SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

No one spends enough time recruiting as it is, after $1m ARR or so. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. These are all full-time jobs by $1m ARR. Fixing it yourself becomes the biggest time sink and excuse for not hiring there is. And even worse, you often sort of give up trying to make the hire.

Part-Time VPE 299

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 299

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

In the latest installment of SaaStr’s What’s New series – where we sit down with the leaders in SaaS and Cloud for the inside scoop on what’s top of mind and what’s new, SaaStr CEO and Jason Lemkin chats with the CEO of ZoomInfo , Henry Schuck. So, what’s new at ZoomInfo? ” And there can be some truth to that, right?

New CTO 316

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 316

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

Some are decades-old problems, while others have emerged from this new world we’re in. 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.

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. In my first start-up, there was one engineer we had no choice about. You see this all the time.

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 290

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2021

But what they don’t have is a good enough founding team: Sometimes, if the prospective founder isn’t super technical, then the CTO/VPE isn’t really great. They’ve got a rent-a-CTO. Or sometimes they are great, but the team members are just not great enough for their new C-level roles (CEO, CTO, CMO, CSO, CBO, C?O).

Part-Time VPE 263

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire New CTO CTO 263

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. You’re not building a product or getting any new customers. Let’s jump right into the questions.

Scale 290

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 290

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

JULY 10, 2021

As a founder/CEO, building your first management team is something that you often lose sleep over. 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. And for good reason.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 264

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

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. “That it was much easier to do more in order to keep that customer than to get a new “top” customer.

CTO Hire 328

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 328

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

We had Lew Cirne, Founder & CEO of New Relic, Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot and for the first time at Annual, we added office hours with the top VCs in SaaS. total attendees, e.g., a CEO + a VP of Sales and a VP of Customer Success, or two Co-Founders, or CEO + CTO, etc.

Scale 312

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 312

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 Technical Review Scale Sales Hiring 207

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you’re running a smaller digital business, you may find it challenging to hire great talent. If you’re facing challenges winning the best candidates for your roles, or if you have a small number of roles and every hire really matters, then don’t miss this episode of Growth Stage. X sales force, X meta.

SMB 95

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 95

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

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. The panel that we are in is called Is Seed the New Series A, and this is a question that I’ve been asking informally yesterday and today.

New CTO 182

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 182

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

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

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

They have service and all this, but the second cloud for them was sales. They wanted to sell the Amplitude product, I forget, to sales or somebody else, and that was their mistake. Jason Lemkin: I think I noticed a pattern, and I wrote it up a couple of years ago and refreshed it, and then I’ll add a new anecdote.

Outsourcing Services 243

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. Pete was a Google Associate Product Manager for AdSense and launched Google App Engine. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. These were some of the things I learned from Pete. And you should do it right then.

CTO Coach 113

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 113

Outseta

APRIL 11, 2019

Why most SaaS companies are blind to some of the best talent on the market By Geoff Roberts 9 min read I believe that most SaaS companies are missing out of a major opportunity when hiring—the opportunity to hire more part-time help, where the employee acts as a fully integrated (albeit part-time) member of the team on an ongoing basis.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Sales Hiring B2B New CTO 52

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

If I think about the founders of "my" SaaS startups, these are the three qualities that all of them have – in addition to a huge amount of intelligence, motivation and commitment, which allows them to quickly acquire new skills as the company grows. The second best option is two, and the third best option is one, four or five.

CTO Hire 106

CTO Hire Startup Sales Hiring New CTO 106

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Building a sales team that can go from $0-$50M (Video + Transcript). Gaetan Gachet | SVP of Sales @Algolia. It’s an honor to be here with this mythical creature, this sales leader that goes from zero to 50 million in the same job. He has a whole French sales team and office that only speaks English in Paris.

Scale 150

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 150

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2024

Growth is still good for them, but they had no net new customers last quarter. 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.

CTO Hire 147

CTO Hire AI Venture Capital Sales Hiring 147

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2019

And also, we always prioritize the features requested by our existing customers over the new prospects. But also, as a sole founder, you also can make a decision in a very timely manner. Not only for the product side, but for the sales and marketing side. Eric Yuan: Because, at that time, we really needed a product.

