SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

AI in Sales and Marketing AI is disrupting sales and marketing, particularly in support and SDR /BDR functions, due to the shortage of skilled workers and the potential for increased efficiency and cost savings. Sales leaders should be able to improve lead conversion rates by at least 20% within one sales cycle. And so much more!

Sales Hiring 260

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 260

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2024

So we’ve probably covered HubSpot more than any other SaaS and Cloud leader on this 5 Interesting Learnings series, but there’s a good reason for it: First, HubSpot is a lot like most of us. It sells sales, marketing, support and more tools. And second, so many of us use HubSpot. So it’s very … tangible.

Scale 245

Scale Cloud Scaling Pricing 245

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2023

While Freshworks is very much a global SaaS leader, its history as perhaps the first with deep roots in India to IPO in the U.S. makes it one we all root for as a break-out global leader. Freshworks is doing a lot of things right in a challenging time for many “traditional” B2B segments like CRM, Support, etc.

SMB 296

SMB B2B SaaS Revenue 296

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

The contact and support spaces have rapidly adopted as much of AI as they can. Automating tickets and support is a huge industry theme, and Freshworks has already automated 220,000,000 interactions, in whole or part. #5. Like Almost Every Other SaaS Leader, Freshworks Has Gotten Much, Much More Efficient.

SMB 252

SMB AI Onboarding Cloud 252

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

A great product, while necessary, isn’t sufficient to build a market leader and eventually a public company. With over a decade of data from qualitative learnings and insights amassed through a network of leaders, ICONIQ deep dives into what it takes to succeed at GTM throughout the four stages of growth.

Scale 237

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Outsourced Development 237

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2022

In much the same way, CEOs architect the organization that builds, markets, sells, and supports the product. Some teams wait to staff these leaders, preferring to employ individual contributors first. When a business is ready to scale, a startup ought to develop an organizational roadmap. A CMO manages the organization.

Startup 360

Startup Acquisition Product Marketing Scaling 360

SaaStr

DECEMBER 17, 2023

I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader. He is passionate about supporting the SaaS ecosystem and empowering entrepreneurs and innovators. He is passionate about supporting the SaaS ecosystem and empowering entrepreneurs and innovators. What’s your core stack of apps today?

Scale 250

Scale AI Leadership Innovation 250

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

Jennifer emphasized the importance of having the right motives and values as a leader, such as growing people, expanding markets, and building value for others, to sustain long-term success. Or supporting customers by enabling GenAI? Are Enterprise Leaders Excited About GenAI? Are Enterprise Leaders Excited About GenAI?

Generative AI 238

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 238

FastSpring

APRIL 17, 2024

GamesBeat Summit brings together leaders across the spectrum of the video game industry ecosystem including entrepreneurs, talent, anchor corporations, support organizations, investment capital, and innovation enablers. Ready for an immersive exploration of the pressing real-world challenges confronting the gaming industry?

Merchant Services 111

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Methods Payment Facilitation 111

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2024

I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader. We’re in the process of onboarding Vitally , specifically to help us better support bigger, managed customers. Last time we had a great one with Job van der Voort, CEO at Remote, check it out here. What’s your core stack of apps today?

Marketing 208

Marketing ChatGPT Mobile Onboarding 208

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2024

I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader. Additionally, she’s supported private and public companies through profitability and hyper growth — managing engineering, product, data, and design teams at LiveRamp, Euclid, and Talkdesk. This week we have Rachel Wolan, CPO at Webflow! #1.

VP of Engineering 210

VP of Engineering ChatGPT AI Search AI 210

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2023

Not every leader is created equally. A bad experience with a revenue operations leader might taint your view of the position at all future companies, but that would be a mistake, as CRO Confidential podcast host Sam Blond learned first-hand. When hiring for rev ops, you’re hiring a partner in crime to the sales leader.

