SaaStr

MAY 12, 2021

Your VPs and Directors of Sales and sales ops leaders are cost centers here. Assume 1 sales manager for each 8 sales professionals. Fifth, the more specialized the sales process is, the more folks you’ll need. But in practice it often adds 20% or so to the headcount in the model. SDRs, BDRs, etc. 22 heads /.75

Scale 317

Scale Sales Hiring Headcount Sales 317

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

Your VPs and Directors of Sales and sales ops leaders and sales engineers are cost centers here. Assume 1 sales manager for each 8 sales professionals, and 1 head of sales development for each 10 SDRs. Fifth, the more specialized the sales process is, the more folks you’ll need. Fourth, add “load”.

Scale 306

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 306

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2024

So just a little while back, Lenny Rachintsky had me on his hyper-popular podcast to talk about scaling sales, from the perspective of a founder who hasn’t really done sales. They really are a great checklist when you are starting to scale sales in SaaS: #1. And sales go down, not up. #2. It’s a tough job.

Sales Hiring 315

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 315

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2021

Because SaaS requires so many functions beyond engineering, especially if it’s sales-driven … outbound, SDRs, inbound, field sales, marketing, customer success, support, more complex product management, etc. What will it look like, if it’s a sales-driven model? Talkdesk inside sales team at $10m ARR.

Sales Hiring 350

Sales Hiring Headcount Scale Engineering 350

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how to hire a Great VP of Sales. And we’ll keep talking about it — so long as 70% of first-time VPs of Sales don’t make it 1 year. I wanted to take a moment to explore the flip-side … a guide to why first-time VPs of Sales that finally get their shot — fail.

Sales Hiring 359

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount 359

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Many Sales Reps Do I Need? You can back into how many sales reps you’ll need in SaaS. Your VPs and Directors of Sales and sales ops and rev ops leaders and sales engineers are cost centers here. Assume 1 sales manager for each 8 sales professionals. 75 yield = 30 sales professionals.

Scale 322

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 322

SaaStr

AUGUST 23, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Growth Has Slowed and My VP of Sales is Pushing Me To Hire More Reps. In fact, the #1 sign your VP of Sales is really struggling is when their best answer to slowing sales is to hire even more sales reps. As if more humans, on their own, magically equal more sales. Is That The Right Way to Go?

Sales Hiring 298

Sales Hiring Headcount Sales 298

Tom Tunguz

MAY 16, 2023

I analyzed the headcount patterns within these companies to shed light on three questions : How are these top companies changing their headcount through the downturn? What percent of headcount is in product & engineering? What percent of headcount is in sales & marketing?

Headcount 312

Headcount Startup Scale Engineering 312

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

What are the top 10 mistakes founders are still making today when hiring their VP of Sales? In this post, we’ll delve into the common pitfalls founders encounter when hiring a VP of Sales. 1: You Can’t Stay Founder-Led Sales Forever. . #1: 1: You Can’t Stay Founder-Led Sales Forever. This one is newer.

Sales Hiring 309

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review 309

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 15, 2021

Post-PMF, the organization must evolve: it has to grow headcount and then manage that headcount well. Our GTM survey found sales teams with spans of control consistently outperform teams with spans of control greater than 7. It’s easy to miss that detail when building a headcount plan. On the right, three.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Headcount 363

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 5, 2020

But starting that week, startups began reducing headcount by about 700 per day. ClassPass, one of the fitness startups to reduce headcount, reported a 95% drop in sales in 10 days. Because sales cycles in software are slower, we should expect a higher latency before seeing reductions in force in those categories.

Sales Recruiting 357

Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 357

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2022

Dear SaaStr: How Many Sales Reps Do I Need? You can back into how many sales reps you’ll need in SaaS. Your VPs and Directors of Sales and sales ops and rev ops leaders and sales engineers are cost centers here. Assume 1 sales manager for each 8 sales professionals. 1 Sales/Rev Ops (at least). =

Scale 277

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 277

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 25, 2020

It contains data on go to market team structure, performance by sales function, marketing spend benchmarks, and customer success priorities. 1:1 AE/XDR ratios are the most common in both inside and outside sales teams. Sales teams with spans of control under 7 attain 80-95% of quota twice as frequently. Just pick a metric.

