SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

I’ve come to almost exclusively invest in founder-CEOs that are engineers. Or at least where the co-founder CTO is a true equal partner to the CEO. You need to recruit a great engineering team. You’ve got to recruit a much bigger, and more expensive, engineering team in many cases. But — Jobs had Woz.

Outsourcing Services 293

Outsourcing Services Engineering CTO Scale 293

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2023

Dan Robinson, current Advisor and former CTO at Heap , shares five essential learnings from nearly a decade of building a SaaS business. What Your Job Is (And What It Isn’t) Your Job is to Make the Company Win A CTO may imagine their primary job is to provide technical expertise, lead engineers, and help build the product.

CTO Coach 242

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 242

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. These are all full-time jobs by $1m ARR.

Part-Time VPE 293

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 293

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

He joined StubHub as CTO, but didn’t get nearly as much equity as the other CTO — because he “wasn’t committed enough.” ” They had that conversation enough times to just build the first Twilio API. But at that time, fundraising was really tough. They wanted to invest in apps, not APIs.

CTO Hire 355

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Airlines 355

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

I’ve come to almost exclusively invest in founder-CEOs that are or were engineers. Or at least — where the co-founder CTO is a true equal partner to the CEO. You need to recruit a great engineering team. But usually there is an amazing (in terms of cleverness, if not always pure skillset) CTO from Day 1.

Outsourcing Services 263

Outsourcing Services Engineering CTO SaaS 263

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2020

Brendon introduces his playbook to hiring the first VP of Sales from his experiences as VP of Sales at LinkedIn, EchoSign, Talkdesk and more. Learn the dos and don’ts to make the correct hire the first time and not rush into hiring the wrong VP of Sales, which can cost the company months or even years. Roughly 90%.

Sales Hiring 229

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 229

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2020

But everyone hears from you all the time. Your investors and others will learn a lot more hearing about sales from your VP of Sales, your CTO co-founder … and not you. But that aside, usually one investor will be the one that helps you most recruit the team, recruit more capital, promote the company, be its biggest champion.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting New CTO Scale CTO 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

My experience across leading 30+ seed investments, including 4 billion+ exits so far, on why startups fail: Not 200% committed to winning no matter what. There are other reasons startups something do “Good But Not Great” or just OK, but that don’t lead to failure IMHE: Great CEO, Merely Good CTO.

Startup 282

Startup Scale CTO Pricing 282

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2022

Jenn Knight, Co-founder and CTO of AgentSync, and Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone, discuss how different approaches have helped each brand reach its target audience and accomplish its goals, the potential of product-led growth, and how to scale growth strategies to yield desirable results. tip their toes in new growth strategies.

New CTO 246

New CTO CTO Scale Innovation 246

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

Startups come in all shapes and sizes on various stages of a timeline, yet it’s not surprising how many have the same questions and concerns about how to scale from x to y to z, the right time to hire and fire, and how to keep a team motivated during hard times. His answers didn’t disappoint. They wanted a one-call close.

CTO Hire 242

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 242

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. There are no Cloud magicians, and you can’t hire a PLG magician. Let’s jump right into the questions.

Scale 284

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AI 284

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2023

I’ve invested in 5 start-ups that had a $1,000,000,000+ cash exit or IPO. Almost all of them had an amazing CTO or CPO, and hired a simply epic VP or two. Almost all of them had an amazing CTO or CPO, and hired a simply epic VP or two. Good but not great CEOs just can’t find a way to iterate fast enough.

CTO Hire 282

CTO Hire CTO Investment Marketing 282

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2021

What are the signs that an entrepreneur will always be small time? What makes a bad CTO? What types of due diligence are undertaken by VCs before investing in a company? I’m Head of Product and I think our CEO is actively recruiting a VP of Product. What are the most common mistakes first time entrepreneurs make?

Software Review 293

Software Review CTO Coach Technical Review Sales Recruiting 293

TechEmpower SaaS

OCTOBER 9, 2023

This enables internal users to swiftly find answers to queries such as "What is our internal IP address?" This has significantly reduced the time team members spend searching for information, enabling them to stay focused on their core tasks. cto , infotech , innovation , product , project , saas

AI Search 519

AI Search Artificial Intelligence Generative AI AI 519

TechEmpower SaaS

AUGUST 21, 2023

It provides findings and recommendations intended to foster a mutual understanding between business and software leaders, shedding light on the current state of your technology and your team. This part of the report can go deep on how your software stacks up with respect to feature delivery, security, reliability, and scalability.

Technical Review 390

Technical Review Software Review Development Team Review Systems Review 390

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2019

We’ll have the CTO and GM of Shopify and Shopify Plus; the COO of Squarespace; the CEOs of Gorgias and Algolia; and a dozen more e-commerce leaders in sessions, AMAs, and more on March 10. Recruiting Fair. Outside of SaaStr Square park, we’re adding the first-ever SaaStr Recruiting Fair. Be there!!

New CTO 329

New CTO Sales Recruiting CTO Coach Scale 329

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

Investing at a breathtaking pace. And he made an observation to me that I’d been thinking about for a very long time, but didn’t know how to express. In my first start-up as a founder, I had a great CTO and VPE and a pretty darn good VP Ops from the very beginning. 20×7, near as I can tell.

Part-Time VPE 293

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire AWS New CTO 293

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

You have to be careful to pair that with someone strong to manage the relationship, that has more time and that also can be trusted. As a founder, you’ll just run out of time to properly manage key customers and partners yourself. Hire that person, and make sure they are someone the top customers can really trust and count on.

