SaaStr

DECEMBER 31, 2020

The most common objection you’ll get in SaaS sales, which will drive you nuts at first, is … Not Right Now. No one needs another piece of business software. Every business is mostly running OK already with its tech stack, and it’s unlikely your little app, alone, is going to change the revenue/profits course of any customer.

Sales Recruiting 345

Sales Recruiting Sales SaaS Software 345

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2023

At SaaStr APAC 2023, Scott Pugh, VP of Sales at Figma, shared how to scale these two sales teams while building culture. Pugh’s strategy is simple, albeit not always easy: Recruitment — how to hire the best talent to scale your sales organization. Let’s look at five tips to consider for successful recruiting.

Scale 279

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 279

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2021

So you wanna build a channel sales program: Don’t Copy HubSpot! All these companies are great companies with great channel sales programs. . Any channel sales program goes through an evolution. There are many reasons to start a channel sales program. Everything is harder with a channel sales program.

Sales Recruiting 306

Sales Recruiting Sales Technical Support Onboarding 306

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

What was the first warning sign your VP of Sales wasn't going to work out? A lot of veteran SaaS revenue leaders protested, but most of them, upon reflecting on it, came to agree the point was right. A new VP of Sales doesn’t always double sales in 30 days — although it can happen in SMB sales.

Sales Recruiting 280

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 280

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

Justin Welsh, former SVP of Sales at PatientPop explains how he started in SaaS in 2009 as the second sales hire at Zocdoc. Justin used Sales Culture to grow a successful PatientPop team to 140 employees and 55 million in revenue. Justin Welsh | SVP Sales @ PatientPop. Want to see more content like this?

Sales Recruiting 332

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 332

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2021

Q: What are the most common challenges of a VP of marketing transitioning into a Chief Revenue officer CRO role? But here’s what happens: They don’t know how to recruit an A+ sales team. Maybe they recruited a few BDRs to work with them in marketing, but that’s not the same. I’ve almost never seen this work. Not entirely.

Sales Recruiting 322

Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Growth Marketing 322

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

It’s an incredible look back on scaling and more: Colin Jones, first Chief Revenue Officer at Wiz. Colin joined Wiz in February 2021 when the company was near zero revenue. Rather than seeing this as a liability, Wiz leveraged it as a strategic advantage — even in its sales team.

Scale 192

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 192

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. The three things that led to ramping up sales at Flock Safety were: Achieving product-market fit.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 261

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

In the latest episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with Ashley Kelly, VP of Global Sales Development at Rippling. For context – Ashley had previously helped Sam scale Brex’s outbound sales from $2M to over $300M in ARR as Senior Director of SDR.

Sales Hiring 316

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 316

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2020

Founder-led sales generally stops scaling around $1m-$2m ARR. A sign to hire a real sales leader. Over the years at SaaStr we’ve talked a lot about hiring a great VP of Sales, when it works, when it does, and how it moves the needle. To stick with founder-led sales longer than most folks do, i.e. past $1.5m-$2m ARR or so.

Sales Hiring 329

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 329

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

JULY 20, 2024

Dedicated Slack Channel For Every Metric From the early days at Secureframe, they have had a dedicated Slack channel for every metric: every net new sale, every expansion, every churn, and every expense. Another thing Secureframe thinks about is making sure everyone understands the business equation. Why do they do this?

Sales Recruiting 305

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 305

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

Sandi Lin, CEO and Co-founder of Skilljar, and Kathy Lord, its CRO, know a thing or two about Chief Revenue Officers. You might never have considered a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) because it’s not been a common role until very recently, and because you might not have the kind of revenue that needs its own manager.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 306

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 5, 2022

Recent unicorns like Stripe and Canva have stolen the headlines, but a wide range of successful PLG businesses all over the globe have arisen. Going from sales-led to PLG is doable, but it is not easy. Going from sales-led to PLG is doable, but it is not easy. Sales-led organizations struggle to adapt to a PLG mindset.”.

Sales Recruiting 291

Sales Recruiting Business Pricing Churn 291

SaaStr

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Conversations about the state of the SaaS market in 2022 are everywhere, and it can seem overwhelming for entrepreneurs and business leaders to make sense of everything. In 2021, there was much less focus on efficiency and more on revenue metrics like ARR. The 2022 Economic Climate, Barriers to Growth, and Recruitment.