Headcount 364

Headcount Scale Benchmarks Retention 364

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

There is almost no software and non-headcount budget for CS. 64% of CS teams spend $200,000 or less a year on non-headcount, with growth stage companies spending the least, just 0.1% Having Sales own them usually creates the most pain. Having Sales own them usually creates the most pain. This data is interesting.

Customer Success 347

Customer Success Headcount Churn Revenue 347

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

and Lenny asked us to join his podcast to talk about building a sales team — from the perspective of a product-first founder or exec. It was a pretty strong conversation and we took a lot of our learnings over the years and focused on how to learn to do sales right if you come from a product-first background: It’s good.

Sales Hiring 290

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 290

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. Sales is a Team Sport at Salesforce At Salesforce, sales is a team sport.

Forecasting 290

Forecasting SMB Sales Technical Review 290

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2024

Growing Headcount and Expenses, Just More Slowly Than Revenue The story for most SaaS and Cloud leaders. They are still hiring and growing expense in all areas, from Sales and Marketing to Product to G&A. Sales & Marketing expense is up 9.8% — but that’s on 22% revenue growth. UiPath is modelling 3% a year.

Scale 304

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring AI 304

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 23, 2020

Massive headcount growth presages large software purchases and expansion. This data collection is one reason salespeople are critical to many sales processes. To scale, a company must find customers in ever larger numbers. The ideal scenario is one where purely external signals confer a prospect’s propensity to buy.

Scale 267

Scale Headcount Sales Startup 267

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

That works for a while, but you end up with not enough headcount if you do freeze hiring but still want to grow. Samsara is growing a stunning 40% as it crosses $1B in ARR — and says it needs more and more sales capacity. You can’t scale a high-growth SLG-led model without more and more sales reps.

Sales Hiring 328

Sales Hiring Headcount Scale Cloud 328

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2022

So, did headcount at the Series A. In 11 years, the median headcount at Series A swelled from 15 to 28. [1]. Fewer person hours means less marketing, sales pitches, & bookings. 1] Thank you to the Pitchbook team for running the headcount analysis data. [2] Founders declared a maximum acceptable dilution instead.

Headcount 325

Headcount Venture Capital Finance Startup 325

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2021

In the run-up to the 2021 SaaStr Annual , SaaStr’s very own Poya Osgouei sits down with Bryan Elsesser, VP of Sales at SaaStr. Bryan shares tips and his perspective on what’s been effective and useful during his first few months as the VP of Sales at SaaStr. Join us at SaaStr Annual at the end of September.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring Headcount Sales Branding 279

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2021

Flock Safety’s Founder and CEO, Garrett Langley, and its VP of Growth, Alex Latraverse, know a bit about sales. Enough to go from 0 to 100 sales reps in about 18 months — and they’re looking to be well beyond 100 by the end of this month. The three things that led to ramping up sales at Flock Safety were: Achieving product-market fit.

Sales Recruiting 260

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 260

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2023

At least in the short term, it is turning most of us can do more with about the same headcount in SaaS. #4. Product expansion key to its growth — its new Sales CRM already seeing very rapid adoption. Headcount Growing, But Slowly. Staying basically flat in headcount for 3 quarters while growing a stunning 50% (!)

Headcount 328

Headcount Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 328

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

In SaaS, #1 most common misfire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” or variants thereof. Because in SaaS start-ups, it seems like the majority of first VP Sales fail.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2020

We can derive the table above if we look over the entire respondent base and bucket headcount by ARR. The median startup with between 1-5M in ARR will have 12 engineers, 6 in sales and 3 in marketing. Meanwhile, the size of the marketing team increases only by 4X, compared to a 10X increase in sales and a 5X+ in engineering.