CTO Hire 325

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO CTO 325

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2024

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? Jason Warner , who was CTO of GitHub before and during my time as COO there (and a former partner at Redpoint!) What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? We are currently investing out of our 9th Early Stage fund, a $650M vehicle.

Management 273

Management CTO Hire New CTO CTO 273

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

Which role should you hire for first? For starters, your first hire should be someone who can complement your skills, someone who is strong in areas where you’re weak, but it goes much deeper than that. Obviously, I can’t imagine a chief executive not having loss of sleep over building a management team. Mallun : Sure.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 261

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

They hire a VP of Sales who doesn’t want to sell or learn the product. You also don’t want to hire a VP of Sales who won’t carry a bag. If you joined a startup at $2M and wanted to get to $6M with reps doing $400k, that VP of Sales would need to hire ten reps. 90% of the time, sales falls when a founder steps out of it.

CTO Hire 209

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO Venture Capital 209

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 28, 2024

On Monday, at TC Disrupt Colin Zima CEO of Omni , Jordan Tigani CEO of Motherduck , Daniel Svnova CEO of Superlinked & Toby Mao CTO of Tobiko Data who are leading the evolution of the Post Modern Data Stack discussed the trends they are seeing. Here are some of the themes & predictions from the group. New BI systems will enable both.

Trends 243

Trends Data New CTO CTO 243

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

The goal is to help each other learn something new, find mentorships, create partnerships, and exchange strategies. with Olivier Adam, Chief Growth Officer at ReferralCandy Successful Scaling Across Markets, Lessons in Marketing & Building GTM with IvyCap’s MP with Ashish Wadhwani, Co-founder and Managing Partner.

VP of Engineering 293

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder Outsourcing Services CTO Coach 293

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

It starts at the beginning when someone interacts with your brand.” – Kim Walsh Hiring and collaboration for growth The product marketing team is the first function to hire for. The next hiring focus should be growth marketing. Once this is in place, start investing in paid channels.

Scale 244

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scaling 244

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to see: A couple of good hires brought in Improvement on some metrics A big deal or two hanging out there, brought in and closed Things taken off your plate. More time may make them better if they’re already progressing, even if it’s just 10-15% in the first sales cycle. Hiring someone too junior. That often compounds.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale CTO Hire 242

Valerian Tech

JANUARY 5, 2023

It can be beneficial to hire a fractional CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in a variety of situations. They can provide guidance on which technologies to invest in and help you create a roadmap for the future.

Fractional CTO 52

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Part-Time CTO CTO 52

Valerian Tech

DECEMBER 30, 2022

The role of a Fractional Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is to provide technical expertise and leadership to a company on a part-time or temporary basis. Technology vision and strategy: A fractional CTO is responsible for developing and implementing a long-term technology vision and strategy for the company.

Fractional CTO 52

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Part-Time CTO CTO 52

BetterCloud

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

For instance, if new hires don’t request access to a particular tool, or if no new licenses have been acquired within a year, it may be an opportunity to discontinue that tool. Proactive management is essential to control costs, mitigate security risks, and optimize software investments.

CTO 52

CTO Cost optimization & reporting SaaS Operational efficiency. 52

OpenView Labs

APRIL 12, 2019

Getting hiring right is absolutely critical. If you push them, what a VC will also tell you is that they back founders who have the ability to attract and recruit singular talent. I’d like to talk about two different companies with two very different approaches to hiring post-seed raise. We needed a CTO. Full disclosure.

CTO Hire 64

CTO Hire Investment New CTO CTO 64

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 20, 2021

As a result, much of the evaluation, investment, and rollout of virtual training technology in 2020 was rushed, limited in scope, and poorly planned. Businesses must take a step back, evaluate their software investments, and rework their implementations. How to maximize customer training investment.

Investment 123

Investment Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Artificial Intelligence 123

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2019

I remember my CTO once arguing with a Fortune 500 company on a “security” concern they had which really made no sense. More here: I Never Lost a Customer I Actually Visited | SaaStr Not hiring a full-time RFP person. Not hiring a full-time Chief Security & Compliance Offer. Didn’t matter.

Sales Hiring 174

Sales Hiring Enterprise CTO Hire CTO 174

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

You can watch the full session , and if you missed the podcast with the first half of the interview, you’ll find that here. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. They’ve invested in all of these other businesses. Henry Schuck.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

They were aware of it, but startups that I work with closely or invested in, if they got all the way to 25 million with 75% NRR, I would tell them to quit today. So I think my learning is just know the rules, know the KPIs, they’re all public, find public comps and copy them. VCs can only invest in outliers.

Outsourcing Services 243

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

BetterCloud

SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

Our new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Andra Milender defected from a medical career track before finding her footing on a technology path. What does your role as the CTO entail? You wear all hats as CTO. The definition of CTO is so broad and that’s what I like about this role!

Part-Time CTO 8

Part-Time CTO CTO New CTO Technology 8

SaaStr

JULY 28, 2021

I retired from SunGard Treasury Systems as their CTO. Bootstrapped because nobody in their right mind would have actually invested in us back then and took it up until 2014 as a bootstrapped company. Run it lean and you will be amazed at the amount of money that will be there when it’s the right time to scale.

Startup 284

Startup CTO Hire Sales Hiring CTO Coach 284

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

Co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah shared with us how they got there — and the top mistakes they made — just 3 quarters after their IPO. We have someone that probably 98 percent of you know virtually or socially in some sense, Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of HubSpot. You’ll find out tomorrow.

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 290

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

If you find this valuable, check out more episodes of our podcast. Some of the things we talked about were operational overhead and cost of various data stores we were running, along with whether or not we needed to hire dedicated database administrators for various different technologies. I thought, wow, the system works.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192