Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

The template is broken into six sections: People, Bookings & Revenue, Cash, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success. This section covers employee satisfaction, headcount, and recruiting metrics. Bookings and Revenue illuminates the company’s performance in closing new business (bookings) and recurring revenue.

Metrics 250

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount 250

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 29, 2022

I remember reading Edward Tufte’s book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information & stumbling across Charles Minard’s “ Napoleon’s March.” ” Most visualizations plot 2 dimensions.

Data 283

Data Headcount Data Analysis 283

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

A case study in the book In the Age of the Smart Machine, The Future of Work and Power discusses work at paper mills in the mid-1980s as that wave of computation came into industrial processes. Headcount isn’t the right story for them, though. Before computers, intuition was a key part of managing paper mills.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 291

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

New Bookings Growth Has Re-Accelerated, with Highest Growth in Six Quarters You can see below Net New ARR has come back and his a new high last quarter, and well above the somewhat tougher times of 12-15 months ago. Keeping headcount flat got everyone to be more efficient. And efficient growth at that. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Engineering 299

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 17, 2022

bookings number means the company is about to crush its target. A spike of mid-market leads because a competitor has sunsetted their product raises the question of whether to grow the mid-market AE headcount. Perform a second order pipeline analysis to understand where pipeline deviations start. Pipeline is prologue.

Headcount 253

Headcount Engineering Trends Onboarding 253

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 31, 2023

This year has been tumultuous : most startups reduced their bookings, and grinded through the first six months suffering through pipeline shocks - the result of CFO-budget pressure. AI Efficiency Gains +2% Headcount Reduction ? Factor Delta in 2024 Software Spending +15% Inflation +3.7%

Headcount 216

Headcount Sales Hiring AI Cloud 216

Tom Tunguz

JULY 21, 2022

Management teams expect to reduce operating expense by 20% predominantly through headcount reductions or hiring freezes - everyone from sardine startups to public megalodons. Software automates manual work, provides leverage, and the total cost is often less than a headcount. Software does more with less.

Sales Hiring 189

Sales Hiring Headcount Software Finance 189

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2023

This is a CIO purchase, and Okta bookings didn’t go to zero but hit the biggest impact in Q1 of 2023 and boomed in Q2 of last quarter. It was by a smidge, but they had the highest new bookings on record. They grew headcount fairly aggressively from ‘21 to ‘22, and then Q4 of last year dipped and held flat before starting to regrow.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring SaaS Headcount Compensation 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

We all become new customer-oriented, so we say we’re focused on the existing base, but once the sales team becomes 30-40% of headcount, it tends to dominate every conversation. Long-term marketing spend Holding customer success spend flat The study found that 62% of CS teams are maintaining or decreasing their non-headcount budget.

Customer Success 299

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Headcount 299

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

You will need to hire headcount infinitely and linearly with revenue. Whatever it’s growing, you have to grow your headcount in sales roughly. If the yielded quota for an AE is $500k, and you want to add $5M in bookings, you need ten scaled reps. Too much human capital is required, and sales have no efficiencies whatsoever.

Sales Hiring 304

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review 304

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2022

But they need the headcount to grow this quickly. #8. Having said that, burning a net $100m a year isn’t that huge given the company is adding $400m in new bookings. Not free-cash positive yet.

Scale 61

Scale Cloud Headcount Scaling 61

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 7, 2022

Increase your leads without increasing your headcount. But one of the major benefits of live chat for sales is that it allows you to capture and qualify more leads without needing to increase headcount. Livestorm booked 233% more sales demos with Intercom. The business benefits of using live chat for sales.

Sales Funnel 245

Sales Funnel Sales Headcount Subscription 245

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

You can try and hide this “issue” by talking about bookings instead of ARR. With precise headcount and budget needs. Because if too many of those Q1 deals slip to Q2, even if they still close, you’ll only be able to recognize 8/12th or 7/12ths or it or so next year. You just can’t make it up. How many reps.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Acquisition 284

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2023

You can still count it as bookings, as hitting the MRR target, etc. The Right Amount of Headcount Is Far Less Clear When Bootstrapping. It may have some, if it adds value, builds your brand, etc. But that’s it. But if you are venture-backed, you can happily sell a certain amount of zero-margin product and call it a win.

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Headcount Startup Revenue 245

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2021

They should be adding more new bookings that you in most cases. If nothing else, you can pretty reliability track headcount growth on LinkedIn). You’re starting from a smaller base, with a unique competitive advantage of some sort. You have to be growing faster on a percentage basis than they are. But growing more slowly.

Azure 237

Azure Headcount AWS Education 237

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

But it may also suggest that many resellers with large sales teams looking to sustain their transactional businesses are able to drive additional software bookings. This is likely due to a move up-market where larger buyers seek professional services to deploy infrastructure.

Cloud 243

Cloud Azure Headcount Software Review 243

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2021

You need a baked financial model, that includes sales and marketing costs, scaling over time, headcount, and comparison to comps, and when you’ll need the next round(s). Not just phony metrics like “projected bookings” or “quarterly numbers” That shows weakness as your primary metric. Bookings second.

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Headcount 293

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

Having a predictable pipeline enables more effective decision-making, from headcount planning to strategic investments in technology and beyond. ​Accurate sales forecasting is more critical to business success than most realize.

Forecasting 284

Forecasting SMB Sales Technical Review 284

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2019

You can try and hide this “issue” by talking about bookings instead of ARR. With precise headcount and budget needs. Because if too many of those Q1 deals slip to Q2, even if they still close, you’ll only be able to recognize 8/12th or 7/12ths or it or so next year. You just can’t make it up. But that’s for suckers. How many reps.

