SaaStr

MAY 10, 2023

In this week’s episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, continues a mini-series on founder-led sales with Colin Zima, founder and CEO of Omni. Omni is trying to build the next-generation business intelligence (BI) platform. They’d contact people they knew well and demand they use the product.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Social Media Sales 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Finding and recruiting top talent is consistently ranked as one of the biggest challenges for growing SaaS companies. SaaStr Annual attracts thousands of high-quality SaaS professionals across functions like engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success. Meet and Find Your Next VP / CXO!

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Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

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.

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Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 273

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.

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Sales Recruiting Sales SaaS Software 345

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. I was a local sales manager or regional manager.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 332

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.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Technical Support Onboarding 300

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

What was the first warning sign your VP of Sales wasn't going to work out? A new VP of Sales doesn’t always double sales in 30 days — although it can happen in SMB sales. The old playbook does help, but every great VP of Sales knows they quickly have to evolve it to any new role.

Sales Recruiting 274

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 274

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 5, 2020

If we tally the reductions by category, travel, retail, fitness, real estate, transportation, and recruiting constitute the top 6 categories. Aside from recruiting, these are all consumer discretionary spend categories. ClassPass, one of the fitness startups to reduce headcount, reported a 95% drop in sales in 10 days.

Sales Recruiting 357

Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 357

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.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 255

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2021

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. Recruiting 4, 5, 20, 50 great AEs is not the same at all. Even if they’ve owned a revenue commit — they’ve never owned a true sales number. Not entirely.

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Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Growth Marketing 318

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. This shift allows business to reallocate human resources to more complex and strategic roles, or eliminate those positions entirely.

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Generative AI AI CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 443

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

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.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 326

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2022

We’ve talked a ton about How to Hire a Great VP of Sales on SaaStr, but I wanted to highlight a few VP of Sales “personas” that I rarely, if ever, see work out. Because again and again, many of your will hire this VP of Sales. Here are the types of VP of Sales that just never work out. Sales is hard.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Scale 300

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

A Philadelphia native, Colin started his professional career as a Business Development Representative (BDR) 14 years ago and worked his way up to his current role as CRO. Rather than seeing this as a liability, Wiz leveraged it as a strategic advantage — even in its sales team.

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Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 185

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What’s the Best Way to Get Ahead in SaaS Sales? It is important to decide which of 3 life tracks you want to be on: Super-successful sales rep / individual contributor. Successful sales manager. I.e., become a VP of Sales someday. Leverage “sales” to become a founder, business owner , etc.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SMB 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.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 311

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.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Gartner: Business Software Spend Still Forecast to Rise 11.3% SaaStr 602: Secrets To Combining PLG and Enterprise Sales with Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover. ?. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. Billion in ARR.

Sales Recruiting 301

Sales Recruiting CTO Compensation Software Review 301

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.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 301

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 299

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 299

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development. Is a CRO right for you?

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 299

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

Emboldened by this seeming endorsement, I dashed off what turned into a lengthy email on interviewing and recruiting, a topic about which I am passionate not because I think I am good it, but because I think I am not. Thoughts on The Recruiting Process. To line of business, IT, or both? Ask a seller to role-play a sales call.

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Sales Recruiting Interviewing Sales Hiring Finance 110

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. However, don’t this doesn’t mean that your sales teams shouldn’t bring in more revenue –– quite the opposite.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Leadership Interviewing 260

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 284

Sales Recruiting Business Pricing Churn 284

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 106

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 106

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 21, 2020

By tomorrow, the bank will face insolvency, even though it was business as usual at the bank this morning. You’ll have been trained to answer questions in a very particular way: each answer will tie back to the main storyline of the business. What is the narrative of your business? Here are some from our portfolio.

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Sales Recruiting Banking Engineering Customer Support 347

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 284

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 284

Tom Tunguz

MAY 31, 2021

When a company hires an executive, the business hires the executive’s network. The better the management hires for a business, the greater candidates' interest to work for a company. The management team at the time of the sale to Google collaborated for 5 years without turnover.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Branding 192

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2023

The best VPs of Sales I’ve hired were Directors of Sales before. Even if you are quietly biased here, let it go when they show up incredibly on top of how your business works, and where it should go. Maybe once you have a full recruiting team, they can parse some of these. Not ICs, not top reps.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 301

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 291

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 291

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?

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Sales Recruiting Scale Compensation Business Model 240

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2019

If you must choose a long term headquarters for your startup, call an executive recruiter who focuses in that city. VP Engineering, VP Product, VP Sales, VP Customer Success, VP Marketing, or VP Operations. Startups typically promote several leaders from within the business and hire a few from outside.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 255

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 18, 2018

Startups are business machines engineered to grow quickly. Every lead hired today, whether marketing , sales, engineering or product, will have a very different job nine months from now, much less two years from now. Priority one for the engineering lead: hire two engineering managers to reduce the span of control.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Headcount 269

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

From $1m in ARR, and Then Forever After: Recruiting Great VPs. You need to learn to become great at recruiting. With only say 30–40 employees to service $4m-$6m in revenue, even the loss of one key hire can seem almost fatal to the business. Why is my sales team less efficient at $20m ARR than at $2m in ARR?

Sales Recruiting 284

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 284

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

COOs have become more common in management teams as ways for founders & CEOs to build the management team to scale a business. In conversations with management teams, the concept of a COO remains murky. How you should you go about recruiting the right person? Allison is an incredible builder of teams.

Scale 290

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 290

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

SaaStr 606: Your Real Valuation: How Focusing on Delivering Customer Value Generates Business Value with Gusto Co-Founder Josh Reeves. ?. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. Top Podcasts This Week: 1.

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Sales Recruiting AWS Compensation Enterprise 291