SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

Do you have to double your headcount to make it from $10M to $20M or even $2M to $5M? For headcount specifically, make sure that the constraint to growing faster is that you don’t have enough salespeople to work the demand that exists for your business. When those outcomes are achieved, the hire gets their headcount.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 306

Sales Hacker

JULY 24, 2018

Decreased revenue per rep, High turnover as you scale headcount. We made our machine more efficient even as we scaled, grew headcount, and skyrocketed our revenue. In the first six months of the year, our team’s headcount grew by almost 60%, yet our revenue outpaced that, growing by 142%. Don’t ask them about it in theory.

Scale 78

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Scaling 78

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

This requires effort from your entire organization, and Handshake VP, Employer Partnerships Jessica Peluso outlines some changes that you can make to your brand, and your application, interview, and offer process that will help find the talent you are trying to attract and hire. Below is the transcript of Jessica’s session.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 264

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

Because sales is a lead-driven but headcount- closed business. 10 Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales During an Interview. Let me give you a partial interview script that may help a bit. And the great VP of Sales all know this. To hit their number, they know they need the heads. Backfilling and Helping His/Her Sales Team.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 20, 2019

Business needs and team headcounts will change as a company matures. This means that if an SDR shows she is ready for a promotion but headcount doesn’t exist for the next role, she will not be promoted until that headcount opens up. The takeaway: Exceeding SDR quota is step one for a promotion to a closing role.

Sales Hiring 35

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Headcount 35

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 29, 2019

This data typically comes in three broad flavors: Firmographic: This includes employee headcount, revenue, vertical, business model, location, tech stack, web traffic, and other publicly available information about the customer. Consider these other examples: For business collaboration tools, headcount likely indicates differing needs.

Business 184

Business B2C Scale Headcount 184

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

We’re still learning what world we’re in — some people interview over Zoom, some are focused on how to build teams in the current age, and many are dealing with a weird overhang from the SaaS explosion of 2021, quiet quitting, layoffs, and team turnover. In interviews, ask them if they want to close any in the first 90 days.

Sales Hiring 162

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 162

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 20, 2022

We surveyed and interviewed key people in our teams to understand how they worked and how they saw Intercom’s internal operations. We’ve done interviews. And sure enough, the feedback was that things were starting to slow down. Speed is a first-class citizen at Intercom, but it should be in every single company.

Underperforming Technical Team 249

Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Sales Hiring Scale 249

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

What started as a series of interviews by co-founder Des Traynor soon bloomed into hundreds of episodes where we explore how businesses are driving growth through customer relationships and how to build successful products at scale. I’m recording the first in what I expect to be a series of interesting interviews.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

Sales Hacker

APRIL 5, 2021

Over the course of time, I’ve interviewed and talked to hundreds of sales candidates. Beyond obvious things like race, weight, age, and religion, there are a multitude of hiring biases that can affect decision-makers in positions of power when interviewing candidates for open roles. First impressions still count.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Company Culture Interviewing 125

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 26, 2021

You may not know what your team needs until the ideal candidate shows it to you in an interview. That said, there’s no one-size-fits-all profile that works for every company or even every hire. At Intercom, having a diverse team is a priority, and we’re open to candidates who show promise but might not check every box perfectly.

Scale 160

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 160

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

DECEMBER 3, 2013

Besides working through your budget, marketing programs, headcount, and whatever else you need to have in place when the new year rolls around, I’d suggest you add another item: Review your value proposition and messages. Here’s why. Most of your marketing plans are meant to deliver your messages to your target audience. Ask your customers.

Headcount 100

Headcount Social Media Interviewing Mobile 100

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 29, 2019

That’s why one of my favorite interview questions is, “What are you passionate about?” When I started, they had a big growth plan as far as headcount, but they were a little bit looser on processes and cadences and things like that framework I was talking about. Sales is a brutal profession.

