SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. There are no Cloud magicians, and you can’t hire a PLG magician. Let’s jump right into the questions.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 290

Valerian Tech

JANUARY 5, 2023

It can be beneficial to hire a fractional CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in a variety of situations. They can provide guidance on which technologies to invest in and help you create a roadmap for the future.

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Fractional CTO CTO Hire Part-Time CTO CTO 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

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. As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself. Hire that person, and make sure they are someone the top customers can really trust and count on.

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CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 328

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

Which role should you hire for first? For starters, your first hire should be someone who can complement your skills, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak, but it goes much deeper than that. This is Dan, CEO of WalkMe, and Wade, CEO of Zapier, and Mallun, Chief Business Officer of RPX, and Craig from Dialpad.

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Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 264

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

376: In part two, ZoomInfo founder and CEO Henry Schuck shares how he built a business from scratch and grew it into one of the most successful IPOs of the 21st century—and what it was really like…the good, the bad, and most of all, the ugly. You start this business. They’ve invested in all of these other businesses.

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Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

OpenView Labs

APRIL 12, 2019

Getting hiring right is absolutely critical. I’d like to talk about two different companies with two very different approaches to hiring post-seed raise. I’m focusing on engineering in these examples, but the experience applies to other areas of the business. To get the team started we hired several junior developers.

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CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 64

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

Co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah shared with us how they got there — and the top mistakes they made — just 3 quarters after their IPO. We have someone that probably 98 percent of you know virtually or socially in some sense, Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of HubSpot. But of course, it wasn’t always quite that big!

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Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 296

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to see: A couple of good hires brought in Improvement on some metrics A big deal or two hanging out there, brought in and closed Things taken off your plate. More time may make them better if they’re already progressing, even if it’s just 10-15% in the first sales cycle. Hiring someone too junior. That often compounds.

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Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 242

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

They were aware of it, but startups that I work with closely or invested in, if they got all the way to 25 million with 75% NRR, I would tell them to quit today. Your core models for sales, for marketing spend, for hiring and engineering and product. VCs can only invest in outliers. I want to invest in her.”

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Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

Crafty CTO

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Fractional CTO services can be a valuable asset for businesses that want to take advantage of technology to grow and improve their operations, but don’t have the resources or expertise to do so in-house.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Technology 40

Panintelligence

JUNE 7, 2024

In this blog, we asked Panintelligence CEO Zandra Moore and CTO Ken Miller what they think are some of the most frequent mistakes in SaaS development and offer actionable insights to help you steer clear of them. It’s hard to measure the things that deliver the right value to your business. Ken: measuring the wrong thing.

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CTO Hire SaaS Business Underperforming Technical Team 98

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2019

We ended up signing that contract in the uber back to the airport on the way home. It was our largest contract to date, kind of helps the other quarter. I make time for it and that even means getting up, taking early morning flight and heading home on a red eye to do a day trip to the Bay area, I’ll do it.

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CTO Hire Travel Underperforming Technical Team CTO Coach 178

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Our team’s mission is to help Intercom evolve, scale and be trusted by every internet business in the world. Rich: In the world we work in today, in this business, there are some harsh realities. They include that time is short, opportunities are fleeting, competition is fierce, and engineering resources are scarce.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

Stax

AUGUST 14, 2024

a leading payment technology provider, has appointed Jeremy Krahl as the SVP, ISV Business Development. As head of ISV Business Development at Stax, Krahl will drive market penetration into key Stax industries such as field services, healthcare, and professional services. Stax Payments , Inc., and Canada.

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Payments Stax Payment Solutions Payment Services 88

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

Join this panel of investors from Connect Ventures, Blossom Capital, Dawn Capital, The Family, and Indico Partners as they provide an overview of the current investment landscape, and discuss whether the seed stage is emerging as the new Series A. We are a $50 million fund based in Lisbon, and we invest mainly in seed stage.

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New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 182

CloudGeometry

JULY 8, 2021

When you treat your cloud provider as a fractional colo. When business-critical applications move out of the data center with “lift and shift”. Well-Architected Framework scorecard : One of the great advantages AWS has over other cloud providers is what it learns from the Amazon consumer eCommerce business.

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Well Architected Framework Payment Methods CTO Hire Payment Solutions 130

Outseta

APRIL 11, 2019

Why most SaaS companies are blind to some of the best talent on the market By Geoff Roberts 9 min read I believe that most SaaS companies are missing out of a major opportunity when hiring—the opportunity to hire more part-time help, where the employee acts as a fully integrated (albeit part-time) member of the team on an ongoing basis.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Sales Hiring B2B New CTO 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 14, 2020

In this presentation, Pluralsight co-founder and CEO Aaron Skonnard will discuss how Pluralsight successfully transformed its business to serve both individual and enterprise customers independently and will share his lessons for SaaS companies looking to tap into individual customers to sell into enterprises and vice versa.

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B2B B2C Scale New CTO 173

Scytale

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

This includes detection, business losses, post-breach response, and notification. However, apart from protecting your business from significant financial and reputational loss, there are critical additional benefits of ISO 27001 certification that make it very much worth the fuss (and cost). The result?

Systems Review 52

Systems Review Software Review CTO Hire compliance 52

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

That question has been on Will Larson ‘s mind for a long time. For those who don’t know him, Will has over 10 years of experience in the likes of Yahoo, Digg, Uber, and Stripe, and he’s currently the CTO of Calm , the mindfulness app that helps millions of people to lower their stress levels and sleep better.

