SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2024

Which segment has the best product-market fit? It’s your call to define this, but you really do need to know this from a velocity standpoint and enterprise versus commercial velocity, because it has a lot of impacts on your partnership with marketing, enablement, your messaging, and your assets.

Engineering 290

Engineering Development CTO Leadership 290

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2024

Don’t Hire B Players, Only Hire A Players Ben Salzman, co-host of the ZI labs podcast and EVP & GM Strategy at ZoomInfo asks Jason: ‘(At Echosign) What was the one thing that allowed you all to punch above your weight from a go-to-market perspective?’ ” If you hire a magnet, then the talent just flocks to it.

Sales Recruiting 310

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 310

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2025

This wasn’t just an improvement it fundamentally changed how brands could engage with SMS marketing. The learning: When you solve a genuinely hard problem, you get three moats for free: Technical advantage through innovation Legal protection through patents Thought leadership in the space 2.

Technical Review 268

Technical Review Payment Solutions Scale Payment Services 268

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

4 Unexpected Learnings from Dave’s Scaling Journey The $30M Revenue Threshold : Companies that can reach $30M in revenue have typically found sufficient product-market fit to scale to $100M. Timing market expansion is as important as the expansion itself. Find patterns that work, figure out what market you’re actually in.

Scale 191

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 191

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Under his leadership, the company has developed innovative AI-powered solutions for restaurant websites, online ordering, CRM, and marketing automation. Under her leadership, Alloy Automation has pioneered the use of AI to streamline API integration and documentation processes.

AI 227

AI Technical Review Artificial Intelligence Systems Review 227

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Using Dave Kellogg’s “ Four Sources of Pipeline ” framework, marketing should source 60% of the pipeline for a representative enterprise software company. . These sessions from SaaStr Annual 2021 provide a window into what approaches best-in-class marketers in SaaS are taking today: . Video: HE RE. Video: HERE. Video: HERE.

Scale 358

Scale Marketing SMB Leadership 358

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

5 Key Learnings from Scaling from 3 to 75 Go-To-Market Team Members in Less Than 12 Months The latest SaaStr CRO Confidential is out and Sam Blond did a great deep dive with Graham Mareno, VP of Worldwide Sales at Codeium. I really liked this one and wanted to write up a few more learnings. What is Codeium and Windsurf?

Sales Recruiting 247

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 247

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2023

Last week we had a great one with Sarah Scharf, VP of Marketing of Vanta, check it out here. This week we have Jessica Gilmartin, Chief Marketing Officer of Calendly! #1. Jessica brings nearly 20 years of marketing and leadership experience to Calendly. What’s your core stack of apps today?

Marketing 306

Marketing Leadership Engineering Enterprise 306

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Under his product leadership, Procore has grown exponentially, went public in 2021, and recently crossed the coveted $1B ARR milestone. Procore exemplifies this approach in the construction industry a massive market representing 13% of global GDP. This creates what I call “authentic product-market fit.”

Construction 255

Construction Scale SaaS Travel 255

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

Key points about SaaStr Annual : Focus on SaaS: Primarily focused on all aspects of SaaS business including sales, marketing, product development, and customer success. Large Audience: Considered the biggest SaaS conference with a large number of attendees from leading SaaS companies, startups, and venture capital firms.

Software 246

Software Scale Venture Capital SaaS 246

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2025

Meeting intensity KPI challenge : Sometimes AI efficiencies can reduce a company’s core metrics (like Calendly’s “meeting intensity”), requiring leadership to make conscientious decisions about value tradeoffs. That’s what Calendly’s leadership team discovered as they embarked on their AI journey.

AI 207

AI Scale Education User Experience 207

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

A great product, while necessary, isn’t sufficient to build a market leader and eventually a public company. Companies that win a market are just as good at Go-to-Market as they are at building great products. But to develop a GTM strategy, you must have Product Market Fit. Without it, you don’t have a business.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Outsourced Development 278

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2023

Specifically, if you have a clear understanding of the business and the market and what customers are trying to do, the right strategy should seem kind of obvious and simple.” If you understand the market, the ideal customer, and the product, you’ll be more successful in developing a simple strategy.