Scale 172

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Payment Services 172

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

You need to build an efficient sales team…you can’t just throw money or headcount at things. You need to maximize everything you possibly can to beat the competition because you can’t just throw money or headcount at things. Did you know there was an appetite for this? That was the impetus for starting Sales Hacker.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2019

For a cross-functional role like product ops, it’s not only about convincing leadership for headcount and resources. The following is a summary of some of the best advice I’ve heard in dozens of interviews with products ops leaders: 1. Explain the “why”.

Headcount 113

Headcount Interviewing Leadership Content Marketing 113

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 22, 2019

From my initial interview with our CEO, Chris, it was clear that company culture would be a big focus. I went from being the 8th hire at Invoca to helping grow headcount to 140 at the time of my departure. Q: What inspired you to join FastSpring? A: There were several things that inspired me to join FastSpring in 2017.

VP of Engineering 113

VP of Engineering Company Culture Headcount Scale 113

Sales Hacker

APRIL 29, 2021

In candid workflow interviews with reps from companies spanning the spectrum, we continue to hear why they hesitate to use the content that has been created for them. The size of your company and the volume of content you must produce each quarter will determine the headcount needed on your team. Content Management.

Scale 117

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 117

InsightSquared

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

If you have open headcount for Q1 be interviewing in Q4. Behind headcount equals behind plan. Make sure you have the right people in the right jobs. Deal with under-performers. Also, highlight your “A” players that are at risk to leave and put a plan in place to retain them. Have everyone participate.

Sales 78

Sales Headcount Sales Enablement Compensation 78

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

The Horizons Framework is an effective way to categorise projects, which in turn helps with assigning budget, headcount and timelines. An example of diminishing returns is Google’s hiring process - the technology giant discovered that four interviews was enough to predict whether someone should be hired with 86% confidence.

Underperforming Technical Team 213

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service 213

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 12, 2018

As VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter, Elad Gil was a key player as company headcount skyrocketed from 90 to 1,500 employees. This wasn’t Elad’s first experience with hyper growth – Google grew headcount 10x during his time as a product manager there – nor the last. What do you mean, and how do you navigate that challenge?

Sales Hiring 120

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 120

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

It’s your secret to finding the diamonds in the rough when you need more qualified leads, without increasing headcount. Should you start by interviewing leads? Whether you have too many leads or too few, prioritizing leads is a gamechanger. Draw data from all departments (not just sales). Where do you start with lead scoring?

Sales 127

Sales Underperforming Technical Team Systems Review Headcount 127

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 21, 2024

On a much smaller scale, we’ve also started to see some leaders deploying their genAI budget against headcount savings, particularly in customer service. In 2024, however, many leaders are reallocating that spend to more permanent software line items; fewer than a quarter reported that genAI spend will come from innovation budgets this year.

Generative AI 145

Generative AI Enterprise AI Artificial Intelligence 145

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

Below is a lightly edited transcript of our interview. This is the second in a series of interviews over the next couple months about unlocking the potential of growth. If you enjoy the conversation and don’t want to miss the rest of the series, check out more episodes of our podcast.

Growth Marketing 174

Growth Marketing Scale Marketing Outsourcing Services 174

BetterCloud

OCTOBER 14, 2020

But when I interviewed here, I knew I had to take the job—and I’ve loved it ever since. That includes things like headcount, improving our tools, and rethinking how we handle unique situations. An opportunity came up over at Namely and the office is downtown in Manhattan. We didn’t have to change anything.

Headcount 98

Headcount Systems Review Leadership Travel 98

ChurnZero

JANUARY 13, 2023

First, digital CS will become a way of life due to flat or reduced headcount. Reach out to one to two customers a week for a 20- to 30-minute interview. Ask the same questions to all the customers you interview. A few common themes emerged. You just need to ask. Then compare the answers.

Trends 98

Trends Customer Success Sales Hiring Artificial Intelligence 98

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 25, 2018

There's a certain headcount above which the blogposts on "no managers", "flat structure", "no hierarchy" and the like seem to just… stop. Not learning how to interview managers or how to value management experience. — Des Traynor (@destraynor) November 21, 2015. Let’s drill into the last one.

