Remove CTO Hire Remove Sales Remove Scale
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Dear SaaStr: Why did Jason M. Lemkin Change his Point of View on The Value of a COO for Earlier Stage Startups?

SaaStr

I felt part of your core job as CEO was to assemble a management team, not complain about how you couldn’t get it all done. Or didn’t want to do sales. Or couldn’t stand your CTO. I still believe a CEO should “do it all” in terms of building a decent management team first before hiring a COO. I still believe this.

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Dear SaaStr: What’s The Number One Challenge for Scale-Up Stage Founders?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: What’s The Number One Challenge for Scale-Up Stage Founders? You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. You will need a VP of Product to scale your roadmap. 95% of the time, your super-smart hacker co-founder is not that person.

Scale 279
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VPs That Can’t Hire … They Aren’t Real VPs. At Least, Not Yet.

SaaStr

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.

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What Order Should You Hire Your Management Team In?

SaaStr

IME, rough order to make hires in: VPM: $0.2m He asked which to hire first. If you have a few nickels in the bank, and you somehow find a great VP a half stage or even full stage early, just hire her. Hiring is so hard as it is. And your first VP of Marketing just increases qualified leads by 25%.

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You Have to Train Reps 3-100+ They Won’t Train Themselves.

SaaStr

There’s a slide I see again and again from start-ups: 2 of the early sales reps are at 100% of quota, sometimes 150%-200%. You’ll continue to see that over time to some extent. So why so often, do only 2 of the first 8-10 sales reps perform? They get CTO training. You have to join their first few sales calls.

Scale 348
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What’s The #1 Challenge After $1m-$2m ARR?

SaaStr

Q: What’s the number one challenge for scale-up founders? You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. You will need a VP of Product to scale your roadmap. 95% of the time, your super-smart hacker co-founder is not that person. She can be your CTO forever.

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What SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin Really Thinks About AI, Sales & Lead Gen In 2024

SaaStr

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: What is the Future of Lead Generation, and How Do You Stand Out? But they should.

Scale 290