Scale 363

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 363

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2025

Sales Organization Structure Conrad reveals his preference for dedicated sales teams for each product, despite internal disagreement. His rationale: Training capacity : Sales teams can only absorb so much product knowledge. Expertise depth : Specialized teams can develop deeper expertise on specific products and competitors.

Startup 162

Startup Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Cloud 162

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 7, 2022

The promise of live chat for sales teams is being able to connect faster with higher quality leads. But any target-focused sales professional will want to know: how well does live chat actually work? Want to get started with live chat for sales? Why live chat is the missing ingredient in your sales funnel. Opportunity.

Sales Funnel 245

Sales Funnel Sales Headcount Payment Features 245

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 6, 2022

Surprisingly, PLG companies’ profitability has suffered more than sales-led businesses. Product-led growth (PLG) companies - those who educate & convert buyers with product rather than sales & marketing (SLG) - operate at about 5% to 10% less profitability than sales-led motions.

Headcount 344

Headcount Market Research Acquisition Education 344

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2022

Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, joined Matt Plank, VP of Sales at Rippling, to unlock the secrets to exponential revenue growth. For example, when Rippling started hiring more sales reps, it meant getting more leads as more emails went out. Instead of celebrating headcount, focus on growing efficiently in scalable ways.” .

Outsourcing Services 287

Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 287

SaaStr

MAY 30, 2023

And very few of you are doubling headcount, vs everyone in 2021. Eventually, efficiency in sales and marketing hits its limits. Hiring has way slowed down, but many folks are still hiring, albeit at a reduced rate. 56% of you aren’t hiring, or barely hiring. But a good chunk of you are still hiring, albeit in moderation.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring Headcount Engineering Revenue 278

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

And often, if you are capital efficient, your marketing cost will be close to $0 at this point (you are barely spending anything to acquire most customers), and your sales costs are pretty predictable. Generally speaking, one Director of Sales can manage about 8 closers, account execs, max. Why would this be? Maybe 10 SDRs.

Sales Hiring 270

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Venture Capital 270

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

A nice sweet spot for a mix of inside and outside sales. #3. Slowing headcount growth — like lots of others. Okta headcount grew 32% year-over-year, fairly consistent with revenue growth, but then Okta like others slowed down hiring. And that’s up from 118% at IPO. #2. ProServ is only 3% of Okta’s revenues.

Scale 317

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring SMB 317

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2020

Last year, the company doubled its headcount, tripled revenue and landed on G2’s Top 100 Global Software list. . Keep in mind that Conversation Intelligence is the fastest-growing segment in sales technology, with much traction in the enterprise. Is there any value in transcribing inside sales calls to sales people?

Scale 359

Scale Artificial Intelligence Payments Payment Services 359

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 1, 2023

Sales development, content marketing, & software engineering strike me as the workstreams that will benefit immediately. 1 BDRs are often mapped to AEs at 1:1 ratio & if we assume BDRs account for 25% of sales headcount (the remainder includes AE, sales operations, post-sales, & management).

AI 321

AI Startup Scale Headcount 321

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 22, 2023

B2B companies have reduced headcount to a greater extent than at any time since 2020. The main challenges facing B2B startups today are decreases in seat counts as their customers downsize & slower sales cycles which creates volatility in bookings , which has caused more layoffs than an anytime in the last four years.

B2C 321

B2C B2B Headcount Business Model 321

SaaStr

AUGUST 16, 2021

Pay sales reps on renewals (enough to keep them from overselling year 1). “Adding headcount in customer success dept” — Hoala Greevy, CEO, PauBox. You can’t cut corners in headcount in success with automation. You just make the headcount more effective. .” — Sam Blond, CRO, Brex.

Churn 328

Churn Sales Hiring Headcount Technical Review 328

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

So what should earlier-stage companies do: immediately build out a big sales team or focus on product-led growth? Now they have sales reps, but still consider themselves PLG. Directly through sales teams. Unlike many sales teams, this one only engages with existing customers of a certain size. Here’s why.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 264