SaaStr

JULY 1, 2024

It’s less jack-of-all-trade hires, so the knowledge and questions they’ll ask will look a lot different. Either way, ensure the demand gen team sits down with sales and decides which accounts to go after. Either way, ensure the demand gen team sits down with sales and decides which accounts to go after.

Sales Hiring 305

Sales Hiring Scale SMB compliance 305

SaaStr

AUGUST 17, 2024

Customer-facing sales is a critical area of SaaS that drives growth and revenue retention. Pia Heilmann, VP of Sales EMEA at Klaviyo, shares how to master the art of customer-facing sales in an increasingly competitive market. Sales has changed massively over the last decade. How do you do this at scale? With data. #2:

Scale 316

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Technical Review 316

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

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

Hiring for Customer Success When Braze was looking for their first customer success hires, you couldn’t find a CSM with seven years of experience in software because those people didn’t exist yet. Every incremental hire with a small team matters, so it’s worth being clear on what you want.

Scale 296

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 296

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. Image from here.

Sales Hiring 328

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Scale Finance 328

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

They focused on building a payment platform that empowers international talent and independent contractors to get paid on time in a compliant way while also ensuring that companies can hire international talent and make payments efficiently. This insight led Deel to focus on solving payments and compliance.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 278

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. Subscribe.

Scale 299

Scale Sales Hiring Enterprise Sales 299

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2022

Quickly, though, your attention turns to initial traction, your first critical hires, and building out those early business functions. 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 #4: DIY Accounting.

Finance 334

Finance Outsourcing Services Systems Review Technical Review 334

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

Now sales and marketing limits the company’s growth. Time to hire account executives and demand generation. Buoyed by this advance, sales and marketing accelerate their efforts and grow their teams. Regional vice presidents join the sales ranks. They will hire account executives in different regions.

VP of Engineering 279

VP of Engineering Startup Sales Hiring compliance 279

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Communication is easier You can ramp people faster You can hire junior people The tradeoff is global talent. Grafana Labs still has features and capabilities they hold back that appeal to large enterprises, such as things around security and compliance. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team.

Scale 297

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 297

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

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

DECEMBER 2, 2021

Rattle is building a magical combination between Salesforce and Slack that lets the sales team track and update Salesforce all while sitting in Slack. Panther helps remote startups hire anyone, anywhere, in just a click. They handle global payroll, taxes, compliance, and benefits — so startups can focus on work that matters.

Payment Features 262

Payment Features Payment Services Payments Sales Hiring 262

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

In this Ask Me Anything Part 1, Lemkin answers the questions: Many VCs talk about funding, yet you’re so focused on sales. Question #1: Why Are You So Focused On Sales When Other VCs Are Focused On Funding? Question #1: Why Are You So Focused On Sales When Other VCs Are Focused On Funding? Their sales doubled in 60 days.

Outsourcing Services 291

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 291

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Another strategy we often see is moving from a PLG model to a sales assistive model with a more established sales team that can sell the product to the customer. . Governance and compliance are core to alignment. Hire ahead of the curve. Hire for where you want to be. New service offerings.

Scale 246

Scale Finance Sales Hiring Scaling 246

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

He brought up a very interesting topic that many GTM leaders / founders face as a challenge when scaling a startup; highlighting the 3 stages of executive hires as you scale and what to look out for qualitatively. You need to hire people who are very much think like you, as a founder. First bullet is definitely creative grinders.

Sales Hiring 122

Sales Hiring Technical Cofounder Scale Sales Recruiting 122

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

JANUARY 5, 2023

Founded in 2019, Laika (an enterprise-ready compliance platform) closed a $50MM Series C by the summer of 2022. Hiring a CFO. First: Why hire a CFO, anyway? . In Laika’s case, they decided to hire a CFO when they decided that looking only one quarter into the future was no longer sufficient. Productivity Per Sales Rep.

Sales Hiring 49

Sales Hiring Acquisition Forecasting Outsourced Development 49

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

They are hiring leaders, building teams, and attracting advisors in the US while devouring the SV SaaS playbook. One smart way to build a US presence is to hire a GM, ideally someone who could run an important function like sales or marketing besides being responsible for US operations. Silicon Valley has a deep talent bench.

Scale 298

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Cybersecurity 298

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

MARCH 15, 2019

More here: I Never Lost a Customer I Actually Visited | SaaStr Not hiring a full-time RFP person. They are too much work to just dump on a product person, success person, sales leader, etc. Not hiring a full-time Chief Security & Compliance Offer. Hiring a CSO way early if you are truly going enterprise.