Scaling 152

Scaling Startup Headcount Engineering 152

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Sales now accounts for about 7% of the company’s headcount–a similar share of their workforce as marketing or product management. In a 2019 podcast interview , President Jay Simons emphasized that Atlassian has a low touch sales model. The rest of their headcount only grew by 31%. This is a good thing.

Sales Hiring 57

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 57

FastSpring

JULY 11, 2024

In this episode of Growth Stage, we interview Sahil Patel of Spiralyze about his thoughts on: Special considerations for B2B CRO. Podcast Full Interview: Audio Listen online or find it on more podcast services. They have the headcount. The best way to think about your B2B test data approach. Jump to video. Jump to transcript.

B2B 168

B2B Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales 168

OpenView Labs

MAY 20, 2021

The same was true when I ran the People function at a software development consultancy that doubled its headcount to ~100 while reducing attrition from 40% to 5% voluntary in 18 months. I’ll often start interviews with a simple “What’s your why?”, They knew the downstream effects. Even kids and pets.

Scale 84

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Software Review 84

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 19, 2022

Using bots to triage conversations or solve simple queries frees your team to focus on more complex issues and allows you to scale without adding headcount. In the report, we learned that the average CSAT of the teams interviewed has increased by 11 percentage points, from 78% to 89% this year. Going proactive.

Benchmarks 104

Benchmarks Sales Hiring Scale Strategy 104

BetterCloud

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

From there, the next step was the interview, during which the nominees shared their unique IT challenges, approaches, and accomplishments. Once interviews were complete and summarized, an internal BetterCloud team voted for the winners. Like every year, selecting the best of the best was extremely difficult.

Headcount 52

Headcount Innovation compliance Interviewing 52

Sales Hacker

JUNE 16, 2021

Startup hurdle: headcount. If you need a new tool in one month, you’ll have to move fast through the steps: Needs assessment: Interview your reps to identify pain points, review your existing tech stack for gaps in functionality, and assess any unique security requirements. Set realistic goals and delegate tasks. SMB hurdle: buy-in.

Sales Enablement 122

Sales Enablement Scale Sales Hiring Technical Review 122

Neil Patel

JANUARY 8, 2019

And to give you an idea of how many companies are making this mistake… I interviewed 208 companies that generate over a million bucks in revenue. Don’t be afraid of headcount… remember teams build great businesses, not individuals. Don’t just focus your efforts on traffic acquisition, focus on conversion optimization.

Marketing 111

Marketing Sales Hiring Technical Review Scale 111

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 13, 2021

You can also read the full transcript of the interview, which has been lightly edited for clarity, below. Early on, how you might think about your capacity planning or your headcount allocation for CS is very much a cost-centric framework. Riding the hyper-growth wave. Linda: That’s a great question. Well, it’s not me.

Scale 177

Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Strategy 177

OpenView Labs

JUNE 10, 2019

We’ve compiled our favorite articles, advice, podcasts and interviews in this guide. Read on for more insights from OpenView’s interviews with product experts. Nick Petri assesses how to find the right ratio of headcount between product management, UX and development. Product Management Mental Models for Everyone. Podcasts.

Management 55

Management SaaS Scale Sales Recruiting 55

Chart Mogul

JULY 15, 2021

Same when you reach 100 people.” – Hiroshi Mikitani, Rakuten CEO, based on an interview with Phil Libin. We both noticed a similar pattern: alignment on key metrics breaks as headcount grows: More teams means more silos in processes and tools used to follow metrics. But when there are 10 people it’s all going to change again.

Underperforming Technical Team 52

Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Scale Communication 52

Chart Mogul

JULY 15, 2021

Same when you reach 100 people.” – Hiroshi Mikitani, Rakuten CEO, based on an interview with Phil Libin. We both noticed a similar pattern: alignment on key metrics breaks as headcount grows: More teams means more silos in processes and tools used to follow metrics. But when there are 10 people it’s all going to change again.

Underperforming Technical Team 52

Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Scale Communication 52