SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

Justin Welsh, former SVP of Sales at PatientPop explains how he started in SaaS in 2009 as the second sales hire at Zocdoc. Justin used Sales Culture to grow a successful PatientPop team to 140 employees and 55 million in revenue. Justin Welsh | SVP Sales @ PatientPop. I was a local sales manager or regional manager.

Sales Recruiting 332

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 332

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2020

Nothing matters but recruiting and using your personal network. Sam Blond, CSO at Brex explains why recruiting, networking and employee happiness is the key to this playbook on recruiting your sales team. Sam Blond | Chief Sales Officer @ Brex. I’m doing The Playbook To Recruiting Your Sales Team.

Sales Recruiting 196

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 196

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2021

A ways back, I asked Brendon Cassidy, VP of Sales at LinkedIn, Adobe Sign / EchoSign, and Talkdesk to put together his playbook for double sales. … How We Increased Sales Nearly 100% In One Quarter at HackerRank – Brendon Cassidy. I thought it was a great checklist for all of us to take a look at.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 291

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Mark Roberge , SaaStr fan-favorite and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital brought together some of the top CROs in SaaS during the SaaStr Annual to share some of their greatest learnings and pivotal moments leading some of the Cloud 100 SaaS companies. Can you start and stop a PLG motion?

Scale 279

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 279

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. Q: What is the Future of Lead Generation, and How Do You Stand Out? People don’t do that today.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 291

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. If they are just saying the wrong things to customers and prospects. Be present.

Scale 298

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 298

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2020

There’s a common thinking that sales teams should be relatively high churn. That the bottom 15-20% of the sales team almost has to churn each year, because it’s survival of the fittest. Reps have to fight for the best leads, prove the highest close rates, exceed the mean of the bell curve, to not just thrive, but survive.

Scale 300

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 300

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

Q: What’s the number one challenge for scale-up founders? In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. Upsell and retention is an art, science and craft.

Part-Time VPE 311

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 311

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2020

#1: Todd McKinnon, CEO Okta: “Building a Higher Performance Organizaion” A really great, open session on what Okta got right to win: Todd is humble and candid about how they won (going enterprise, early) and where it ended up being OK they were a bit late, or took time to win (mobile, dev). How to recruit in a less hot space.

Scale 233

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling SMB 233

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

I thought it would be worth drilling down deeper into each of them, and sharing the learnings and mistakes: 1/ Spending less time fixing things, more time recruiting senior folks to own them. No one spends enough time recruiting as it is, after $1m ARR or so. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. You can do this.

Part-Time VPE 300

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 300

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

They credit this growth to their global team, a switch to an enterprise business model switch, and flexible work operations. Storyblok started with a leadership-first hiring plan and a recruitment strategy that involved the following: A test to know how candidates handle different tasks and their expertise level.

Scale 245

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 245

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

One of the biggest challenges in scaling a SaaS company has always been VP and SVP level talent. It’s an even bigger deal in the enterprise, where the playbook to closing large deals is more critical to have down. But for now, if you are beginning to scale, aggressively recruit that Bay Area VP you always wanted to hire.

Sales Hiring 349

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 349

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

And for Intercom’s VP of Sales EMEA, Sanj Bhayro , scaling is just what you need to invest in to ensure growth becomes as constant and linear as it can be. Sanj has plenty of experience scaling sales teams at growing businesses, and that’s precisely why, as of November of last year, he‘s overseeing EMEA sales at Intercom.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

If a VP of Sales can’t improve things in one sales cycle or less — she never will. In one sales cycle, or less. If a great VP of Marketing can double your inbound leads — of course you can afford her salary. Don’t hire some junior marketing person that can’t really get you more leads.

Part-Time VPE 348

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 348

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. in ARR, get to Initial Traction , we then realize we have to scale. But trust me.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 17, 2024

Building ‘opinionated products’ and the importance of customer intimacy Lessons learned from scaling Twitter’s ad business from zero to $650 million in three years. 15:41) Scaling Twitter’s ad business and managing hyper-growth. (26:54) Plus, an analysis of the top 75 trending sales AI tools.

Scale 102

Scale Engineering Acquisition Scaling 102

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2022

Jason recently opened up an AMA on Twitter Spaces to answer questions about scaling from $1M to $10M. We did a good AMA on this scaling at SaaStr Europa in Barcelona, a couple weeks back. That will scale, and then take those emails after four great pieces of content and do a weekly webinar and do a weekly get-together for them.

Scale 299

Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring VP of Engineering 299

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

And your first VP of Marketing just increases qualified leads by 25%. More on that here and a great video discussion below: You’ll probably be ready for your first VP of Sales by $1m in ARR. Ideally, have your VP of Sales on board in time to hire reps 3-300. But you’ll need a manager to scale beyond 2.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Does it get easier or harder to scale SaaS as your company grows? Generally, it gets easier to grow at a “good”/modest rate at you scale, but harder to grow at an outsize rate. And that brand generates leads organically, and fairly low-cost leads. Account expansion starts to work. This helps a lot.