Sales Hiring 174

Sales Hiring Enterprise CTO Hire CTO 174

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 9, 2025

So read on, and hopefully, your SaaS sales journey will be less about trial and error and more about steady progress toward success. Whats important to note is that each model targets a distinct customer persona and, therefore, has a unique approach to the customer journeyfrom brand awareness to sales and, ultimately, conversion.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Sales Recruiting 52

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 8, 2018

In a time where buyer behavior has rendered cold calling nearly obsolete, successful sales prospecting begins with using tools like live chat and social media to build relationships. He’d go on to become the VP of Sales at Sprinklr, guiding the company through its own high growth period, before striking out on his own.

Social Media 186

Social Media Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 186

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

The Accounting Team Responsibilities: Financial recording and reporting Compliance, Audits Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable Tax, Treasury Your accounting team makes sure every financial transaction is recorded correctly and categorized. This role can be recruited through headhunters or your network.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

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.

CTO Hire 328

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 328

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2019

The age-old sales funnel has worked fine for decades…until now. Why is the sales funnel alone, no longer an appropriate way of thinking about customers? Brian Halligan: Whether we all like it or not, trust in sales and marketing is at an all-time low. We’re going to hire tele-sales reps who are going to cold call.

Scale 55

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Social Media 55

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2021

To keep up with the ever-increasing demand, our AutoFile team (which is in charge of state sales tax filing and remittance on behalf of customers) was working long into the nights and through the weekends, and despite their belief in what we were doing, morale was taking a hit. Hiring is one of these times. When to be patient.

Scale 205

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS compliance 205

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

The Challenges and Pitfalls of a Partner Ecosystem Drata attributes much of its success to its partner ecosystem, which is an interesting case study for most, so how do they break up marketing, sales, and resource allocation vs. a more direct-sales modeled business? The sales reps were friends, and accounts were shared.

AWS 285

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 285

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

But developers notoriously don’t want to talk to anyone ever, and they’ll still spend six figures and beyond without ever talking to sales. Head of Sales: They don’t understand what SAML means and don’t plan to learn it. This doesn’t include the compliance or security teams. 50% of SaaS sales are outside of North America.

Enterprise readiness 289

Enterprise readiness Payment Solutions Enterprise Payments 289

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2019

The people you hired, the culture you make, the first 10, 20 hires really make the rest of the culture of the company. It was initially compliance focus. And so again we would just have added to more kind of friction in the sales cycle and there was a whole video long sales cycle. People make the difference.

Sales Hiring 195

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Government 195

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2024

In the latest episode of our What’s New series, Founder and CEO at Secureframe, Shrav Mehta, sits down with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin to share what’s new at Secureframe, a rising SOC-2 and compliance software company breaking out in SaaS. So the time to implementation and compliance is much quicker now than it used to be.

AI 162

AI SMB Sales Hiring compliance 162

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

Hypergrowth in today’s highly competitive and budget-constrained SaaS world may be less frequent now, but Vanta, the software tool empowering security companies to achieve compliance and manage risk, has defied the odds.

Strategy 246

Strategy Scale Sales Hiring Startup 246

Point Nine Land

MARCH 7, 2019

The issues are real and include:  —  @jasonlk In a funny coincidence, one of our portfolio CEOs wrote me an email with the subject “Should we be hiring a CFO?” Contract reviews with big clients, compliance matters, any type of changes of law, tax audits, dealing with advisors, etc. Some time around the $0.5–1.5

Sales Hiring 72

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Payment Services Finance 72

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2019

Some of these sales reps want more than a $100,000 a year, don’t they? What we do is, really, we provide an easy-to-use software that any company can use to take support calls, sales calls, and basically contact with the customer. Like you said, with no money, building an enterprise sales team, building everything that-.

Sales Hiring 270

Sales Hiring SMB Scale Cloud 270

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 8, 2021

Elements of Successful Global Sales Expansion. “Be So, let’s look at four keys to a successful global sales expansion. Most reps will need local language, data centers, and compliance , but it’s unlikely you’ll enter the market with all of these figured out. Hire the Right Leaders.

Sales Hiring 115

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Technical Review 115

BetterCloud

DECEMBER 16, 2024

Grabbing the card still makes up a substantial portion of SaaS sales in other areas of the world, too. Since employees can easily buy it, SaaS accounts — with your organizations data largely grow unknown and unchecked by IT. Risk 3: Shadow IT poses a compliance risk Related to security risk is compliance risk.

Artificial Intelligence 52

Artificial Intelligence compliance Systems Review Technical Review 52

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2019

In addition, we believe that this data is representative, because if you look at the different kinds of buyers from the respondents, you see it spans everything from operations and marketing to sales and engineering, even down to legal. The first way is through features: compliance features, security features, Slack uses search.

Scale 254

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Payment Services 254