SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2024

Probably the biggest challenge in vertical SaaS I see is scaling the sales team. It’s pretty easy to hire SaaS sales execs to sell … a SaaS sales product. At the same time, it’s very hard to turn a domain expert that doesn’t know sales into a great SaaS salesperson. Plan to be in founder-led sales mode longer.

Sales Hiring 320

Sales Hiring Scale Sales SaaS 320

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

You need: Sales leaders who understand complex, multi-stakeholder deals Customer success teams ready for high-touch support Legal expertise for enterprise contract negotiation Product leaders who can balance current needs with future vision Pro tip: Hire enterprise reps in pairs.

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2025

The New Governance Layer AI-specific data governance policies Automated compliance monitoring Audit trails for model training and inference 5. Because here’s the truth about 2025: Every major enterprise customer is asking about this in sales calls. Access Control 2.0 Every security review is diving deep on AI data handling.

AI 273

AI Data Government ChatGPT 273

SaaStr

MARCH 11, 2024

So you’re hiring your first few sales reps in the early days? Before you have a great VP of Sales? So you need a very certain type of sales rep. Not during founder-led sales. The #1 trick to making sure your first sales reps work out? But I’ve just never seen early sales rep execl that do this.

Sales Hiring 308

Sales Hiring Sales Interviewing compliance 308

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How You Deal With Long Sales Cycles, E.g. 7-8+ Months? You cannot force 9 month sales cycles into 9 days. This is why “pipeline” doesn’t make any sense to start-ups, not really, but makes total sense for BigCo sales executives. Crazy discounting and high pressure sales tactics don’t work on long sales cycle deals.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Sales compliance Enterprise 299

SaaStr

AUGUST 2, 2024

Canva Head of Sales and Success for EMEA, Jorge Bestard, and Head of Strategic Sales for EMEA, Daniela Nyarko, share Canva’s journey from PLG to Enterprise, strategies to navigate the PLG trap, and why it’s so attractive. You get traction in the market and raise a round to build a marketing and sales team.

Scale 288

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Enterprise 288

Blulogix

NOVEMBER 18, 2024

By BluLogix Team Revenue Recognition: Ensuring Compliance and Accuracy What is RevRec and how does it impact accurate reporting for compliance and financial integrity? Regulatory Compliance : Compliance with accounting standards is crucial to avoid legal issues and penalties.

Payment Services 52

Payment Services Payments compliance SaaS Payments 52

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2024

How can you bridge the gap between sales and tech to drive customer success? Sarah Polan, EMEA Field CTO at HashiCorp, and Louise Fellows, VP NEMEA at HashiCorp, explore the relationship between Field CTO and sales to help you understand why it exists and how you can leverage this relationship when you have a highly technical product.

CTO Coach 305

CTO Coach CTO Technical Review Customer Success 305

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2022

So we’ve talked so much over the years on SaaStr on how to hire a great VP of Sales, the difference they’ll make, and how the level-up comes quickly. And VPs of Sales do, too. Don’t hire a VP of Sales that isn’t truly comfortable selling to your buyer persona, especially in B2D and fintech. Be careful.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 299

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

The companies have integrated FastSpring’s global localized payments and compliance platform with Nexus’ industry leading creator-powered web shops. A global payments & compliance orchestration platform that will allow your players to transact in the currencies and local payment methods that work best for them.

Payments 157

Payments Merchant Services Payment Methods Payment Services 157

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2021

So how do you simplify and speed up your sales cycles? He started as the first sales hire at TripActions when the company was small and he helped scale the business to 5,000 customers, 1,200 employees and a $5 billion private valuation. Read on for Michael’s insightful advice for driving faster sales cycles. Sales Enablement.

Scale 299

Scale Sales Hiring Enterprise Sales 299

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. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI AI CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

But here’s the real kicker: PLG isn’t just another sales motion. The “SaaS Era” – Online trials, SEM/SEO, inside sales GTM 3.0: The “SaaS Era” – Online trials, SEM/SEO, inside sales GTM 3.0: It’s not just product or sales – it’s operational excellence.

Enterprise readiness 147

Enterprise readiness Enterprise compliance Acquisition 147

Payrix

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

The master merchant establishes a relationship with a payment processor or acquiring bank and is responsible for ensuring compliance with payment regulations, handling transaction processing, and managing risks associated with payments on behalf of the sub-merchants. fraud prevention, and risk management.

Merchant Services 130

Merchant Services Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments 130

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Just like filing your income tax returns or hanging that state-mandated safety poster up in your break room, sales tax is a back-office pain point, not a profit center. . That makes sales tax compliance easy to ignore… until it becomes a problem. . Why is sales tax such a pain for SaaS companies? There are a few reasons.

Merchant Services 207

Merchant Services Scale Technical Review Sales Hiring 207

SaaStr

JULY 22, 2021

Avalara manages a big problem — tax and related compliance automation. It’s in many ways the hardest way to do it (direct sales to SMEs), but like HubSpot, Avalara has made it work well. They earn commissions and are offered dedicated sales, marketing and training support. And growth is strong. market cap.

Scale 334

Scale SMB compliance Churn 334

Subscription Flow

OCTOBER 22, 2024

It is already daunting to steer your company through the whirlwind of sales tax. So why is SaaS sales tax so challenging? The reason is, there doesn’t exist any single standardized system internationally to preside over SaaS sales tax. The SaaS businesses have to navigate through the world of tax compliance themselves.

