TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 24, 2023

At TechEmpower, we frequently talk to startup founders, CEOs, product leaders, and other innovators about their next big tech initiative. It’s part of our job to ask questions about their plans, challenge their assumptions, and suggest paths to success. How will you be taking this to market? Ads, Viral/Social, SEO)?

Innovation 780

Innovation Development CTO Hire Technical Review 780

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

GTM Mistake #1: A VP of Sales That Can’t Sell or Demo the Product Mistake number one has always been an issue, and it’s the number one reason startups struggle in today’s world. 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.

CTO Hire 212

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO Venture Capital 212

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? David’s first foray into SaaS was in 1999 when he joined a startup that would become PayPal, starting as the product leader and later as the COO.

CTO Hire 291

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 291

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

Startups come in all shapes and sizes on various stages of a timeline, yet it’s not surprising how many have the same questions and concerns about how to scale from x to y to z, the right time to hire and fire, and how to keep a team motivated during hard times. Q: Where Should SDRs Report — Marketing or Sales?

CTO Hire 242

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 242

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2021

The first type is the kind of management team hired by second+ time founders. They often staff up their teams with folks they already know and have been successful with at their last startup. And if you are, you are going to naturally start off hiring up-and-comers to your first leadership team. And that’s great.

Part-Time VPE 276

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 276

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. Q: Should Product Marketing Work for Product or Marketing? Let’s jump right into the questions.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 291

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2023

Answers from the CEOs of Twilio, Veeva, Amplitude, HubSpot, Gainsight and More What Your First 100 Hires Will Look Like Top Podcasts This Week: 1. SaaStr 666: Scaling a SaaS Startup to $1B+ ARR: Insights from UiPath’s CEO and Founder Daniel Dines  2.

CTO Hire 246

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Startup 246

Valerian Tech

DECEMBER 30, 2022

The role of a Fractional Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is to provide technical expertise and leadership to a company on a part-time or temporary basis. This can be a useful option for startups or small businesses that may not have the resources to hire a full-time CTO or may not need one on a permanent basis.

Fractional CTO 52

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Part-Time CTO CTO 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

Indeed this was also my #1 mistake and the #1 I see from so many startups learning to go upmarket. 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.

CTO Hire 328

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 328

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you’re running a smaller digital business, you may find it challenging to hire great talent. Larger technology companies can pay more, offer more benefits, and provide a more marketable brand on a candidate’s resume. Why is it so hard for SMBs to hire the best talent when competing with big companies?

SMB 108

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 108

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 265

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 265

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2019

Here’s my list in SaaS: Being reluctant to go up-market. Not everyone should go up-market. Not hiring a good enough CTO. Not hiring a good enough CTO. So many times, that 24 months ends up being 16 months or even just 20 months, even with no one taking a high salary or buying fancy snacks.

Growth Hacking 151

Growth Hacking CTO Hire Startup Sales Hiring 151

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

To some extent, if you have the hottest startup in the world, the full package, you can play some games with investors. 99% of startups aren’t that. For 99% of startups, when you want money, tell VCs you want money. 2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” Hiring someone too junior. Ask for money when you want advice.”

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

The real conflict is around trying to serve both sets of messaging and marketing at the same time since how you market to SMBs is very different than Enterprise customers. So, that’s where the battle happens of going to market for Enterprise customers without neglecting SMBs. Is it Cheaper or Better to go PLG?

New CTO 316

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 316

The Angel VC

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Continuing my little series using the "minimum viable" approach , here is my 2nd DO for SaaS startups: Build the right team I've written about the topic before, so if you've read this post from early this year most of what I'm going to write now won't be new for you and you may want to skip this article. What comes next?

Sales Hiring 121

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup Outsourced Development 121

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Last night I read this question on Quora : In general terms, what is the ideal size and make-up of a team for a pre-revenue SaaS startup? I think the second part of the question is more important. This can be a huge advantage, especially for a bootstrapped startup that can't afford to hire many people.

CTO Hire 106

CTO Hire Startup Sales Hiring New CTO 106

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

In 2016, Hubspot was still a scrappy player that had only recently IPO’d, with a market cap around $1B. 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. Otherwise, we are not doing our jobs, being in the marketing space.

Part-Time VPE 297

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 297

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. The best ways he found to learn leadership skills was to hire a management coach to meet him once per month, to talk through the issues facing him at Optimizely.

CTO Coach 113

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 113

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2024

Then Salesforce lost $50B in market cap. Deals are contracting, not because of layoffs, but because people are managing budgets so tightly. It Takes Time To Bounce Back Jason was the first investor in RevenueCat , a company that automates mobile subscriptions on your phone. How does a startup benefit from this?

CTO Hire 148

CTO Hire AI Venture Capital Sales Hiring 148

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

They were aware of it, but startups that I work with closely or invested in, if they got all the way to 25 million with 75% NRR, I would tell them to quit today. Your core models for sales, for marketing spend, for hiring and engineering and product. We’re startups, but 10 is the crazy CEO. Jason Lemkin: Our base.

