SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

Or churn will increase, NPS will stagnate and decline, and upsell and revenue retention will be a fraction of what it could be. You’ll need more than 5–6 core engineers to go big. You will need a VP of Engineering to manage these processes, recruit and build the team, and make your product more secure and enterprise-ready.

Part-Time VPE 309

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 309

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Perhaps the single most important thing you can ever do in SaaS, at least after $1m in ARR or so, is hire the best VPs you can. We’ve talked a lot over the years about how not to hire a wrong VP of Sales — 70%+ of the first VPs of Sales don’t make it even 10 months. You need to hire up-and-comers. Get on jets?

Part-Time VPE 352

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 352

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Many companies believe excellent product design comes from hiring the best engineers and signing up for the latest software instead of building from the users’ perspectives. Stripe’s CTO, David Singleton, shares how they use a system of feedback, iteration, and fast shipping to create products that meet users’ expectations.

CTO Hire 298

CTO Hire CTO Payment Methods Payment Solutions 298

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

Or churn will increase, NPS will stagnate and decline, and upsell and revenue retention will be a fraction of what it could be. You’ll need more than 5–10 engineers to go big. You will need a VP of Engineering to manage these processes, recruit and build the team, and make your product more secure and enterprise-ready.

Scale 279

Scale Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE 279

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Lately I’ve been working with 5+ SaaS companies all hiring their first VP of Product. And critically, most have a really strong CEO-CTO partnership. A few general learnings: A VP of Product that Reports to CTO / Engineering Rarely Meets With That Many Customers. I just see this time and time again.

Part-Time VPE 321

Part-Time VPE Outsourcing Services CTO Hire CTO 321

SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2020

Front-end, mid-end, back-end engineers of all sorts and types. Anyhow the one thing I learned, beyond getting help screening and hiring for these positions from domain experts, is to look for Flags. For signs the prospective hire just won’t work out, no matter how strong they might look on paper. You get the picture.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 259

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2022

Miguel Carranza, CTO at RevenueCat, shares ten learnings from firsthand experience in architecting an API & SDK that is currently on 5,000+ apps and has seen 3x growth Year-over-Year. . Instead, the CTO suggests that you avoid adding new pieces of infrastructure until absolutely necessary. What makes a great API?

CTO Hire 246

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 246

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2019

From large scale mainstage sessions to intimate workshops and even a dedicated lounge, we are carving out some of SaaStr Annual just for developers and engineers. ” When to Hire and When to Automate” with Zapier CEO Wade Foster. The post Developers and Engineers! Have no fear, we have got you covered.

CTO Coach 185

CTO Coach Engineering CTO Hire Development 185

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? Positions Needed: Enterprise AEs, Mid-Market & SMB AEs, SDRs, Sales Ops, Sales Engineer. CTO (40 Employees). CTO (114 Employees).

CTO Hire 290

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 290

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Including: CEO Snowflake CEO HubSpot CEO DropBox CEO Descript CEO Clio CEO Flock Safety CEO Own CRO ServiceTitan CMO Databricks CMO Infinite Reality CTO Rubrik CCO Canva CCO Bill CCO GitHub VP AI Wiz CEO Calendly and 100s more!! Investor Connections and Funding Opportunities — And $5m AI VC Pitch Stage!!

Sales Recruiting 190

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 190

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2023

Dan Robinson, current Advisor and former CTO at Heap , shares five essential learnings from nearly a decade of building a SaaS business. What Your Job Is (And What It Isn’t) Your Job is to Make the Company Win A CTO may imagine their primary job is to provide technical expertise, lead engineers, and help build the product.

CTO Coach 242

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 242

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2021

Use overages to renegotiate contracts, not charge per event. Folks come out differently here, but while Amplitude charges per volume, in part, it doesn’t make a material amount from overages. 245 employees in Sales & Marketing — vs. 101 in Engineering / R&D. The engineering team is also surprisingly lean. #7.

Scale 312

Scale CTO Hire New CTO CTO 312

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

They hire a VP of Sales who doesn’t want to sell or learn the product. You also don’t want to hire a VP of Sales who won’t carry a bag. If you joined a startup at $2M and wanted to get to $6M with reps doing $400k, that VP of Sales would need to hire ten reps. 90% of the time, sales falls when a founder steps out of it.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO Venture Capital 211

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

They’ll revolt when you make a senior or mid-level hire that as a group, they simply cannot suffer one day longer. It’s happened to me, and I think for whatever my faults, I have a pretty high EQ and am a half-decent manager. The three times it happened to me: A very senior engineer that we just HAD to have.

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 290

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 27, 2018

On call work like this can be a powerful customer orientated activity that connects engineers to the value customers get from your product. Back in the early days of Intercom, our CTO Ciaran was the entirety of the on call team, both in and out of the office. The history of on call at Intercom.

Engineering 209

Engineering Software Review Technical Review Systems Review 209

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. That it’s time to bring in someone that knows. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. Of Engineering.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

These are all full-time jobs by $1m ARR. Fixing it yourself becomes the biggest time sink and excuse for not hiring there is. You end up spending all your time backfilling roles you should have hired. And even worse, you often sort of give up trying to make the hire. That’s when you want to lean in.