Sales Hiring 199

Sales Hiring Education Scale Strategy 199

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2021

Amplitude is a quiet Cloud leader that you might not have heard of — unless you are building software. There, Amplitude has become part of the core product stack for many SaaS and software leaders for product analytics. This is super impressive and what we’re seeing from so many Cloud leaders. This is rare.

Scale 270

Scale CTO Hire New CTO CTO 270

SaaStr

DECEMBER 24, 2023

I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader. In this role, she leads all post-sales functions including User Operations (Support), Customer Success, Renewals, Professional Services, and Training. Last week we had a great one with Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner, check it out here.

Startup 233

Startup Customer Success Sales Business 233

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Blackline is one of the leaders in accounting software and invoicing-to-cash. Today, at $600m ARR, Blackline’s market cap — is right in the middle of SaaS leaders. But the ACV as we’ll see is small, and the competition is real. Growth got tougher. They needed Therese back. It’s trading at 6x ARR. Folks stay.

Payment Features 206

Payment Features Scale Enterprise Software 206

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 25, 2021

The channels we use to communicate have shifted dramatically, and customer expectations for fast, personalized support are higher than ever. “How can you ensure that your support team is still providing personable, conversational support at scale?” Messaging is rapidly becoming a key channel for customer support.

Customer Support 260

Customer Support Scale Scaling Communication 260

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 23, 2024

All the leader needs to do at that point is support and encourage the Who(s) through the process. This quote from the book summarizes the conceit : Creating and clarifying the vision (the “what”), and giving that vision greater context and importance (the “why”) for all Whos involved. The answer is no.

ChatGPT 206

ChatGPT AI Metrics Revenue 206

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

A few weeks after, a Global 50 leader invited us in. If your product is complicated, you should hire a sales engineer / solution architect pretty early to support sales. They’d push on and just buy the market leader. I just needed to pitch his entire team. My co-founder who was our product guru was supposed to join me.

Sales Hiring 238

Sales Hiring B2B Engineering Enterprise 238

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

From an R&D perspective, they invested in what they called vertical solutions to support those new use cases. They started seeing IT administrators, business leaders, and rev ops leaders showing up in the funnel rather than individual entrepreneurs. What should you look for in an Enterprise rep vs. a Mid-Market rep?

Scale 231

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 231

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Welcome to the latest installment of our “ What’s New ” series where SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with some of the top leaders and founders in SaaS and Cloud to discuss What’s New and what should be top of mind for fellow founders. They don’t have the bandwidth to support five sub-partners in their category.

AWS 210

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 210

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader. Other than your own, what app would you never let anyone take away from you no matter what: Gong – Enablement leaders just got a huge level-up in terms of ROI and change reporting. Rattle is the reason I added Slack to the list above.

Consulting 195

Consulting Enterprise Sales Engagement 195

SaaStr

JULY 22, 2021

And “950 of the partners, Avalara has no competition” Like HubSpot and other leaders that sell sophisticated, $10k+ solutions to SMEs, partners are key to implementation. They earn commissions and are offered dedicated sales, marketing and training support. Good but not great for a $40k deal. #2.

Scale 323

Scale SMB compliance Churn 323

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 26, 2020

As support teams look to the year ahead, there’s no shortage of priorities to juggle – from team efficiency, to customer experience, to business impact. New research from Intercom reveals how support leaders are striking a balance. Today support teams have a full plate.

Trends 233

Trends Scale Headcount Technology 233

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

Every leader needs to have a strategic playbook to build high-performing teams and retain top talent,” says Guan Wang, Global Director of Market Intelligence for Snowflake. . How To Build A High-Performing Team And Retain Top Talent. People are the most valuable asset of an organization. The same is true for the employee journey.

Underperforming Technical Team 220

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Acquisition Company Culture 220

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 18, 2021

So we wanted to learn more about these tectonic shifts in the support world so that we could share them with you, our customers, and our readers. They found that: Messenger-based support is now the second most used support channel. They found that: Messenger-based support is now the second most used support channel.