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Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 24, 2021

A thanks to [Marsh 00:00:34] for stepping in at the beginning of the month, and a great session with our own Jason Warner and Adrian, the CTO of Zendesk. Lionetti, the CMO at Confluent, and most recently, the CTO from Zendesk, Adrian. What number are you trying to move over time?” Excited to be back emceeing.

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CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 165

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2020

Interesting for a couple reasons, but Sunil’s been investing in cloud internet since before almost anybody. So, not that many people have started so early in the career, so long in the space, and great investments that we know like Datadog and Fastly, and good at it. GP and founder of Amplify Partners. Jason Lemkin: Crazy.

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Sales Recruiting Development Team Review Technical Review Sales Hiring 225

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Intercom was created out of an epiphany in a small Dublin coffee shop because we realized that the impersonal, transactional way of doing business online just wasn’t cutting it for customers anymore. Ever since the beginning, our mission has been to make internet business personal, and the podcast has played a big role in that.

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Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

Buffer Resources

JANUARY 30, 2023

Then he became CTO at Bezos Academy, a non-profit organization founded by Jeff Bezos. After leaving Bezos Academy, he decided to start a paid newsletter focused on career development, organization design, and hiring. I'm not trying to grow my business as much as possible, but I'm also not retired.

Social Media 22

Social Media CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO 22

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2019

Flexible integration with any other software, hardware or business workflow applications. And then, invest your energy and time into the product. Mallun Yen : So, you were an engineer by training and then you became an engineering leader, as the CTO of Webex, and then you became a CEO. Eric Yuan: Yep.

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Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire Marketing 145

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 22, 2022

As a SaaS business, Intercom is a data processor: our customers entrust us with their data, which we store and process on their behalf. We do that by: Investing in your trust through compliance with industry security and privacy ISO standards or frameworks such as SOC 2. Investing significantly in safeguarding our customers’ trust.

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Data CTO Hire Technical Review Scale 118

Valerian Tech

JUNE 5, 2023

Introduction In today's digitally connected world, cybersecurity is a top concern for businesses across all sectors, and insurance companies are no exception. Therefore, investing in robust cybersecurity measures is essential to safeguard against these threats. Below are only some of the ways they can help.

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Cybersecurity CTO Hire CTO compliance 52

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

TL;DR SaaS, or “Software as a Service,” is a business model that delivers centrally hosted software to subscribers over the internet. Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. What is a SaaS business model? Average salary: $191,286/yr. Average salary: $156,062/yr.

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Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

CEO Joel Gascoigne tells us about the decision to invest in new analytics tools and how Buffer sustained long-term growth thanks to growing their ARPA. I realized we had better data in the first 2-3 years of the company when we were using improvised solutions, than with our sophisticated business intelligence platform. What is Buffer.

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Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 13, 2020

Hiring managers are also just trying to sell as well. Sam Jacobs : What’s the business model? Users come to us all the time and they say, Hey, this company looks awesome. Are they hiring? That goes to the hiring manager. And if you get hired, RepVue will actually pay you $500. In some cases it does.

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Marketplace as a Service CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 113

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

I looked back at our investment memo, it was a 2K ACV when Jason invested after Y-C. So you were the first sales hire. Talk to me about the sales hires that you made back in the early days and talk to me about how it changed through the different stages. So my first sales hire was beginning of 2015.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 150

Neil Patel

JULY 7, 2021

Are sales at a point where we can justify investing in and learning a new platform? Do we have the technical support, in-house or contracted, to take on the learning curve of an emerging platform? Do I need to reach customers with custom and consistent messaging at every touchpoint?

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AI Search CTO Hire Scale Artificial Intelligence 124

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2019

Who’s here on a CEO or more on a business hat SaaS? Who started their business more than three, four years ago? Traditionally we’ve been around since 2005 and traditionally have been a software on-prem business. They wanted real-time results. The business environment and adoption. Raise your hand.

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Cloud Scale Trends Machine Learning 173

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 13, 2018

OpenView is thrilled to announce our recent $9M Series A investment in Loopio , a software platform that helps sales teams respond to RFPs, RFIs, and security questionnaires seamlessly with up-to-date, accurate, and approved content. Loopio co-founders from left to right: Matt York, CTO; Jafar Owainati, COO; Zakir Hemraj, CEO.

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Investment CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 40

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

Business starts with “busi” (23:00). ? This is all about those David and Goliath situations we all face early on in our business. If you think it’s hard to work at one of the world’s largest companies and close business, then you have not sold from a startup. This is a relationship worth investing in.

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Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 82

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

Here is what he writes: Kieran Flanagan , VP of marketing at HubSpot, shared some interesting insights on approaching new ideas for scaling up your business. That’s the advice, Petri Hollmén picked up on the more technical side of things from the opening session on Day 2 with Cal Henderson, CTO of Slack. Full post. . Full post.

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Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2021

It’s been 10 years since co-founders Eoghan McCabe , Des Traynor , David Barrett , and Ciaran Lee sat in a small Dublin coffee shop and dreamed of making internet business personal, and we’re still every bit as excited. Zanade Mann , founder of Black Women’s Business Collective. Will Larson , CTO of Calm.

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VP of Engineering Technical Review Scale Outsourcing Services 118