Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

The template is broken into six sections: People, Bookings & Revenue, Cash, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success. People is the first section because people are a startup’s most important element. This section covers employee satisfaction, headcount, and recruiting metrics.

Metrics 250

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount 250

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

When a startup takes form, the first weeks and months and years are spent furiously. It is formed and reformed again and again as customers supply feedback. The startup raises capital. Then the team returns focus to hiring, evolving the product, and closing customers. A new VP of customer success.

Scale 257

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Startup 257

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2024

Dedicated Slack Channel For Every Metric From the early days at Secureframe, they have had a dedicated Slack channel for every metric: every net new sale, every expansion, every churn, and every expense. But the reality is, if you’re scaling from $1M to $20M in ARR, you’re going to need to become best friends with your executive recruiters.”

Sales Recruiting 299

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 299

SaaStr

AUGUST 23, 2022

Dear SaaStr: When Should a CEO of a Startup Stop “Doing the Work” and Let Others Do the Work? So you don’t have to directly manage at least several of the key functional areas in the company at all. management team by 50 employees or so. You spend all your recruiting time just on VPs and above.

Part-Time VPE 266

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 266

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Throughout her time there, she scaled the SaaS company from $1M ARR to pre- IPO, along the way, creating the category of customer success software, and paving the way for Gainsight’s $1.1B She’s written extensively on the topic and co-authored a book The Customer Success Economy. If so, at what stage?

Scale 299

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 299

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 299

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

This happens with some regularity in SaaS, I’ve learned (and to be clear: I’m not talking about any company I’ve invested in, am an advisor to, board member of, etc – Because when it’s still a very small team, with no true management team … co-founders can kind of hack it to $1m-$2m in ARR together.

Sales Recruiting 274

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 274

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We even have 3 great checklists to make sure you hire right: VP of Sales hiring checklist here. VP of Customer Success hiring checklist here. It can be so tempting to hire that industry luminary as a VP of Success, or VP of Product, or otherwise. We’ve talked a ton on SaaStr about how to hire a great VP.

Sales Hiring 60

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting Startup 60

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2023

So one recent survey we did really brought out a healthy debate: does your VP of Sales really need to be a product expert? Many of the comments said it was more important a VP of Sales understand process and leadership more than the product itself. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. Not just with buzzwords.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 291

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Q: What are the top 20 pieces of advice for building a successful SaaS startup? Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. Otherwise, you often are building for an imaginary customer.

Sales Hiring 313

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 313

SaaStr

DECEMBER 15, 2020

I meet with great VPs of Sales and Product in particular who are Ready. I’d like to recruit you to be a VP at one of my companies, but I get it. You’re going to have to be the VP of Sales, Customer Success, Marketing and probably Product in the early days. It’s time. To go out on their own.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting SaaS Interviewing Consulting 363

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2023

So backstage at SaaStr Annual this year, and in a number of other conversations since, I’ve had a chance to get a few quiet moments with maybe two dozen top CROs and VPs of Sales. Yes, macro issues come up, and how they have to sell to more stakeholders now, and sales cycles are longer. But the best long ago adapted.

Sales Recruiting 297

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Onboarding Sales 297

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2023

Why VCs Love Founders That Respond to Email Almost Instantly 90%-95% of Salespeople Won’t Make It At Your Startup. SaaStr 628: Revenue Alignment: How to Pull Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Together with Divvy CRO Sterling Snow  2. A 6 Part Test to Help You Get It Right. Really, Really, Low.

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AWS 244

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2023

In 2020-2021, many SaaS startups faced a unique challenge. CRO at Wiz, Colin Jones, shares how this traditional startup evolved, thrived and grew from 0 to $100 million in just two years. Recruit diverse leaders The goal of hiring a revenue leader is to put gasoline on finding product market fit success.

Sales Recruiting 261

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 261

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

Personalized Event Recommendations : Demonstrate a deeper understanding of customer needs by recommending relevant events that align with their growth goals. Proactive Network Introductions : Use your network to make valuable connections, reinforcing your commitment to your customers’ success beyond the product itself.

Scale 113

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 113

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

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

That you absolutely, positively, have to only hire “Rockstars” in your startups. If you don’t think you need a great VP of Sales, Product, Marketing, Customer Success, and Engineering — then all that all that means is you’ve never worked with a great one. The very best of the best.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Recruiting 284

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2024

1: How Sales and Marketing Have Shifted Since 2020 Expectations and the types of people working in SaaS have shifted over the past few years, and much more in sales, marketing, and customer success. . #1: I can leave my horrible sales job making $240k OTE and be a solopreneur. The marketers all want a team today.

Sales Hiring 302

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Scale 302

Kellblog

JUNE 27, 2020

I’ve worked with several startups that fell into the following pattern: Selling a SaaS application at a healthy price (e.g., Customers are left high-and-dry with failed or partial implementations that, if left unfinished, will likely lead to churn. If you sell: A recruiting app, running your first recruiting campaign.

