SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Marketing, design, and product teams work to optimize one end of the funnel at the cost of the other. If you have product market fit, don’t wait to implement outbound. Regardless, be furious about outbound and bring an entrepreneurial mindset to your marketing. The next hiring focus should be growth marketing.

Scale 244

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scaling 244

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.

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Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 264

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

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 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

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

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

To build the initial team, to build the product, to build the initial go to market, to build the first customers and to build the ARR, the starting. Pietro : This journey used to end at the legendary, mythical product/market fit. It’s known that you can probably sell those first couple of contracts.

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New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 182

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

In this article, we’ve outlined the major roles that move the needle in terms of product growth alongside their KPIs and current salary ranges. Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. Before the hiring process, take some time to decide on your current needs and hire as your company grows.

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Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

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. Lionetti, the CMO at Confluent, and most recently, the CTO from Zendesk, Adrian. Excited to be back emceeing. That was the start of the Month of Scale. I do my own reference calls.

CTO Coach 161

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 161

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2019

Mallun Yen : So, you were an engineer by training and then you became an engineering leader, as the CTO of Webex, and then you became a CEO. You’ve got to learn about sales, about marketing and, otherwise, you need to hire a lot of other people around you to help. Mallun Yen : So, when did you hire employee 34?

Sales Hiring 145

Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire Marketing 145

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 31, 2019

Here are five quick takeaways: Balancing human-computer interaction has been the difference between technologies that break out and are very successful and technologies that are considered to be ahead of their time or just not the right product-market fit. That was actually a pretty tall order at the time.

Artificial Intelligence 169

Artificial Intelligence Scale CTO Hire Technology 169

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run. You become a hired CEO primarily through one path — climbing the corporate ladder at a large tech company [5a], reaching the GM or CXO level, and then deciding to branch out. Dave started his career in technical and product marketing positions at Ingres and Versant.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Venture Capital Technical Advisors 59

OpenView Labs

JULY 2, 2020

Time and time again SaaS companies are promising customers that they will save hundreds of thousands of dollars, but their pricing strategies are only capturing a tiny fraction of that savings. At the enterprise level, discounting SaaS contracts is expected, not optional. A Complete Guide to Changing Your SaaS Pricing.

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Pricing SaaS Payments Payments SaaS 135

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

So you were the first sales hire. Talk to me about the sales hires that you made back in the early days and talk to me about how it changed through the different stages. So my first sales hire was beginning of 2015. The very first few sales hire are I would say not your typical reps. Laura Bilazarian : Awesome.

Scale 150

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 150

Baremetrics

MARCH 16, 2021

QuikNode wants to see technology transform decentralized applications, smart contracts, decentralized governance, voting systems, and more. Bunsen, a serial founder and multi-CTO before starting QuikNode, had used Baremetrics in previous roles and was familiar with the value it brought to growing businesses. Gain valuable feedback.

Blockchain 90

Blockchain Payment Solutions Artificial Intelligence Payment Services 90

OPEXEngine

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

To combat this and be more agile, SaaS management is morphing and restructuring functional management and multiplying the number of new C-Suite titles like Chief Customer Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and Chief Product Officer, not to mention Chief Performance Officer and Chief Security Officer. Chief Product Officer.

Part-Time CTO 69

Part-Time CTO CTO CTO Hire Management 69

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

Joel had what he calls “an honest conversation” with Buffer’s CTO Dan. One interesting thing that Joel shared with us, was that he realized implementing these software tools would require a large investment, but he consciously made that decision: I would gladly spend $100,000 on a tool if that would allow me to avoid hiring.

Payment Solutions 113

Payment Solutions Payment Features Payments Social Media 113

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 4, 2023

To improve the efficiency of spend on cost of goods sold (COGS), most growth-stage leaders can optimize seat-based spend or renegotiate consumption-based contracts in a quarter or 2. G&A), especially in tougher market conditions, is often a matter of assessing office space, worker productivity, legal costs, etc.

Underperforming Technical Team 120

Underperforming Technical Team Benchmarks CTO Hire New CTO 120

Upscope

JANUARY 5, 2020

Superhuman achieved product market fit and positioning by creating an engine Superhuman ran a brilliant detailed step by step process that helped achieve real product market fit and provide their precise positioning in the crowded email client market. Why should I give a damn? Why should I give a damn right now?"

Strategy 128

Strategy Marketing Sales Hiring Engineering 128

ProfitWell

JANUARY 2, 2020

Because the contracts are typically much higher in these sales agreements, B2B subscriptions often require a much longer sales process before your customer will consider making a purchase. A lot of this data can be gathered during your positioning and product-market fit research. Contract length. B2C contract length.

B2C 52

B2C Payment Features Subscription Payments 52

Andreessen Horowitz

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

So we didn’t have product market fit for that. How did you think about, who do I want to target for that product given where we are now. So that’s where we found product market fit and product market fit is not binary, it’s more of like the stars align and you’re just like, Oh my God.

Merchant Services 81

Merchant Services Payment Methods Payments Payment Solutions 81

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 6, 2019

Plus, the Product Marketing Alliance drops the Product Marketing Salary Survey. What about the ROI of spending time with your family, friends, or kids? How many CSMs should you hire? Product marketers: move west. The Product Marketing Alliance dropped the Product Marketing Salary Survey.