Part-Time VPE 299

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 299

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2021

And importantly, you need to spend more time with your existing customers (vs. But even if you’ve hired the world’s best VP of Sales … you can’t opt out of sales entirely. You still need to spend 15-20% of your time in sales. Hire a VP of Finance or even a CFO Early if You Are Growing Quickly.

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 290

SaaStr

AUGUST 20, 2023

In my first start-up, there were literally only a handful of engineers who understood our technology. The best we made our CTO. But what if our CTO gets hit by a bus? They feed on each other, hire other toxic people, and turn the company against the mission and each other. Sometimes, still hire them. For a while.

CTO Hire 246

CTO Hire CTO Technology Engineering 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

It is a prerequisite to hire folks with a high IQ to success in software. You probably need a wicked smart CTO, some incredible engineers, maybe an insanely smart head of product or marketing, etc. Q: Is it a prerequisite to have a high IQ in order to succeed as a tech entrepreneur?

CTO Hire 222

CTO Hire CTO Engineering Software 222

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2020

Brendon introduces his playbook to hiring the first VP of Sales from his experiences as VP of Sales at LinkedIn, EchoSign, Talkdesk and more. Learn the dos and don’ts to make the correct hire the first time and not rush into hiring the wrong VP of Sales, which can cost the company months or even years. Roughly 90%.

Sales Hiring 230

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 230

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

SaaStr 559: Secrets to Building Your Marketing Engine To Drive Scale with Airtable CMO Archana Agrawal. with Jenn Knight, Co-founder and CTO of AgentSync, and Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone. Attract, Hire & Build a Diverse Sales Team | Handshake VP, Employer Partnerships Jessica Peluso. Top Videos This Week: 1.

Scale 237

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO 237

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 11, 2020

Intercom has responded by hiring a diversity and inclusion consultant, updating our recruitment strategy and hiring practices to reduce bias, scheduling allyship training for all employees, and amplifying Black voices in our podcast and blog. We take so much pride in the work Intercom is doing to take a stand against racial injustice.

Technical Review 289

Technical Review Software Review Systems Review CTO Hire 289

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Take stock of customer satisfaction at each point of the journey—product, engineering, design, growth, presales, support, and post-sales. The next hiring focus should be growth marketing. At the same time, you can start hiring for unpaid channels—someone who understands SEO and how to build a community.

Scale 244

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scaling 244

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.

Scale 290

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 290

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 15, 2018

On day one as Reddit’s new VP of Engineering, Nick Caldwell faced a dilemma. He had just spent 13 years at Microsoft, most recently as the head of 300 engineers. At Reddit, he led a team of 35 – none of whom knew how to manage other engineers. Building trust can be tough when you’re a new hire in a leadership position.

Leadership 141

Leadership Engineering Part-Time VPE CTO Coach 141

Andreessen Horowitz

JUNE 14, 2023

Note: engineering leaders’ titles tend to be inconsistent across companies. It’s common for founders to assume the role of chief technology officer (CTO), who either runs the day-to-day work of engineering or focuses on a long-term technological vision.

VP of Engineering 75

VP of Engineering Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire 75

SaaStr

JULY 28, 2021

I retired from SunGard Treasury Systems as their CTO. We have a business problem, we don’t have any engineers, we have money. I said, “You have engineers. It is much more painful to have to fire people and contract as a company than it is to grow. Your big money is going to go into hiring your employees.

Startup 290

Startup CTO Hire Sales Hiring CTO Coach 290

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.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 242

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. I am guessing it’s probably the hardest problem to solve, hiring a job, let alone at this level. And for good reason.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 264

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

In engineering, you want to move fast, ship often and solve real customer problems. It means reducing choices amongst engineering teams and standardizing technology, so our team can spend as much time as possible delivering value to customers. Rich: Today I’m the Senior Director for Foundations Engineering at Intercom.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

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. If you’re a senior engineer and want to further your career, what skills should you develop?

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2024

Is the CTO involved in these decisions? App contraction is still happening, and AI is absorbing all of the energy in the industry. If you get that early virality, even a light amount of it, and you get enough of that engine going and are efficient, you can do a lot. Give everyone x amount of money to go find the best one.

AI 304

AI Pricing Artificial Intelligence Scale 304

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

Today, triangulation is how people prioritize who they will reach out to — what’s happening on their list of accounts, if they’ve posted a job, if they’ve hired a new CTO, etc. AI is synthesizing a whole bunch of noise to help deliver the right message to the right buyer at the optimal time, which is pretty exciting.

New CTO 316

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 316

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2019

When it comes to seamlessly scaling your applications, a top-notch engineering team will be your foundation. Julian Lemoine, Co-Founder, and CTO of Algolia will share his lessons learned on how to stay focused and innovative as you scale while also avoiding the innovation for innovation’s sake pitfalls. Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020.

Scale 169

Scale Scaling CTO Hire Part-Time VPE 169

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

Immediately told them to hire 50 reps in a different city, in a different city, and they did. The CEO was deferential because that was 10 times what he’d ever raised before, and did all of it. Jason Lemkin: 50 reps in a new city that you’ve never met, and hired in 60 days when you’re in the low millions ARR.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

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. ” We didn’t do any annual contracts.

Part-Time VPE 296

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 296