SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2024

What does it take to scale a team from 2 to more than 1,100 people in just a few short years? When Remote had 120 people two weeks into 2021, they planned to scale to 600 that year. At the same time, you want to give trust and power to people who recruit, and you do that by ensuring they understand what the culture is.

Scale 264

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 264

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Scaling to $150M ARR and beyond is no simple task. Back then, remote first was a recruiting advantage. Will this change as Grafana Labs scales? But they’re still one of the last remaining open-source companies at scale. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team. How did it come to be?

Scale 297

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 297

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

In particular, hiring for your sales team is critical in an uncertain economic outlook. Additionally, sales professionals looking for a new role should choose their next company wisely. Great Companies Attract Great Talent Blond and Braverman have enjoyed successful careers as sales leaders in high-performing companies.

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 244

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

We’ve talked a lot over the years about how not to hire a wrong VP of Sales — 70%+ of the first VPs of Sales don’t make it even 10 months. And figure out if they really are great: For your prospective VP of Sales, did her top 2 hires at least crush it and blow out their quotas ? Recruiting.

Part-Time VPE 352

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 352

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2020

Nothing matters but recruiting and using your personal network. Sam Blond, CSO at Brex explains why recruiting, networking and employee happiness is the key to this playbook on recruiting your sales team. Sam Blond | Chief Sales Officer @ Brex. I’m doing The Playbook To Recruiting Your Sales Team.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 195

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2022

Having learned from thousands of customers and prospects, Sarah Lash, Envoy’s head of enterprise sales, will talk about what it takes to guide and scale enterprise sales programs during an uncertain future. In my first six months at Envoy , I grew the sales team from six to 17. Combine Strategies To Drive Sales.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 246

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

In the latest episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with Ashley Kelly, VP of Global Sales Development at Rippling. For context – Ashley had previously helped Sam scale Brex’s outbound sales from $2M to over $300M in ARR as Senior Director of SDR.

Sales Hiring 316

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 316

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

We’ve talked a ton on SaaStr over the years on how to make sure your VP of Sales and top hires really work out. We can pretty much summarize a lot of it into the following: Your VP of Sales should have lots of experience selling at your average ACV. for that type of sale. That they are the right ones. Ask who they are.

Sales Recruiting 334

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 334

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2023

So one recent survey we did really brought out a healthy debate: does your VP of Sales really need to be a product expert? Many of the comments said it was more important a VP of Sales understand process and leadership more than the product itself. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. At least a little bit.

Scale 297

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 297

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

A few factors that contribute to high-performing sales teams: High quota attainment. The best startups invest in their sales teams and work hard so most of the reps hit and exceed quota. It does mean a well-oiled machine that hires strong reps of all backgrounds, and gets them the help and training so they can scale up and succeed.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Mark Roberge , SaaStr fan-favorite and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital brought together some of the top CROs in SaaS during the SaaStr Annual to share some of their greatest learnings and pivotal moments leading some of the Cloud 100 SaaS companies. From a GTM execution standpoint, they weren’t focused.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 278

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2022

We’ve talked a ton about How to Hire a Great VP of Sales on SaaStr, but I wanted to highlight a few VP of Sales “personas” that I rarely, if ever, see work out. Because again and again, many of your will hire this VP of Sales. Here are the types of VP of Sales that just never work out. Sales is hard.

Sales Recruiting 306

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Scale 306

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2022

It’s the never-ending stereotype –– marketing and sales are eternal “frenemies.” However, this push-and-pull doesn’t have to be part of your organization as long as you hire and empower the right leadership. Tip Three: Better Recruiting. What I care much more about is growth rate –– that’s [sales and marketing leaders’] DNA.

Leadership 244

Leadership Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale 244

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Storyblok started with a leadership-first hiring plan and a recruitment strategy that involved the following: A test to know how candidates handle different tasks and their expertise level. Their first step to achieving this was hiring a sales leader to build a sales team. Prioritize customer and employee satisfaction.

Scale 245

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 245

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Pretty incredible at scale. For example, a great Stretch VP of Sales might get you to from $50k to $500k a month in new bookings. Leads and pipeline that flattens. Especially, if the marketing spend keeps growing but the leads don’t. Many first-time VPs just can’t recruit great managers under them.

Sales Recruiting 315

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Metrics 315

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.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 17, 2024

Discussed in this Episode: Learnings from each major company in Guy’s 20+ leadership career: Microsoft, Tradeweave (first employee and executive committee), Yahoo, Twitter, BrightRoll and Intellimize. 15:41) Scaling Twitter’s ad business and managing hyper-growth. (26:54) Youre not alone. Why HG Insights?