CTO Coach 242

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 242

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2024

Dave Gerhardt was VP Marketing at Drift, acquired for $1B, and then Privy, acquired for $100m, and now runs a great CMO/VPM community called Exit Five. Lemkin expresses concern about the changing work ethic and loyalty of sales and marketing professionals, observing a trend of multiple job-holding and lack of commitment.

Sales Hiring 298

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Technical Review Scale 298

Buffer Resources

AUGUST 6, 2024

Early in my career, the idea of “thought leadership” wasn’t on my radar. My passion for narrative naturally evolved into a commitment to thought leadership, where I leverage the art of storytelling for myself and my clients to share insights, provoke discussions, and influence change.

Social Media 114

Social Media Business Leadership Sales Hiring 114

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Theoretically, the relationship between sales and marketing should be easy –– after all, these teams are responsible for pulling in more business and increasing revenue. But the thing that we really need to ensure is that our sales and marketing teams are aligned on the core metrics.”

Enterprise 290

Enterprise Marketing Sales SaaS 290

SaaStr

JULY 22, 2022

The last few years have certainly tested marketers, but 2022 serves up a brand new array of challenges. In the eye-opening session, these marketing leaders discuss the market pulse, impactful branding, and strategies for the future. Economic Climate, Customer Behavior, & Market Trends. The Future of Marketing in 2022.

B2C 289

B2C Scale Marketing Sales Hiring 289

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

25x’d Revenue and Crossed $100M ARR Apollo.io, an all-in-one go-to-market platform, underwent a significant transformation in its business model that led to remarkable growth. CEO Tim Zheng came to SaaStr Annual to share the deep dive on the journey from SLG to PLG here: Initial Challenges and Market Position In 2019, Apollo.io

Scale 165

Scale Scaling Outsourced Development Sales 165

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

Budget Cuts or Organizational Changes : If you hear about budget tightening, restructuring, or new leadership, its a warning sign. Competitor Activity : If a competitor starts engaging with your customerwhether through marketing, sales outreach, or even just attending the same eventsits a sign they might be shopping around.

Churn 165

Churn Leadership Engagement Retention 165

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

It has now secured over $67M in funding and offers a robust platform for mid-market and SMB segments. But the drive and passion remained, and leadership didn’t give up. Blosser comments, “The big thing I want to share with everyone is just stick with it if you feel like you have product-market fit. Sometimes it can take longer.”

Scale 246

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 246

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2024

If it’s 40% small, 40% medium, and 20% large, you can project out what that might look like at $10M or $100M unless the market or you change it. If you have no medium or large customers, you’d probably do better to stay at the bottom of the market for now. Shopify stayed at the bottom of the market well past IPO.

Sales Hiring 291

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Interviewing 291

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2025

What’s Next The next 12-18 months will be critical for SaaS companies looking to establish leadership in vertical AI. cost savings, 35% time savings The Partner Ecosystem Play IBM isn’t going it alone. IBM’s Instruct Lab approach, delivering 98.5%

AI 191

AI Scale SaaS Government 191

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2021

Zoom even at $100m ARR still felt like it was in a crowded market. But will the market truly pay for it? The post 5 Ways to Enter a Crowded Market. So that’s not really an excuse pic.twitter.com/rUyeUzMKC6. — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) December 22, 2020. In the early days, you will be buggy and feature-poor.

Marketing 353

Marketing Scale Branding Enterprise 353

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

In the new episode, Jason sits down with Drata CMO Sydney Sloan to talk about what’s new at Drata, the role of CMO at Drata vs. Salesloft, partner marketing, customer marketing, and more. Sydney pulled someone from Salesloft with a product marketing background who understands operations, running programs, and being strategic.