SaaS Payments 52

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions SaaS 52

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

What’s your top “undiscovered gem” — an app you love but others may not have heard of?

AWS 303

AWS compliance AI Startup 303

SaaStr

DECEMBER 22, 2022

Replace manual GRC efforts, reduce costs, and save time preparing for audits and maintaining compliance. Drata is the world’s most advanced security and compliance automation platform with the mission to help companies earn and keep the trust of their users, customers, partners, and prospects.

Scale 55

Scale Onboarding Government compliance 55

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2023

Many net-new purchases are for data security, compliance, risk management, and AI-powered tools. Compliance : The cost of GDPR compliance has totaled around $9B globally since its introduction. However, it’s not as simple as moving the money; since budgets are getting bigger, sales teams must support those budgets.

VP of Engineering 298

VP of Engineering Trends Cybersecurity Sales Hiring 298

SaaStr

JULY 17, 2023

A lot of customers really do need SOC-2, HIPAA and other compliances. Here’s the fundamental flaw in SaaS sales, that as founders and executives you need to try to address: SaaS sales is seen as way, way too transactional. SaaS sales reps see everything as a “deal” It’s not to customers.

Sales 246

Sales compliance Enterprise Pricing 246

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 24, 2025

For many current large language models, once they are exposed to domain-specific challenges or niche inquiries—like in-depth product troubleshooting or compliance-related questions—they can stumble. That’s because their training data, while vast, may lack the level of granularity found in specialized enterprise environments.

Enterprise 157

Enterprise AI Cloud Artificial Intelligence 157

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

9% of sales are non-sales driven, which means almost $80m of ARR is still basicaly freemium / self-service. Box calculates 7x expansion from its existing installed base: A big push into security & compliance to grow its TAM. Box’s smallest channel yes, but still material even as revenue approaches $1B in ARR.

Scale 312

Scale compliance Enterprise Scaling 312

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

Wondering how your SaaS business got slapped with a multi-million dollar sales tax bill from one or multiple states? Probably because you, like so many other SaaS companies out there, didn’t even know you had to collect and remit sales tax. Sales tax laws across the United States are pretty inconsistent, especially for SaaS solutions.

New CTO 232

New CTO SaaS Sales CTO 232

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2022

With early revenue, you start thinking about churn and scalability of every aspect of the business, including product, infrastructure, customer support, sales and marketing. Mistake #9: Don’t forget about compliance. Compliance can be complicated. Advice: Your compliance responsibility doesn’t end after you incorporate.

Finance 334

Finance Outsourcing Services Systems Review Technical Review 334

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2021

Sales comes under pressure to hit the quarter, and wants to overdiscount (and hide the overdiscounts). There’s one rule I’ve come up with to help unite sales, customer success, marketing and product: Assume Every Customer Knows Everything. But a sales rep jamming a crazy discount in later to make the quarter?

Scale 295

Scale compliance Engineering Customer Success 295

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 11, 2023

These are three of the lessons that stood out to me espcially managing the transition from product to sales-led growth (PLG -> SLG). Second, the PLG -> SLG (sales-led growth) transition has two parts. The first is the clear demand from customers seeking security & compliance features. First, revenue is fuel.

Benchmarks 304

Benchmarks compliance Engineering Pricing 304

Payrix

DECEMBER 18, 2024

Takeaway #2: Inflation and surcharging compliance Ella highlighted the rising importance of surcharging as a response to inflation and escalating operational costs. Ensuring compliance in surcharging practices is critical, as violations can lead to substantial fines. Are you planning to stand up a sales arm?

Payments 130

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services Payment Services 130

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2024

Either way, ensure the demand gen team sits down with sales and decides which accounts to go after. Ensure you’re aligned with the sales team on what you want to accomplish as you go upmarket and build these demand gen strategies. #2: 2: Focus Your Sales Team Today, you probably have a sales team built to run after your core ICP.

Sales Hiring 305

Sales Hiring Scale SMB compliance 305

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Empower your inside sales team by automating the hardest parts of outbound calling. Schellman is a leading provider of attestation and compliance services. Our approach builds successful, long-term relationships and allows our clients to achieve multiple compliance objectives through a single project team.

compliance 278

compliance Forecasting AI Onboarding 278

SaaStr

JANUARY 13, 2023

They usually come in and handle compliance and oversight for an existing finance team that perhaps lacks the seasoned experience to handle models, venture capital and debt, prepare for an audit, etc. For sure, if you have a strong existing sales team that needs some mentorship, I can see a Fractional CRO working.

Sales Hiring 328

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Scale Finance 328

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 28, 2024

AI will transform software sales. Typing “Compare Salesforce & Hubspot for a 10 person sales team. HubSpot generally offers a lower price point at equivalent feature tiers, especially for small to medium-sized sales teams. How about SOC2 & ISO-27001 or FedRamp compliance? which is better?

AI 287

AI Software compliance Consulting 287

Payrix

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

Check verification Process that screens checks and check-writers against a negative database at the point-of-sale (POS) when the customer presents a check as payment. Duplicate checking The policy and procedures that prevent identical sales records from being processed. Data breach Unintentional release of secure information (i.e.,

Payment Services 147

Payment Services Merchant Services Payment Solutions Payment Methods 147

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

We created a product that was simple to use for entrepreneurs who were juggling a thousand different priorities and didn’t have (and didn’t want) an expertise in regulation, compliance or sales tax. Sales motion, account management and customer experience. There was a lot we didn’t know. But we did take the leap.

Scale 290

Scale Business Finance compliance 290