SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. If you hire a great, experienced Client Success leader as your first hire here, and you like him/her, and the experience is on point — my guess is you’ll be fine. If not, are you sure your have this right?

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Customer Lifetime Value 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. If you hire a great, experienced Client Success leader as your first hire here, and you like him/her, and the experience is on point — my guess is you’ll be fine. If not, are you sure your have this right?

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Customer Lifetime Value 245

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2020

We can derive the table above if we look over the entire respondent base and bucket headcount by ARR. Another question we asked in the survey is the most senior title leading the customer success, sales and marketing teams. The VP titles remain in customer success in marketing.

Scale 363

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 363

SaaStr

AUGUST 16, 2021

“ Product team is closer than ever to customers/users ” – Philip Cuter, CEO, Paper. Does your head of customer success and head of product work jointly on all top customers? . “Visit as many customers in person as possible” — Ryan Janoch, co-founder and VPS, Mapistry. .

Churn 328

Churn Sales Hiring Headcount Technical Review 328

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 20, 2020

As customer success managers, we wear many hats. We need to stay on top of market trends and product updates, all while making sure our customers become wildly successful. During times of rapid change, juggling everything on our plates, along with everything on our customers’ plates, can feel like a herculean task.

Scale 223

Scale Customer Success Scaling Technical Review 223

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

From startup to $500M CARR, Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, shares how Braze scaled a growth and customer success team. This shifted from doing odd jobs to a deep focus on customer success and scaling teams around customer success. Headcount isn’t the right story for them, though.

Scale 296

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 296

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2022

Yes, you now know how to make customers successful and happy now. You have 2,000 customers now. You start making up for it in volume — with headcount. If you are at $100m in ARR, and your goal is to grow $50m next year … that’s an entire, new, super-successful start-up itself! So much work, so little revenue.

SaaS 351

SaaS Headcount AWS Churn 351

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2020

And some of the marquee customers include MongoDB, Gitlab and Qualtrics. . Last year, the company doubled its headcount, tripled revenue and landed on G2’s Top 100 Global Software list. . The NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology has even provided guidance on how to handle COVID-19 discussions with customers and prospects. .

Scale 359

Scale Artificial Intelligence Payments Payment Services 359

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Hoping headcount (alone) will drive revenue. At some point, every SaaS company gets big enough where headcount does drive revenue. If marketing came up short, if customer success screwed up, that’s life. Or VP of Sales and Customer Success. This never ends well. You’ll be blamed. You should.

Sales Hiring 359

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount 359

Valuize Consulting

FEBRUARY 8, 2025

This transformation marks the rise of partner-led customer success a strategic approach that enables organizations to scale efficiently, reduce costs, and specialize in key customer segments. Enabling & Operationalizing Partner-Led Customer Success With a strategy in place, the next challenge is execution.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Scale Technical Review Government 52

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Customer success is all about outcomes. What does NRR have to do with customer success? PST — Former VP of Customer Success and current founder and Managing Partner at Success Venture Partners, John Gleeson, shares his lessons learned scaling customer success from $1M to $300M in ARR.

Scale 182

Scale Sales Hiring Customer Success Scaling 182

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2021

Your sales headcount. Go all-in on customer success. Hire a VP of Customer Success that is great … and upsells, retentions, and renewals will all go up. Raise prices, one way or another for new customers — as you add more value and build your brand. Align your marketing budgets. Like magic.

Sales Hiring 312

Sales Hiring Headcount Pricing Market Segmentation 312

The Angel VC

MARCH 23, 2016

If you have a SaaS startup with a higher-touch sales model where revenue growth is largely driven by sales headcount, the plan needs to be modified accordingly. With the exception of the VP of Sales role, sales staff headcount planning is done on the separate "Sales Team Hiring Plan" tab (re-using a model that I've built for this post ).

SaaS Payments 217

SaaS Payments Headcount SaaS Payment Methods 217

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2020

Great Customer Success Managers Can Be Accretive Managing Just $800k-$1m in Existing ARR Within 9-12 Months. A lot of mature SaaS companies use the metric of ~$2m in ARR per customer success rep. No headcount limits. If you just had that one extra great engineer, you would have closed Google. No budgets.

Sales Hiring 344

Sales Hiring Headcount Engineering Banking 344

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

The template is broken into six sections: People, Bookings & Revenue, Cash, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success. This section covers employee satisfaction, headcount, and recruiting metrics. Customer Success reviews the net dollar and logo retention, plus churns and expansions.

Metrics 250

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount 250

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 13, 2021

Few people have more experience with this move than Linda Lin , Director of Customer Success at the revenue intelligence platform Gong. Moving upmarket means larger customers and higher revenue, but it’s not without its challenges. For Linda, it all comes down to your approach to customer success.

Scale 177

Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Strategy 177

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Delivering the best customer experience With the surge in inbound leads, the business was growing exponentially. Without headcount planning for the support team, the company’s response time and customer satisfaction scores dipped. Manage scaling issues by using data to plan ahead and being team and customer-obsessed.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 278

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

Don’t Tie Revenue To Headcount “You want to get away from a business model where every incremental dollar requires incremental hiring,” says Deatsch. So instead of focusing on scaling headcount quickly, work toward growing revenue quickly.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 264

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

With precise headcount and budget needs. How many Customer Success Managers. Fourth, get the customer success team in place for Q1+ now as well. You are going to fall on your face if you can’t make your best customers, and really, almost all your customers, happy. How many reps. How many SDRs.