Scale 282

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Branding 282

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2020

For example, Google put a lot of work into Google Hire, its recruiting SaaS product. If you buy Salesforce, you get several benefits: Scale. Salesforce is really 4+ clouds that are all at scale (sales, marketing, commerce and platform). Accelerated Enterprise Credibility. But then shut it down. Salesforce.

Sales Recruiting 299

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Cloud 299

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2021

Recruitment: Getting the right talent onboard is a critical step. Sales: You must understand how to grow your sales machine, and it isn’t easy. Sales: You must understand how to grow your sales machine, and it isn’t easy. In fact, you need both to optimally grow your sales efforts. Surprises Along the Way.

Sales Recruiting 282

Sales Recruiting Scale Software Delivery Travel 282

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ revenue professionals weekly to stay up-to-date and scale their companies and careers. Pain points in onboarding can quickly lead to frustration, so optimize continuously by treating onboarding as an iterative process based on user feedback and analytics.

Scale 113

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 113

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

I really appreciate you coming to talk about how to attract, hire, and build a more diverse sales team in your organization. So I’ve been building top-producing sales teams for a really, really long time. So over the years, I’ve watched many sales leaders go out and say, “Brian’s my top producer.

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 265

Sales Hacker

APRIL 8, 2024

In the competitive arena of B2B sales, mastering the art of prospecting is key to ensuring a healthy sales pipeline, daily demos booked, and hitting your sales quota. Fortunately for you, we’ve sifted through the clutter and done all the legwork to bring you the top 10 sales prospecting tools.

Scale 125

Scale Sales Recruiting B2B AI Search 125

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2021

If I had, I would have better understood the likely end point vis-a-vis freemium vs. enterprise. Not Hiring 2-3 Sales Reps to Start. More on that here: When You Hire Your First Sales Rep — Just Make Sure You Hire Two. Our first ‘enterprise’ customer seemed like an outlier. We should have taken $2m more.

Sales Recruiting 280

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale SaaS 280

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 8, 2018

In a time where buyer behavior has rendered cold calling nearly obsolete, successful sales prospecting begins with using tools like live chat and social media to build relationships. He’d go on to become the VP of Sales at Sprinklr, guiding the company through its own high growth period, before striking out on his own.

Social Media 186

Social Media Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 186

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 25, 2019

However, when researchers at UC Berkeley and Stanford explored growth at more than 3,000 startups , their key finding was that premature scaling was the most common cause of failure. Given that the primary metric we measure growth in is revenue, it follows that sales feels growth more acutely than almost any other function.

Scale 136

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 136

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

So the other day I looked back at about 25 SaaS seed investments I’d made that had scaled well past $10m-$20m and reflected on the top themes. They are all avoidable : #1: Stepping Out of Sales Ok really this is mistake #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5. Instead, how they spend time in sales changes. Here they are. More here. #2:

Sales Hiring 317

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling 317

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

In this Ask Me Anything Part 1, Lemkin answers the questions: Many VCs talk about funding, yet you’re so focused on sales. Question #1: Why Are You So Focused On Sales When Other VCs Are Focused On Funding? That VP of Sales came out of Salesforce. Lemkin’s Hail Mary was hiring Brendon Cassidy when that first VP of Sales quit.

Outsourcing Services 292

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 292

SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2020

A VP of Sales and Success A VP of Sales and Marketing A VP of Sales and Anything Else. Is usually not really a VP of Sales. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to recruit a lot of types of folks over the years where my domain knowledge was limited. I’ve had to recruit Ph.Ds. Not really.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 259

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2023

With teams spread across the globe, they had to find new working patterns to scale their businesses in a distributed environment. The company helps enterprises internationally with contextual and actionable insights to secure their cloud infrastructure. In 2020-2021, many SaaS startups faced a unique challenge.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 265

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales. Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 307

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

We do that with a combination of industry-leading content and community connections. This led to our first meet-ups in 2013 and 2014, the first SaaStr Annual in 2015 , the industry’s leading podcast in 2016, the first SaaS founder coworking space in 2017, and SaaStr Pro , the first learning management system for SaaS founders in 2018.

Scale 313

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 313

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 266

Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 266

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2021

I told this VC I bet that while they had no true enterprise customers, they had a few nice silos within some large customers. Because at this scale, there will be room at the bottom. But then the leaders break through, achieve Scale, and the outlines become clear. Harder to Recruit. He said this competitor was cheaper.

Scale 294

Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 294

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. And now it’s all about like, can you really scale and execute? Dev Ittycheria : Thank you.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 265

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 9, 2025

So read on, and hopefully, your SaaS sales journey will be less about trial and error and more about steady progress toward success. Whats important to note is that each model targets a distinct customer persona and, therefore, has a unique approach to the customer journeyfrom brand awareness to sales and, ultimately, conversion.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Sales Recruiting 52