Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 23, 2020

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. A prospect experiences hypergrowth is perfect example. Massive headcount growth presages large software purchases and expansion.

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Scale Headcount Sales Startup 267

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 15, 2021

There might be a few founders who lead, rather than the one depicted here. Post-PMF, the organization must evolve: it has to grow headcount and then manage that headcount well. As a business scales, the company benefits from a layer of managers to distribute the recruiting burden. The benefits of smaller teams are real.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Headcount 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 8, 2024

So, you have to make more money to justify the sales process and recognize that a lot of what drove the first generation of this was rapidly commoditizing and chasing people to the bottom. If you look at the best sales reps, they smash their numbers no matter what. Sales’ greatest filter is brutal work. You need to do it all.

Scale 277

Scale Scaling Point of Sale SaaS 277

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.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2022

How do you enter a highly competitive marketplace, carve a niche for yourself, and then scale the business to $100 million+ ARR? Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, joined Matt Plank, VP of Sales at Rippling, to unlock the secrets to exponential revenue growth. Scaling your go-to-market efforts.

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Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 282

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 29, 2019

In this week’s episode we’ve dug down into the podcast vaults to bring you some of the best insights shared by our guests about scaling sales. It’s no surprise that one of the key levers for growth as you go from startup to scale-up is your sales team. Hiring for sales with John Barrows.

Scale 172

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Payment Services 172

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.

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Sales Hiring Headcount Scale Engineering 349

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

And they will take at least a tiny amount to scale. 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. 75 yield = 30 sales professionals.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 301

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

But to Go Big, almost everyone in SaaS at least eventually adds a sales team. But to scale it quickly added a very effective sales team : Yes, Atlassian for a long time had almost no “direct” sales team, well after the IPO. With, and through, a sales team. You don’t need 100% sales-driven revenue to Go Big.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 341

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. And they will take at least some time to scale. That may actually be high, especially if you are scaling quickly and make a few hiring errors. Assume 1 sales manager for each 8 sales professionals.

Scale 319

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 319

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. More here. #4.

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Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 311

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2022

You might feel confused about where to begin, how to scale up, which mistakes you should avoid, and things you should consider before expanding. Now, let’s look at ten learnings that Dorian gathered while scaling Grammarly from a Consumer to an Enterprise brand with B2B offerings. Enter your email below for the latest SaaStr updates.

Scale 246

Scale SMB Enterprise Sales Hiring 246

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.

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Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

As companies scale, they evolve, so how should marketing evolve accordingly to add maximum value? PST, Kady shares the ten things that change in marketing as you scale. PST, Kady shares the ten things that change in marketing as you scale. The reality is that a lot of things change as we scale. The answer isn’t simple.

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Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 274

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.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review 304

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2024

NRR Holding Up at an Impressive 119% 100%+ NRR really can scale well past $1B ARR. 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. UiPath proves it again. #3.

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Scale Headcount Sales Hiring AI 299

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

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 24, 2018

How do you scale a support organization without breaking the budget or killing the quality of the customer experience? It’s an age old question for anyone leading a customer support organization, the sort of challenge that requires continuous innovation as a company and its customer base expands. Automation.

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Scale Customer Support Scaling Strategy 178

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2023

Vanta’s Chief Revenue Officer, Stevie Case, shares lessons learned from leading Twilio’s mid-market team and shepherding Vanta into a mid-market leader as the company’s first CRO. Some define it by headcount, typically around 200-2000 employees, and others by revenue, generally $10M to $1B annual recurring revenue. What do you do?

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Scale Enterprise Scaling SMB 243

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. And they will take at least some time to scale. That may actually be high, especially if you are scaling quickly and make a few hiring errors. Assume 1 sales manager for each 8 sales professionals.

Scale 272

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 272

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 20, 2020

Over the last few months, I’ve worked with customers who have seen an explosion in demand for their services and, as a result, have needed help onboarding new team members and scaling their customer experience. On the flipside, I’ve also had customers who are investing more in automation as they’ve reduced their headcount.

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Scale Customer Success Scaling Technical Review 223

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?

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Headcount Startup Scale Engineering 312

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. No doubt, Chorus provides this at scale. Yet the growth is likely to accelerate.

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Scale Artificial Intelligence Payments Payment Services 359

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 326

Sales Hiring Headcount Scale Cloud 326

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 284

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 284

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 2, 2019

How do you ensure a great customer experience globally without adding a ton of headcount? However, that means there is a huge opportunity for businesses who are able to scale personal, effective support. We surveyed 170 non-native English speaking SaaS customers, and 135 support team leads to learn more.

Scale 209

Scale Outsourcing Services Scaling Technical Review 209

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

A nice sweet spot for a mix of inside and outside sales. #3. High NRR leads to revenue growing faster than your new customer count. #7. A reminder scaling SaaS takes real capital. #9. Slowing headcount growth — like lots of others. And that’s up from 118% at IPO. #2. And a few other interesting learnings: #6.

Scale 313

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring SMB 313

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2023

HubSpot’s operating margins have scaled into the double-digits the past two quarters for the first time. At the end of the day, in SaaS, efficiency really comes from growing revenue faster than headcount. Almost everyone is doing more with … yes, more headcount, but only a smidge more. Including HubSpot. #4.

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Scale SMB Headcount New CTO 322

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2023

So while the media is full of stories of unicorns doing layoffs and massive cutbacks, the story is a bit different with leading public SaaS companies. Yes many public SaaS companies have done some sort of layoffs the past 12 months, they were often more really reorgs, though, without any net decrease in headcount. Billion in ARR!

Scale 245

Scale Headcount Point of Sale SaaS 245

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. Here are some things to remember when you think about scaling your next big SaaS company.

Sales Recruiting 255

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 255

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 11, 2019

If you’re a leader, he says, don’t try to scale your job. Since 2010, he’s helped the company grow to more than 40,000 customers and helped scale the support team to more than 500 employees to assist those users. Here are five quick takeaways: Most sales and support teams talk about their jobs as a funnel. Short on time?

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Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team 188

SaaStr

AUGUST 21, 2024

Grew Restaurant Locations 29% Year-Over-Year to 120,000 Perhaps the most important metric at scale. Only Grew Sales & Marketing Expense 12%, and Cut R&D (Product + Engineering) and G&A Expenses Toast has gotten to profitability by truly holding the line on headcount and revenue expenses. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Scale 301

Scale Payment Methods SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 301

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% (!)

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Headcount Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 326

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2022

Not having a traditional sales team sure helps. Never let it be said that SaaS can’t generate a lot of cash at scale. #3. I’d argue No until you are at scale. But once you are at scale, they can have a massive impact. #4. Transition to Cloud takes time at scale. Headcount up 7%, while revenue is up 37%.

Scale 262

Scale Marketplace as a Service Headcount Cloud 262

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

Even if leads are still a bit lumpy, outbound is still stretching itself … you at least learn how to close by this point. 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.

Sales Hiring 270

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Venture Capital 270

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Building revenue operations to support sales Deel had onboarded nearly 100 clients, reports showed good traction, and it was time to leverage this opportunity. Deel scaled the sales team from two to 250 account executives, but issues with productivity and enablement of the account executives cropped up. Use your data to inform.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 274

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.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 136