into their greatest strength.

Sales Recruiting 203

Sales Recruiting Marketplace as a Service Underperforming Technical Team Scale 203

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2020

On how to recruit in the early days, when not everyone gets it. The Q+A at the end is especially good — stay for it: #3: “Zendesk’s Secret Sauce to Scaling to $1B: SMB and Mid-Market Success” with VP Global SMB Sales Sharon Prosser and VP GTM Strategy Astha Malik. . And much more! And much more.

Scale 218

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling SMB 218

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

In a fascinating workshop session, Miao shares his thoughts on how finance teams can contribute to company strategy and grow revenue. Growth Strategy Identify and implement new growth opportunities and revenue streams. Growth Strategy Identify and implement new growth opportunities and revenue streams. Sign up for free.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

This was Storyblok’s strategy when it started expanding its team. Storyblok started with a leadership-first hiring plan and a recruitment strategy that involved the following: A test to know how candidates handle different tasks and their expertise level. They also hired a VP of Partners who knew how to scale B2B software.

Scale 245

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 245

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2022

When you think of scaling up, many things may come to mind, like hiring, culture, marketing, and sales. But what are the essentials of scaling up, and how do you navigate obstacles along the way to function as a high-impact organization? This helped them break out of the noise and keep away from play-it-safe strategies.

Scale 241

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 241

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 17, 2024

Building ‘opinionated products’ and the importance of customer intimacy Lessons learned from scaling Twitter’s ad business from zero to $650 million in three years. Strategies for building relationships with PR outlets, reporters, and analysts. 15:41) Scaling Twitter’s ad business and managing hyper-growth. (26:54)

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Scale Engineering Acquisition Scaling 99

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

And for Intercom’s VP of Sales EMEA, Sanj Bhayro , scaling is just what you need to invest in to ensure growth becomes as constant and linear as it can be. Sanj has plenty of experience scaling sales teams at growing businesses, and that’s precisely why, as of November of last year, he‘s overseeing EMEA sales at Intercom.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2019

SaaStr Scale is THIS THURSDAY in San Francisco! The Playbook to Building a Thriving Sales Culture with Fmr. PatientPop SVP of Sales Justin Welsh. The Playbook to Running Growth Experiments at Scale with Ex Machina Founder Guillaume Cabane. GRAB A FINAL, FINAL TICKET HERE ! VIEW THE FULL AGENDA. ATTENDEE PORTAL.

Scale 179

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Sales Hiring 179

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2022

Jason recently opened up an AMA on Twitter Spaces to answer questions about scaling from $1M to $10M. We did a good AMA on this scaling at SaaStr Europa in Barcelona, a couple weeks back. That will scale, and then take those emails after four great pieces of content and do a weekly webinar and do a weekly get-together for them.

Scale 293

Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring VP of Engineering 293

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

And your first VP of Marketing just increases qualified leads by 25%. More on that here and a great video discussion below: You’ll probably be ready for your first VP of Sales by $1m in ARR. Ideally, have your VP of Sales on board in time to hire reps 3-300. But you’ll need a manager to scale beyond 2.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2021

The other day, I met with a great founder who talked with me about how he was about to top his VP of Sales. in ARR in pretty short order, recruiting a great small team of reps under her, and had really nailed the formula. Gaetan Gachet ended up taking Algolia from $0 to $50m in ARR, and still serves as its Chief Strategy Officer today.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale SMB 307

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

If a VP of Sales can’t improve things in one sales cycle or less — she never will. In one sales cycle, or less. If a great VP of Marketing can double your inbound leads — of course you can afford her salary. It doesn’t work because freemium is rarely a go-to-market and marketing strategy.

Part-Time VPE 348

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 348

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ revenue professionals weekly to stay up-to-date and scale their companies and careers. Pain points in onboarding can quickly lead to frustration, so optimize continuously by treating onboarding as an iterative process based on user feedback and analytics.

Scale 110

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 110

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 15, 2021

Agile principles can be a North Star for time-strapped support teams, helping them to keep the customer’s needs at the heart of their decisions so they can provide fast, personal support at scale. At WeTravel, we’ve implemented custom bots to capture leads and triage conversations for 24/7 support ”.

Scale 235

Scale Payment Methods Payment Services Scaling 235

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2021

Recruitment: Getting the right talent onboard is a critical step. Sales: You must understand how to grow your sales machine, and it isn’t easy. Sales: You must understand how to grow your sales machine, and it isn’t easy. In fact, you need both to optimally grow your sales efforts. Surprises Along the Way.

Sales Recruiting 275

Sales Recruiting Scale Software Delivery Travel 275

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2023

With teams spread across the globe, they had to find new working patterns to scale their businesses in a distributed environment. Recruit diverse leaders The goal of hiring a revenue leader is to put gasoline on finding product market fit success. CROs should focus on capturing that unrealized demand which is not a sales-led effort.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 261

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 25, 2019

However, when researchers at UC Berkeley and Stanford explored growth at more than 3,000 startups , their key finding was that premature scaling was the most common cause of failure. Given that the primary metric we measure growth in is revenue, it follows that sales feels growth more acutely than almost any other function.

Scale 136

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 136

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

I really appreciate you coming to talk about how to attract, hire, and build a more diverse sales team in your organization. So I’ve been building top-producing sales teams for a really, really long time. So over the years, I’ve watched many sales leaders go out and say, “Brian’s my top producer.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 261

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales. Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022.

Sales Hiring 300

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 300

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

In this Ask Me Anything Part 1, Lemkin answers the questions: Many VCs talk about funding, yet you’re so focused on sales. Question #1: Why Are You So Focused On Sales When Other VCs Are Focused On Funding? That VP of Sales came out of Salesforce. Lemkin’s Hail Mary was hiring Brendon Cassidy when that first VP of Sales quit.

Outsourcing Services 285

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 285

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2020

An open discussion with Sam Blond, CSO at Brex, and Kristen Habacht, VPS at Atlassian, about adjusting their sales process during Covid-19. Kristen Habacht runs EDR sales at Atlassian, which I got a check today, $40 billion-$50 billion company. She manages a huge global team. Four, people in the sale? Jason Lemkin: None.

Merchant Services 257

Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 257

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. And now it’s all about like, can you really scale and execute? Dev Ittycheria : Thank you.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 261

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

We do that with a combination of industry-leading content and community connections. This led to our first meet-ups in 2013 and 2014, the first SaaStr Annual in 2015 , the industry’s leading podcast in 2016, the first SaaS founder coworking space in 2017, and SaaStr Pro , the first learning management system for SaaS founders in 2018.

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Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 307

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

You might have a few account executives and a sales leader in place; maybe some revenue and a handful of customers. The sales team costs real money, and the question before the company is: how do you know what quota plan to assign to the account executives? Stage 1: Management by Objectives.

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Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 195

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 9, 2025

So read on, and hopefully, your SaaS sales journey will be less about trial and error and more about steady progress toward success. Chances are, your strategy already incorporates at least one of these models. Self-service sales often (but not always) go hand in hand with product-led growth (PLG)-driven motions.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Sales Recruiting 52