Sales Hiring 290

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Acquisition 290

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2022

Yes, you now know how to make customers successful and happy now. You have 2,000 customers now. You start making up for it in volume — with headcount. If you are at $100m in ARR, and your goal is to grow $50m next year … that’s an entire, new, super-successful start-up itself! So much work, so little revenue.

Headcount 246

Headcount AWS SaaS Churn 246

ChurnZero

MARCH 23, 2023

The most important part of Customer Success is the team. More than three-quarters (77%) of Customer Success teams have fewer than 50 people on staff. That’s according to our annual Customer Success Leadership Study published in late 2022. When asked about non-headcount budgets; 8.3%

Headcount 52

Headcount Benchmarks Customer Success Scale 52

ChurnZero

MARCH 23, 2023

The most important part of Customer Success is the team. More than three-quarters (77%) of Customer Success teams have fewer than 50 people on staff. That’s according to our annual Customer Success Leadership Study published in late 2022. When asked about non-headcount budgets; 8.3%

Headcount 52

Headcount Benchmarks Customer Success Scale 52

ChurnZero

JANUARY 17, 2025

When your CFO doesnt see the direct link between customer success and the financial metrics they track, its harder to persuade them to invest in CSwhich can ultimately lead to preventable churn. What are the top takeaways for working more effectively with your CFO as a customer leader?

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Benchmarks Headcount Scale 52

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

Customer Success Capacity Planning and Budget Guide. As a Customer Success leader, do you get anxious at the thought of asking your CFO or CEO for additional headcount? Even though it’s evident that your understaffing is causing the customer experience to suffer. Your team is stressed and ready to walk away.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Benchmarks 98

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2023

They grew headcount fairly aggressively from ‘21 to ‘22, and then Q4 of last year dipped and held flat before starting to regrow. Monday will probably add 25% headcount this year. We’ve gotten used to certain types of sales compensation, certain levels of Customer Success, and certain types of coverage and marketing spend.

Sales Hiring 289

Sales Hiring SaaS Headcount Compensation 289

Tom Tunguz

MAY 14, 2014

Yesterday, I spoke on a panel at the Gainsight Pulse conference with Aaron Ross, the author of Predictable Revenue , Jason Lemkin of Storm Ventures who authors SaaStr , and Brian Stafford, a customer success expert from McKinsey. Customer success (CS) within SaaS startups is a relatively new idea.

Customer Success 100

Customer Success Startup Headcount Compensation 100

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2021

Also, pivot from Garrett’s initial idea and focus on revenue targets, not a specific headcount. #2 Your product and customer success can’t be lagging behind what’s being sold. Make a repeatable process that’s consistent. Reevaluate your assumptions and mess with the model as needed. 2 – Get your compensation right.

Sales Recruiting 260

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 260

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2019

With precise headcount and budget needs. How many Customer Success Managers. Fourth, get the customer success team in place for Q1+ now as well. You are going to fall on your face if you can’t make your best customers, and really, almost all your customers, happy. How many reps. How many SDRs.

Sales Hiring 242

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Revenue 242

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

​Accurate sales forecasting is more critical to business success than most realize. Having a predictable pipeline enables more effective decision-making, from headcount planning to strategic investments in technology and beyond.

Forecasting 290

Forecasting SMB Sales Technical Review 290

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

Customer Success is gaining ground, influence, and budget within organizations. Based on a detailed survey of more than 1,000 Customer Success leaders, this is the most comprehensive study of the evolving CS landscape to date. Download your full copy of the 2022 Customer Success Leadership Study here.

Leadership 98

Leadership Trends Customer Success Investment 98

ChurnZero

MARCH 22, 2023

Lately, many customer success (CS) teams have been downsized or eliminated because of global economic uncertainty. There are three foundational areas of CS where I see teams miss the mark: customer segmentation, journey mapping, and team structure design. The post Facing economic challenges in Customer Success?

Customer Success 97

Customer Success Headcount Finance Leadership 97

ChurnZero

JUNE 9, 2023

Good sales teams typically get the budget, headcount and tools they desire because the function is tied to revenue. However, that’s not always the case for Customer Success (CS) teams even though they are often responsible for renewals and expansions. How can CS leaders address this challenge?

Finance 98

Finance Metrics Customer Success Headcount 98

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

1: Capital As an operator, your job is to take money and add headcount and programs to drive the growth engine for your company, You might think of capital as fundraising and budget. Now, Jeff shares five themes and his lessons learned over the past 6-8 months as a founder vs. an operator. #1:

Headcount 283

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 283

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Theyquestion the status quo, and relentlessly pursue their customers’ success, using ChurnZero software to power their initiatives and achieve breakthrough results. We’re delighted to introduce the winners of the 2024 ChurnHero Awards for customer success! Here’s who they are, and how they did it.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Scale Underperforming Technical Team Innovation 52

Totango

JULY 5, 2022

In uncertain economic times, attracting new customers becomes exponentially harder as budgets get tighter and priorities shift. Let’s take a look at four key actions to take right now that will not only help you prove your worth to your customers but will allow you to see instant results. . Dive into Customer Health.

Customer Success 104

Customer Success Scale Headcount Churn 104

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

As a Customer Success leader, do you find yourself watering down your budgetary requests? According to our 2022 Customer Success Leadership Study, CS teams are already underfunded and under-resourced. How Customer Success can win more resources, budget, and credibility with Jeff Heckler.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 98

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

We attribute a large part of that to being able to be proactive with customers”. Ryan Johnston, Head of Customer Success at Tanda, explains that as their customer base has grown in recent years, the team has been able to scale their support without dramatically increasing headcount, which has been a big benefit to the team.

Scale 237

Scale Headcount Mobile Communication 237