Sales Recruiting 264

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Leadership Interviewing 264

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

Brendon Cassidy, my VP of Sales wrote a version of this piece a while back. I though an updated version of this would be good for founders thinking about hiring a VP of Sales … VPs of Sales themselves … and VPs-to-be to read — Jason, ed. … 10 Rules to Being a VP of Sales in a Startup.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 307

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

The list of problems is endless (this is one of the hardest parts of the job), but let me try to order a few of the biggest challenges roughly based on stage: Pre-Revenue: Finding a Truly Great Co-Founder That is Just as Committed as You. Then their collective revenues often only add up to Cappuccino money. It never ends.

Sales Recruiting 291

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 291

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. HackerRank was not a $1 million or $2 million ARR business. Common sense.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 291

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you’re running a smaller digital business, you may find it challenging to hire great talent. In this episode of Growth Stage, we interview Lizzie Mintus Founder and CEO of Here’s Waldo Recruiting and host of The Heres Waldo Podcast about her thoughts on: The most effective recruiting strategies for SMBs.

SMB 107

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 107

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. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. Not just with buzzwords.

Scale 298

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 298

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Solving High Volume, Low Conversion at Lattice Dini Mehta joined Lattice at $3M in revenue when it had just 10 people in seat for Go-To-Market and 7 salespeople. 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.

Scale 279

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 279

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

The toughest part in the end is always recruiting. Recruiting. Over time, that’s recruiting more and more senior folks, so the target changes. You’ll have to be recruiting new ones all the time. That means you are constantly recruiting. Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design My First Sales Rep Compensation Plan?

Sales Recruiting 240

Sales Recruiting Scale Compensation Business Model 240

SaaStr

DECEMBER 15, 2020

It took us 2 years just to figure out our ultimate business model. I meet with great VPs of Sales and Product in particular who are Ready. I’d like to recruit you to be a VP at one of my companies, but I get it. And another 6-12 to get any material revenues. You’ll almost lose your Best Logo Accounts.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting SaaS Interviewing Consulting 363

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. To get to $5m-$10m ARR and beyond, we’ll need a real VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

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. Every business will have its own set of challenges. It doesn’t work.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 265

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

In 2020, that same business will be doing $300m ARR. You will be able to do a secondary sale of some of your shares if you continue to do well. But even if they do, as long as your customers remain happy, your revenue base will still compound. 120%+ net revenue retention at $10m ARR with happy customers will drive you there.

Sales Recruiting 331

Sales Recruiting Cloud Retention Revenue 331

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

“Give the VP of Sales More Time” This is always terrible advice. If a VP of Sales can’t improve things in one sales cycle or less — she never will. In one sales cycle, or less. ” Of course you do — if you have any sort of repeating business. More on that here. ” No.

Part-Time VPE 348

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 348

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2022

Payhawk is the financial system of tomorrow that combines credit cards, payments, expenses, cash management, and pre-accounting into one integrated experience to give you maximum control and visibility over your business spend. Zoho offers beautifully smart software to help you grow your business.

Payments 49

Payments Payment Solutions Sales Recruiting Onboarding 49

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

Over the last decade or so, I’ve compiled a metrics sheet to summarise a SaaS business. While no living document like this is ever perfect, this is currently the best board-level summary of the overall health of a business I have found. This section covers employee satisfaction, headcount, and recruiting metrics.

Metrics 250

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount 250

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2023

It’s the most common objection you’ll get in SaaS sales … Not Right Now. No one needs another piece of business software. Every business is mostly running OK already with its tech stack, and it’s unlikely your little app, alone, is going to change the revenue/profits course of any customer. I Don’t Have Budget.

Sales Recruiting 317

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Software Review 317

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. Higher than he imagined in terms of the founder quality bar and, the stage of the business, and growth and efficiency metrics. On the sales side, people hired way too much.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 307

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

Mark Roberge, the Chief Revenue Officer at Hubspot, has spent 20 years in startups. As he told me a few days ago, he has observed the lack of sales management and sales execution skills as one of the most consistent deficiencies limiting the potential of early stage SaaS companies. The first step is hiring a sales leader.

Sales Hiring 184

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Compensation 184

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. Lead generation tools do change, but the basic motions of sales and marketing haven’t changed much.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 291

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? In addition to marketing, do you also need business development representatives (BDR)? Sales Cycle.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 278

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

379: From how many reps to hire, to compensation models, here are the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales teams and how to avoid them. Find out how you can build these same tools for your business at outgrow.co/saas. Jason Lemkin: This term founder-led sales is maybe overused these days, but it is true.

Sales Hiring 240

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 240

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Signal can come from many places (sales team notes, customer support tickets, etc) IT Incident Management: Similar to the security alert example. They each have some of the largest cloud businesses in the world in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud respectively. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Systems Review 144

Systems Review Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence 144

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 we were like less than 10 million ARR and business was doing very well.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 265