AWS 285

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 285

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2023

One app we did add this year was Madkudu , to change the way we prioritize what leads Marketing sends to sales. #3. Udi Ledergor is a five-time Marketing leader at B2B start-ups and currently the Chief Evangelist at Gong. As Chief Evangelist, Udi oversees Gong’s market leadership through new product launches and thought leadership.

Leadership 349

Leadership B2B Branding Startup 349

SaaStr

JULY 23, 2024

PST, Salesloft CRO Mark Niemiec shares a 5-step playbook for how to deal with market conditions and execute on your vision successfully. Step 1: Research and Discovery When you join a company as a CRO or sales leader, you want to evaluate the business to understand the organization and how it fits into the broader market landscape.

Leadership 299

Leadership Scale Benchmarks Communication 299

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Speakers share their playbooks on everything from achieving product-market fit to optimizing CAC:LTV ratios and scaling go-to-market strategies. SaaStr Annual attracts thousands of high-quality SaaS professionals across functions like engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2022

From a venture capital perspective, there’s now a premium on driving efficient growth rather than growth at any cost. . “Sales and marketing alignment is a terrific place to figure out and improve efficient growth.” . From the get-go, ensure alignment between sales and marketing teams on goals and anticipated outcomes.

Scale 328

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Marketing 328

TechEmpower SaaS

AUGUST 21, 2023

The explanation from software leadership is often unsatisfying or unclear. Other common scenarios that we’ve seen: Scaling and new markets: Your company and product are established, and now you’re scaling or going after new markets. Keeping up with the competition: You’re a market leader in a fast-growing field.

Technical Review 390

Technical Review Software Review Development Team Review Systems Review 390

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 23, 2022

It’s up to the CRO to keep a company’s marketing and product strategy in the kind of lockstep that drives it to produce the revenue it needs. For example, over the years, Angolia’s go-to-market strategy has tied together every part of its company, from finance to legal. . What is your total addressable market? Key takeaways.

Underperforming Technical Team 317

Underperforming Technical Team Leadership Outsourced Development Finance 317

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2024

In reality, boards and executives are often reluctant to let go of leadership, recognizing the disruption and challenges that come with replacing key roles. Instead, demonstrate a deep understanding of your product’s position in the market and how to leverage its strengths. Jason says, “There’s no bandaid in leadership.”

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Revenue 303

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2022

Dear SaaStr: At What Point Should Founders Pay Themselves a Market Salary? Taking a market salary when cash is very tight is, at best, penny-wise and pound foolish. In fact, make sure you pay yourself a market salary then. It’s one more marketing campaign. The right answer is: just as soon as the company can afford it.

Marketing 296

Marketing Engineering Revenue Compensation 296

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

For example, what do you measure a marketing team on? If you have centralized leadership here, the CRO model where demand gen flows to the CRO responsible for top and bottom line numbers, you get more out of the funnel. If everyone is hyper-focused on the right things, you have faster conversions. Old school might be MQLs or SQLs.

Marketing 276

Marketing Finance Startup Leadership 276

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

The Startup Stage: Finding Product-Market Fit The startup stage is the foundation of any SaaS companys journey. During this phase, the primary focus is on building a product that meets a specific market need and ensuring that early users validate its core functionality.

Pricing 112

Pricing Scale SaaS Technical Review 112

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

As companies scale, they evolve, so how should marketing evolve accordingly to add maximum value? Kady Srinivasan , CMO of Lightspeed Commerce, has been through every stage of marketing growth at companies like DropBox, Owlet, Klaviyo, and now Lightspeed Commerce. PST, Kady shares the ten things that change in marketing as you scale.

Scale 280

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 280

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2024

Coming in early on to start the marketing function at Zoom, it was all about driving revenue and surviving. At different stages, the Marketing department of your org and your company may be focused on different initiatives to try to meet a mutual outcome. And without that context, you lose out.” What do we value?”

Sales Hiring 311

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Review Leadership 311