Consulting 144

Consulting Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 144

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 18, 2024

Jonathan Moss (EVP at Experity) showcased an Account Plan GPT that streamlines sales and marketing account research for outbound efforts. Examples of automating workflows to solve ongoing challenges: Everyone shared use cases they’re trying for sales account research and lead generation workflows. Link to GPT.

Sales Recruiting 108

Sales Recruiting Software Review Scale AI 108

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2021

Or if you hired someone that talked the talk, but isn’t the right fit for your startup? 50% of the job of a real VP is recruiting. Sales — for a VPS. CSAT or NPS for a VP of Customer Success. Let’s break it down to 4 simple criteria. Then, I want you to be honest about them.

Part-Time VPE 248

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Metrics 248

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Hiring a VP of Sales isn’t new, but the conversations have evolved as the world has. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive.

Sales Hiring 157

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 157

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Back then, remote first was a recruiting advantage. The way the co-founders looked at the stages in the early days of no funding and a community-focus were: Step 1 – No sales or customers, only building freely available open-source software. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team.

Scale 291

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 291

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2020

An open discussion with Sam Blond, CSO at Brex, and Kristen Habacht, VPS at Atlassian, about adjusting their sales process during Covid-19. Kristen Habacht runs EDR sales at Atlassian, which I got a check today, $40 billion-$50 billion company. She manages a huge global team. Four, people in the sale? Jason Lemkin: None.

Merchant Services 259

Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 259

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2022

We took the series A, interesting enough, the first executive hired by, thanks to the sales coaching, actually was marketing. Any fast growing startup in here and you’rer hiring and HR to handle your employee hiring, you could probably have a robot do 88% faster, better for your employee, and not have to hire fast. Bobby: Yes.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 274

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Sales reps were hosting 4-6 calls daily but most of these calls were early demos or top-of-funnel discovery calls Sales was closing really small deals on one end while talking to really large companies with hundreds of thousands of people on the other. As a startup, it’s tempting to try and do everything.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 273

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

Once a startup has found an initial product market fit, the business must evolve the way it models its growth. Before product market fit, a startup’s financial projections focus on costs. But when a repeatable sales process seems to have been discovered, it’s time to develop the startup’s revenue forecast.

Sales Recruiting 113

Sales Recruiting Startup Revenue Sales Hiring 113

Tom Tunguz

MAY 15, 2017

How much revenue do you want to book for your SaaS startup next quarter? It’s another thing altogether to have the sales team staffed to close that amount of business. The bookings capacity of the business is the amount of business a sales team should book in a certain period. So does recruiting time.

Sales Hiring 124

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 124

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.” But you have to see progress in one sales cycle.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Chuck is the co-founder of Blueprint Expansion , a GTM roles recruiting firm that has helped over 50 VC-backed companies make amazing Sales, Marketing, & Customer Success hires. By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase.

Sales Hiring 127

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 127

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 30, 2023

The first goal of sales at a startup isn’t to bring in revenue — it’s to get customer feedback. I’ve spent the last year working to find product-market fit for my startup, Dock. I’ve used our sales process to iterate our way to product market-fit and wanted to share what I’ve learned along the way.

Sales Recruiting 120

Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 120

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Welcome to Sales Hacker’s first-ever Influential Women in Sales list! In this exclusive list, we wanted to honor not just female leaders that promote their own sales platform (no shame in that!) They say “You can’t be what you can’t see,” and the sales floor is no exception.

Sales Recruiting 111

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale Sales Hiring 111

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 29, 2022

This is a guest article by Michael Su , senior consultant of Customer Success, The Success League. Customer Success is still a young field and a new concept for many companies. When I ventured out to build my first Customer Success department at a tech software company, my leadership team thought I was nuts.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Recruiting Technical Review Compensation 98

Kellblog

MARCH 13, 2020

In days of yore, chief revenue officer (CRO) was just a gussied-up title for VP of Sales. If someone was particularly good, particularly senior, or particularly hard to recruit you might call them CRO. Chief revenue officer meant chief sales officer meant VP of Sales. Frank, the head of Sales, had a $1B number.

VP of Engineering 98

VP of Engineering Customer Success Sales Recruiting Acquisition 98

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Founders may reduce staff, particularly in recruiting or new projects that the company prefers not to finance. This company invests $12k in month one to acquire a customer and receives $1k in payment, netting -$11k in cash flow. 25 new customers per month implies a cash investment of $300k. Second, slow sales hiring.

SaaS Payments 124

SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Payment Services 124

Sales Hacker

MARCH 17, 2021

While every entrepreneur dreams of scaling their startup into a multi-million dollar company, many do not understand all that goes into that dream. Getting past the first stage of revenue growth and building an initial customer base is the easy part, but what happens when you hit a revenue plateau and can’t seem to take that next step?

Scale 117

Scale Revenue Startup Sales Recruiting 117

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

At the helm of Udemy for Business’ customer acquisition machine is their VP of Marketing Yvonne Chen. When Yvonne joined in 2016, the business unit consisted of just 10 people across product, engineering, sales, and marketing. This is Season Two of Scale , Intercom’s podcast series on moving from startup to scale-up.

Marketplace as a Service 243

Marketplace as a Service Scale Sales Recruiting Business 243