article thumbnail

Everything is Sort of the Same at a Given ACV (Annual Contract Value)

SaaStr

But there’s one thing I can tell you in SaaS, at least: Almost Everything Except the Product Itself is Sort of the Same at a Given ACV (Annual Contract Value) Level. You may need solutions architects, more sales engineers, more support. Your engineers can build complex features that only a handful of customers use.

article thumbnail

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

SaaStr

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. Or churn will increase, NPS will stagnate and decline, and upsell and revenue retention will be a fraction of what it could be.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

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

SaaStr

In SaaS, once you have even a few million in ARR, the #1 challenge is recruiting top-tier VPs and building a truly top-tier 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. She can be your CTO forever.

Scale 279
article thumbnail

5 Interesting Learnings from Okta at $2.5 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

Founder CEO Todd McKinnon was VP of Engineering at Salesforce and left to start Okta in the depths of the last downturn. Seat Contractions Have Brought NRR Down From 120% to 111% While 111% NRR is still quite an engine at this scale, the drop in NRR from seat contractions explains a good chunk of the headwinds Okta has seen. #2.

article thumbnail

How to Hire A Great VP Sales: The Full Video and Transcript

SaaStr

One of the first what How to Hire a Great VP of Sales at the New York Enterprise Tech Meet-Up (thank you to John Lehr and Work-Bench for setting this up). The Number One Thing You Can Do to Accelerate Your Business Post-Initial Traction is Hiring a Great VP of Sales. I don’t know anything about sales.

article thumbnail

What were 5 distinct milestones that you encountered on the road to becoming a CEO?

SaaStr

To hire our CTO, our first VPE, etc. And to close $6m in customer contracts through founder-led sales. Bootstrapping is far better. But if you do need to raise money, it’s the CEO that has to do it. And I learned to recruit. I’m still learning. View original question on quora.

article thumbnail

7 Pieces of Advice Entrepreneurs Never Hear That They Need to Hear with Jason Lemkin

SaaStr

The best engineers and CTOs build and release better software faster than the competition. A great Head of Sales will move the needle. All that matters is people, and the number one mistake founders make is hiring a VP of anything that you aren’t 95% sure is great. A VP who hasn’t leveled things up in 90 days never will.