Sales Hiring 145

Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire Marketing 145

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. Customer Onboarding Specialist: Responsible for helping new customers get up and running with the company’s products. Account Managers: They serve as the lead point of contact for all customer account management matters.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 24, 2021

Great to see a lot of repeat attendees and some new ones. 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. Lionetti, the CMO at Confluent, and most recently, the CTO from Zendesk, Adrian. I’m Travis Bryant.

CTO Coach 161

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 161

OpenView Labs

MARCH 17, 2020

When you ask average questions, you get average hires. If a potential senior hire has gotten so far as to talk with the CEO , she’s probably someone the company wants. Mixmax isn’t the only company that tries to talk new employees out of staying. Zappos famously pays new employees to leave after the first month.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

This all relates to a core Kellblog theme of ownership — who owns what — that I’ve explored in some of my most popular posts: What It Really Means to be a Manager, Director, or VP , which touches on the real differences between people operating at different levels. Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Venture Capital Technical Advisors 59

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

For Slack, that was clearly the engineering and dev communities, who love new tools. They love new ways of working and were happy to bring Slack into their functional teams and say, “Let’s experiment with this new way of working.” And it was very successful. Product can do a huge amount there.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

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. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Major challenges facing a new CEO [19:40]. Keep the promise of sales enablement and keep your team doing what they do best, which is winning.

Scale 119

Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach Scaling 119

Scytale

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

What happens if you add new services or locations? Better attract and retain new clients ISO 27001 is known as “The Golden Standard”, proving that your organization has implemented the highest security standard. Proving due diligence regarding information security can drag out the sales process. The result?

Systems Review 52

Systems Review Software Review CTO Hire compliance 52

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2019

And then the sale will commence as far as the people and this was, we were multiple millions of dollars of revenue until I took the first call. That means lots and lots of hiring and I don’t want to say firing, we did fire anyone, but people get reshuffled, you know? Vlad: So what’s the new reality? Jonathan : Oh wow.

Scale 207

Scale Business Sales Hiring CTO Hire 207

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2019

And this is not just about something you do in a later stage, when you raise that $120,000,000 that PJ from Sherpa had done, but something you can do at the series A stage when you’re doing small hires to build out your team. I used to be a CTO and operator, co-founder of a SaaS start up. The third one would be sales motion.

Outsourcing Services 113

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Technical Review 113

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 13, 2020

If you missed episode 130, check it out here: Turning Junior-level Talent into Top Sales Professionals with Eddie Baez. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Sales enablement is easy. Oh, and do all of this with less time. More sales meetings, more money. More sales meetings, more money. We’re on iTunes.

Marketplace as a Service 112

Marketplace as a Service CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 112

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

Which is why you should sign up for the 2 for 1 Insider Sale and get two people for the price of one. Don’t overextend your resources when testing new SaaS growth ideas. Here is what he writes: Kieran Flanagan , VP of marketing at HubSpot, shared some interesting insights on approaching new ideas for scaling up your business.

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 22, 2022

Continuous risk management. Hiring and cultivating incredible talent on our Information Security team. Understanding the guardrails we need to build means closely tracking meaningful change across Intercom and making sure we’re on top of new initiatives”. Shipping quickly and securely. Evolving security landscape.

Data 118

Data CTO Hire Technical Review compliance 118

Sales Hacker

MARCH 25, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we interview Simmone Taitt , CEO of HeartSpace Consulting , and a longtime sales leader and consultant in the New York community. How intuition and heart can be built into a sales organization. How to build diversity into your hiring practices. We’re on iTunes.

Sales Hiring 92

Sales Hiring Revenue CTO Coach CTO Hire 92

SaaStr

AUGUST 22, 2020

And in major hubs like San Francisco and New York, what we’re doing is helping create the vision for a more experiential space, almost like a cafe where they can come and go as they want, they can bring clients, they can bring customers. We’re already in this like a new gen.” This is a new workflow, isn’t it?

Sales Recruiting 213

Sales Recruiting Cloud CTO Hire Sales Hiring 213