Scale 43

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 43

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2019

Megan Leuders: And when you were talking to CEOs and CTOs today, what do you believe is the biggest technology challenge that they are facing as a SaaS company? What is their biggest challenge and what should they be focused on, whether they’re a CEO or a CTO, what would you say they should be focused on today?

Cloud 173

Cloud Scale Trends Machine Learning 173

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

In HubSpot’s case, we eventually hired a world-class data science team, but our scoring only improved by a few points,” notes Redbord. You’ll need someone familiar with your data—perhaps a CTO or someone responsible for business operations. Especially in the early days, keeping your scoring system simple and lean will help you: 1.

Startup 91

Startup Scale Systems Review Technical Review 91

Mucker Capital

APRIL 6, 2023

Or if you have products that require some configuration–think about Salesforce, Segment, things like that–someone needs to set it up. Obviously if you target enterprise customers, you usually have a very large ACV (Annual Contract Value) and the product usually is complex. If you're really starting from scratch, do the product.

Startup 52

Startup Scale CTO Hire Outsourced Development 52

Chart Mogul

MARCH 9, 2020

Joel had what he calls “an honest conversation” with Buffer’s CTO Dan. One interesting thing that Joel shared with us, was that he realized implementing these software tools would require a large investment, but he consciously made that decision: I would gladly spend $100,000 on a tool if that would allow me to avoid hiring.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Payment Features Outsourcing Services Payments 52

Chart Mogul

JULY 1, 2020

Simply put, you conduct customer discovery interviews before launching a new product, or whenever you want to discover potential customers. User Interviews is an example of a product born out of customer discovery interviews. With a product like ours, customers come in many shapes and sizes.

Interviewing 76

Interviewing B2B Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 76

Chart Mogul

JULY 1, 2020

Simply put, you conduct customer discovery interviews before launching a new product, or whenever you want to discover potential customers. User Interviews is an example of a product born out of customer discovery interviews. With a product like ours, customers come in many shapes and sizes.

Interviewing 52

Interviewing B2B Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 52

SmartKarrot

MARCH 4, 2021

To handle this evolving requirement, it is important to build a competent profile to initiate progress in product development. This is where companies need another C-level executive to facilitate business growth via products. What makes a chief product officer (CPO) different from a CTO or a VP in the product department.

Part-Time CTO 16

Part-Time CTO VP of Engineering CTO CTO Hire 16

SaaStr

JULY 23, 2021

Brian Peterson, CTO @ Dialpad. Nicole Culver, Director of Product Marketing, SaaS @Bandwidth. Dave Walters, CTO, Hired. Christa Diaz, Senior Director, Customer Success, Hired. Amy Pisano, CRO, Hired. Jenn Knight, Co-Founder, CTO, AgentSync. Zach Kitschke, CMO, Canva. Aaron Levie, CEO @Box.

VP of Engineering 290

VP of Engineering New CTO CTO Hire Sales Hiring 290

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

Chris Orlob is the senior director of product marketing at Gong.io, an AI (Artificial Intelligence) platform to provide sales analytics. He is a SaaS sales & marketing enthusiast who shares his insights on the same on social media. One of the top SaaS influencers is Dharmesh Shah , co-founder, and CTO of HubSpot.

VP of Engineering 10

VP of Engineering Scale SaaS Venture Capital 10

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2019

When I was a couple of years into my tenure at Oracle, I moved down to Latin America to Argentina, sight unseen actually, and built out a telesales group in Argentina and then later in Miami, hiring about 100 people from 11 different countries and that early building experience really whet my appetite. I came back to North America.

Scale 214

Scale Enterprise Scaling Sales Hiring 214

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

In terms of replacement, what does Bob believe will be the emerging trends in SaaS Go To Market that will replace it? * How does Bob think about when is the right time to hire a Head of Partnerships? Where do most startups go wrong both in hiring for partnerships and in the engagements themselves?

Sales Hiring 162

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Scale CTO Hire 162

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2020

How does Paul approach such large product decisions today? What does really effective product marketing mean to Paul? Is it product decisions? Is there hiring decisions? So product strategy decisions, vision documents. Paul Rosania: So let’s imagine I went to you as a CTO. No, I agree with that.

CTO Coach 221

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Software Review 221

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2024

At SaaStr Annual we had a great session with HubSpot Founder & CTO, Dharmesh Shah, and their Chief People Officer, Katie Burke, on building happier employees. Companies that have great, happy, productive employees do better by every single return. Brian and Dharmesh started the company out of MIT Sloan, so who did they hire?

Part-Time CTO 290

Part-Time CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 290

Sales Hacker

MARCH 11, 2025

Pursuit helps companies hire elite go-to-market talent on a non-retainer basis. As a key GTMfund partner, they equip sales and marketing teams with top performers. If you’re hiring for sales or marketing roles, reach out to Pursuit at pursuitsalessolutions.com/gtm or message a GTMfund team member.

Scale 81

Scale Technical Advisors Sales Hiring Technical Review 81

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Christine Spang, Co-Founder and CTO @ Nylas. Dave Walters, CTO @ Hired. Christa Diaz, Senior Director, Customer Success @ Hired. Jenn Knight, Co-Founder, CTO @ AgentSync. Brian Peterson, CTO @ Dialpad. Nicole Culver, Director of Product Marketing, SaaS @ Bandwidth. John Jahnke, CEO, Tackle.

VP of Engineering 290

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder CTO Coach CTO Hire 290