Sales Hiring 239

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Revenue 239

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin also wrote how Customer Success has now morphed into part of the sales team and that the 2024 trends in CS include everyone wanting to eliminate humans from support to replace that headcount with AI and bots. Just fewer customers got coverage or CSMs got a bigger book of business to manage.

Sales Hiring 320

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale AI 320

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2023

But new workloads and new use cases of MongoDB are only about 10% of new bookings. They kept the headcount kind of flat. You put more workloads in the database, and then you add more over time. That ACV grows and grows gently over time to $1M+ deals. Because it takes time, and this is the power of NRR and playing the long game.

Revenue 245

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Cloud 245

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

There’s revenue drive headcount or does headcount drive revenue, and it’s sounds like you’re squarely in the former camp, that you derive headcount from revenue. I actually drive revenue from headcount, but I make sure I have enough stocked away. It’s going to be our next book.

Sales Hiring 339

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 339

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2018

But it’d be far more effective to share how Snapt uses Custom Bots to qualify and book meetings at scale, without additional headcount. I could share our Salesloft case study , which highlights how they increased demos by 8X with live chat. But it doesn’t stop there; it also takes into account their motivations and constraints.

Scale 172

Scale Headcount Communication B2B 172

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

Because sales is a lead-driven but headcount- closed business. In the beginning, consider bonuses and goals that match the overall company ARR goals — not just new new bookings. And the great VP of Sales all know this. They all either have in their back pocket, and/or are constantly on the prowl for the next 2-3 great reps.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

Valuize Consulting

FEBRUARY 8, 2025

To help executives harness the power of this model, our e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Driving Customer Success Through Partners , provides a comprehensive roadmap to defining, enabling, and measuring a partner-led customer success strategy.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Scale Technical Review Government 52

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 31, 2019

But how do you staff live chat for your marketing without ballooning your headcount? For instance, encourage a first-time visitor to sign up for your newsletter but nudge return visitors to book a demo. Use your chatbot to instantly qualify and book a call with your sales team. By using chatbots. What is chatbot marketing?

Marketing 177

Marketing Pricing Headcount Engagement 177

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

We have webinars, virtual events, books – we do everything now. You need to build an efficient sales team…you can’t just throw money or headcount at things. You need to maximize everything you possibly can to beat the competition because you can’t just throw money or headcount at things. It was simple.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 4, 2019

Created and popularized by Salesforce.com and then written about in the book Predictable Revenue , the appeal of the SDR/AE mode is obvious. Despite the exponential growth they’ve gone through, Stripe have been refreshingly conservative about how quickly they grown the company from a headcount perspective.

Scale 162

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Payment Services 162

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 2, 2019

Headcount Planning. But headcount planning is often a useful place to start because the inputs required to make decisions are the least dependent on factors outside of the sales organization. This decision will drive many of your other headcount decisions. How many AEs can the infrastructure of the sales organization support?

Headcount 41

Headcount Sales Hiring Scale Sales 41

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Companies have reduced headcount, but new bookings aren’t getting any easier Quarterly net new ARR growth : Some green-shoots! Net retention is more of a lagging indicator, so I expect this downward trend to continue FCF Margins: Down slightly, but still at that >10% range CAC Payback Period : Still elevated.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software Review Headcount Trends 167

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 2, 2022

In our webinar, “ Lessons learned from a big a$$ book shift ,” ChurnZero’s CX team pulls back the curtain to share the methodology, approaches, and lessons learned from shifting CSM books across our entire customer base. How to transition your CSMs’ book of business with Alli Tiscornia, CCO, ChurnZero.

Headcount 98

Headcount Underperforming Technical Team Scale Outsourced Development 98

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 29, 2019

But that’s easier said than done, which is why we’ve published our new book Intercom on Sales : a deep dive into the many lessons we’ve learned about how selling works at scale, covering everything from hiring tactics to the needs of modern buyers to fundamental processes for forecasting and managing deals.

Scale 172

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Payment Services 172

ChurnZero

APRIL 26, 2024

Every customer success leader knows that a book shift—reassigning accounts between customer success managers (CSMs)—is both inevitable and challenging. Why undertake a book shift? Why undertake a book shift? The seven steps of a successful book shift 1. Formalize your objectives Establish clear goals using the S.M.A.R.T.

Headcount 52

Headcount Customer Success Communication Churn 52

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s). these figures are going to be WRONG because you haven’t properly accounted for your headcount costs in Sales & Marketing.

Finance 118

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 118

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 11, 2016

She closes $900k, booking 120% of her quota. Let’s assume after training this team improves close rates by 10%, which translates directly into a 10% increase in bookings. Before the training, the team books $3.0M annualized (750k x 70% attainment x 4 reps + 900k), and after it books $3.3M annualized.

Scale 100

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Headcount 100

ChurnZero

MARCH 14, 2024

Every customer success leader has encountered or will eventually encounter a book shift: the process of reassigning accounts between different customer success managers. A book shift is a strategic maneuver designed to align resources and responsibilities within a customer success team.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Headcount Forecasting Communication 52

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 12, 2018

As VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter, Elad Gil was a key player as company headcount skyrocketed from 90 to 1,500 employees. This wasn’t Elad’s first experience with hyper growth – Google grew headcount 10x during his time as a product manager there – nor the last. Adam: Stripe Press is publishing the book.

Sales Hiring 120

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 120