Outsourcing Services 243

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

I was working with a company that … Because people will write big checks today into early stage companies, where someone came in very early and gave an early startup $50 million too early, and just started telling them how to raise the company, immediately told them to go buy competitors, which they’re not ready for.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

They include that time is short, opportunities are fleeting, competition is fierce, and engineering resources are scarce. If we are actually trying to win our market and be the absolute best customer communications company, we need to make exquisitely good use of our precious engineering resources. Who do we outsource to?

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

So even the freshest new SaaS startup celebrating their 50th customer may find themselves dealing with sales tax in multiple states. . hiring in-house talent). For example, you hire a developer to move you over to an ERP like NetSuite. And, these laws often completely contradict one another. .

Merchant Services 203

Merchant Services Technical Review Scale Sales Hiring 203

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Along the way, we’ve interviewed trailblazers, business leaders, makers and doers to share their experience and insights on all things startup strategy, product management, design, marketing, customer experience, and much, much more. Rachel Hepworth: Introducing growth marketing to Slack. That just blows my mind.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2019

Can I see a show of hands for those of you that have headquarters outside of the Bay Area, a secondary market? Also, part of that is being intentional about who you want to be as a company. The world’s your market, right? We ended up signing that contract in the uber back to the airport on the way home.

CTO Hire 175

CTO Hire Travel Underperforming Technical Team CTO Coach 175

OpenView Labs

APRIL 12, 2019

Getting hiring right is absolutely critical. I’d like to talk about two different companies with two very different approaches to hiring post-seed raise. To get the team started we hired several junior developers. There is a binary feeling that comes from making those first few technical hires. We needed a CTO.

CTO Hire 64

CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 64

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

Today on the show, we’ve got Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares, a company that applies AI to your contract. Sam Jacobs: Today on the show, we’ve got Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares, a company that applies AI to your contract. Sam’s Corner [28:45]. Show Introduction [00:10]. What is LinkSquares?

Scale 119

Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach Scaling 119

User Pilot

MARCH 7, 2024

This could be explained by the fact that it was women, more often than men, who had to step down and work part-time to take care of stay-at-home children during the pandemic. Then I got hired at a tech company in Lithuania before I knew what tech even was. Sima Banijamali – Sr. I knew nothing about tech.

Technical Review 105

Technical Review CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire 105

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

In it, Co-Founder and CRO of Kronologic, Aaron Bollinger, shows us how to close enterprise level deals when you’re a startup. How to overcome no brand in market. How to overcome no credible timing event. How to overcome no credible timing event. How to overcome no brand in market (01:23). ? What You’ll Learn.

Enterprise 80

Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 80

OpenView Labs

JULY 2, 2020

” The data also shows that before COVID-19 impacted the market, the product led growth index and SaaS index were trading at similar rates. Patrick Campbell deconstructs and walks through the elements of a pricing strategy that enables startups to more effectively acquire customers. The 2020 SaaS Product Benchmarks Report.

Pricing 135

Pricing SaaS Payments Payments SaaS 135

Upscope

JANUARY 5, 2020

When an engineer turned marketer helps position multiple companies to grow from, for example, $2 million to $70 million in 18 months, it's time to listen. Below we'll cover what positioning in marketing is, why you should RTFM of April Dunford's book and give you 10 positioning examples and a couple of links to templates.

Strategy 128

Strategy Marketing Sales Hiring Engineering 128

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

Since 2010 we’ve seen more startups, funds, and capital than ever before, but with this drastic increase, investors are seeing unexpected new trends reshaping the future of the industry. Super tough market, difficult playbook. Pietro : This journey used to end at the legendary, mythical product/market fit.

New CTO 176

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 176

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 Even without any breakdowns, obviously the CEO was fully aware of the company’s increased spending in sales and marketing. What’s their new CAC Payback Time? Use area charts for more detail. New Gross Margins?

Startup 90

Startup Merchant Services DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 24, 2021

A thanks to [Marsh 00:00:34] for stepping in at the beginning of the month, and a great session with our own Jason Warner and Adrian, the CTO of Zendesk. This is a program where we invite luminaries from the startup world to share their insights. Lionetti, the CMO at Confluent, and most recently, the CTO from Zendesk, Adrian.

CTO Coach 164

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 164

Natalia Luneva

APRIL 30, 2021

If you are still unsure about the value of community marketing or are just about to launch yours, keep reading. . SaaS Community Marketing: 11 stories from software companies. For example, we ask people an array of questions on ‘restaurant marketing’ and then use the answers and data to write data-driven articles.

Marketing 98

Marketing Social Media SaaS New CTO 98

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

In this framework, you’ll learn how to design a scoring system that aligns to your growth strategy, brainstorm and select leader indicators of success, and operationalize the system across your startup. Health scoring makes it easier to identify ideal customers, which arms with you with feedback to loop back to Product, Sales, and Marketing.

Startup 91

Startup Scale Systems Review Technical Review 91

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. Product Marketing Manager: This person is tasked with developing product marketing campaigns , crafting compelling marketing messages, and coming up with ideas to retain customers. Average salary: $105,761/yr. Average salary: $156,062/yr.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98