Scale 102

Scale Engineering Acquisition Scaling 102

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. How to manage customer success. About recruiting and helping you scale. When to hire her (more here ).

Sales Hiring 357

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Engineering 357

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2021

And that means your initial leadership team often takes you faster, and further, than you might ever think. There are roughly 2 types of start-up management teams. The first type is the kind of management team hired by second+ time founders. Often folks they convince to once again be a VP of Eng or VP of Sales.

Part-Time VPE 285

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 285

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. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. You can do this.

Part-Time VPE 299

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 299

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

The team is typically highly cross-functional, working together with sales, product, engineering, and marketing, and the goal is to help the other teams make better decisions through data and financial modeling. You must build a lean, impactful team to help your business scale. Sign up for free HERE !

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2022

Jason recently opened up an AMA on Twitter Spaces to answer questions about scaling from $1M to $10M. We did a good AMA on this scaling at SaaStr Europa in Barcelona, a couple weeks back. That will scale, and then take those emails after four great pieces of content and do a weekly webinar and do a weekly get-together for them.

Scale 298

Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring VP of Engineering 298

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ revenue professionals weekly to stay up-to-date and scale their companies and careers. Examples include: Thought Leadership : Actively source and share opportunities for customers to showcase their expertise.

Scale 113

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring AI Search 113

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

Your best sales reps can close so much more than your average rep. Move the bottom 10% out and give the best leads to your top performer, and watch sales go up 20%. The best VPs of Sales design comp plans so the team never wants to leave. You should be striving for zero voluntary attrition on your sales team.

Sales Recruiting 287

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 287

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2020

The lead commit goes up each quarter and every year. To want a head of sales operations and a director of sales to help carry the load not later … but on Day 1. To want a head of sales operations and a director of sales to help carry the load not later … but on Day 1. as you race past $10m+ in ARR.

Sales Hiring 304

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS 304

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

And your first VP of Marketing just increases qualified leads by 25%. More on that here and a great video discussion below: You’ll probably be ready for your first VP of Sales by $1m in ARR. Ideally, have your VP of Sales on board in time to hire reps 3-300. But you’ll need a manager to scale beyond 2.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

If a VP of Sales can’t improve things in one sales cycle or less — she never will. In one sales cycle, or less. If a great VP of Marketing can double your inbound leads — of course you can afford her salary. Don’t hire some junior marketing person that can’t really get you more leads.

Part-Time VPE 348

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 348

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 8, 2018

In a time where buyer behavior has rendered cold calling nearly obsolete, successful sales prospecting begins with using tools like live chat and social media to build relationships. He’d go on to become the VP of Sales at Sprinklr, guiding the company through its own high growth period, before striking out on his own.

Social Media 186

Social Media Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 186

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

Some engineers by training, others in sales or product originally. But a few uniting characteristics of the very best: Relentless Recruiters. You have to be constantly recruiting the best. The best founders usually spend at least 20% of their time recruiting. You can’t do it all yourself, at least not as you scale.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling Engineering 246

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

From $1m in ARR, and Then Forever After: Recruiting Great VPs. You need to learn to become great at recruiting. As you finally begin to scale, you’ll have enough revenue to hire some great folks, but not enough to build very redundant teams. More here: From Initial Traction to Initial Scale (~$10M in ARR): The Hardest Phase.

Sales Recruiting 290

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 290

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2020

Your investors and others will learn a lot more hearing about sales from your VP of Sales, your CTO co-founder … and not you. This also will make you appear to be a much stronger manager. Especially, don’t try to talk over your weakest VPs and managers. All-hands meetings, board meetings, whenever.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting New CTO Scale CTO 363

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. And now it’s all about like, can you really scale and execute? Dev Ittycheria : Thank you.

Sales Recruiting 264

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 264

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales. Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 306

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

This happens with some regularity in SaaS, I’ve learned (and to be clear: I’m not talking about any company I’ve invested in, am an advisor to, board member of, etc – Because when it’s still a very small team, with no true management team … co-founders can kind of hack it to $1m-$2m in ARR together.

Sales Recruiting 278

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 278

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

You need engineering, product in all start-ups — but in SaaS, even in the very early days, you also need sales, client success, true support, demand gen marketing, etc. Routine Sales. You gotta hire 2 great sales reps as soon as you can. This didn’t work well until I had a Great VP of Sales. That was me.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 299

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

So the other day I looked back at about 25 SaaS seed investments I’d made that had scaled well past $10m-$20m and reflected on the top themes. They are all avoidable : #1: Stepping Out of Sales Ok really this is mistake #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5. Instead, how they spend time in sales changes. Here they are. More here. #2:

Sales Hiring 317

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling 317

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.

Scale 136

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 136