Scale 210

Scale Business Consulting Leadership 210

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 1, 2021

Over the course of the past year, the customer support landscape has changed for good. Most support teams have seen an influx of support queries since COVID-19 hit – and those issues are more complex than ever. Over half (53%) of support teams have seen a meaningful increase in support queries since COVID-19 hit.

Underperforming Technical Team 232

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Scale Headcount 232

Totango

DECEMBER 20, 2023

I felt fully supported by the Totango implementation, data, and support teams. From streamlining customer interactions and optimizing business operations to supporting critical in-app communications , the Totango software makes connecting, integrating, and empowering cross-functional partners easy and valuable.

Software Review 108

Software Review Technical Review User Experience Enterprise 108

SaaStr

OCTOBER 15, 2023

I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader. “My App Stack” is a new series where we dig in with top CMOs, CROs, CTOs and CEOs on just what apps they’re really using to run their business. Last week we had a great one with Frank Dale, SVP of Product at SalesLoft, check it out here.

Revenue 237

Revenue Forecasting Sales Enablement Customer Success 237

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

A strong sales leader is vital to any company hoping to scale. 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. Macri emphasizes that execs should remember this when recruiting: “There’s not just one perfect sales leader.”

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 195

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

1,000 SaaS CEOs, Founders, Revenue Leaders, and VCs will join us for 1.5 Braindates are 1:1 and small group networking sessions designed for you to share knowledge and network with like-minded SaaS leaders during SaaStr Europa. days of tactical content, networking, and epic evening events when the Cloud comes to Singapore.

VP of Engineering 244

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder Outsourcing Services CTO Coach 244

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

And as startups scale, many try to automate away support and success for the smaller accounts. Have a clear line between support and CS. Support has to handle a lot of routine SMB issues anyways. ecommerce marketing leader Klaviyo here on this point. ecommerce marketing leader Klaviyo here on this point.

Customer Success 326

Customer Success Scale SMB Sales 326

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

Can the market really support 300+ SaaS and Cloud Unicorns ? There are now already 6 SaaS/Cloud leaders worth over $100 Billion dollars. So if there are 6 $100B+ SaaS leaders, it would make sense there is room for at least 60 $10B+ leaders, and 600+ $1B+ Unicorns. Does it make sense? Well maybe. at IPO in 2015.

PayPal 246

PayPal SaaS Cloud Marketing 246

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2022

Others leaders are seeing the same. Overall these 3 SaaS leaders are bellwethers of where much of SaaS spend is. Overall these 3 SaaS leaders are bellwethers of where much of SaaS spend is. Zendesk is a proxy for all post-sales and support and CX spent. And perhaps they will. But not today. jasonlk) June 1, 2022.

B2B 290

B2B SaaS Branding Metrics 290

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2021

Perhaps not a surprise that SaaS leaders like Wix and Monday that started outside of the U.S. While a lot of this supports product matches to nonprofits with relatively limited cost, it’s still quite a contribution — 10% of the entire company! Not all SMB leaders have to be freemium to win. #7.

Scale 361

Scale SMB Government Enterprise 361

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2022

A gap opens up when: – Sales abandons the customer the moment deal is closed – Support too reactive & slow to solve real issues – Deployment harder than should be. And support is overwhelmed, and over over-automated. Most proactive CS leaders want to do more than they are doing. But the best do more.

Customer Success 287

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 287

Payrix

APRIL 24, 2024

Part 1 – Resourcing considerations for selling payment, boarding and underwriting, service and support, and development and technology. From addressing service and support concerns to deploying feature enhancements, proactive engagement is key to mitigating payments attrition. Do payments influence software platform attrition?

Payments 147

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services Payment Solutions 147

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 22, 2020

This year, we launched Scale , a new content strand focusing on how industry leaders are propelling their companies forward by keeping their customers front and center. . We thought deeply about what defines great customer support. We charted the rise of conversational support and the end of “eh, good enough.”.

Scale 220

Scale Scaling Customer Support Interviewing 220