SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

As a founder/CEO, building your first management team is something that you often lose sleep over. 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. And for good reason.

Sales Hiring 258

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 258

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

If you’re running a smaller digital business, you may find it challenging to hire great talent. If you’re facing challenges winning the best candidates for your roles, or if you have a small number of roles and every hire really matters, then don’t miss this episode of Growth Stage. X sales force, X meta.

SMB 105

SMB Sales Recruiting Branding Sales Hiring 105

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Just like filing your income tax returns or hanging that state-mandated safety poster up in your break room, sales tax is a back-office pain point, not a profit center. . That makes sales tax compliance easy to ignore… until it becomes a problem. . Why is sales tax such a pain for SaaS companies? There are a few reasons.

Merchant Services 195

Merchant Services Technical Review Scale Sales Hiring 195

The Angel VC

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Continuing my little series using the "minimum viable" approach , here is my 2nd DO for SaaS startups: Build the right team I've written about the topic before, so if you've read this post from early this year most of what I'm going to write now won't be new for you and you may want to skip this article. What comes next?

Sales Hiring 121

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup Outsourced Development 121

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

I was working with a company that … Because people will write big checks today into early stage companies, where someone came in very early and gave an early startup $50 million too early, and just started telling them how to raise the company, immediately told them to go buy competitors, which they’re not ready for.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Investment 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

Since 2010 we’ve seen more startups, funds, and capital than ever before, but with this drastic increase, investors are seeing unexpected new trends reshaping the future of the industry. Pietro Bezza | Managing Partner @ Connect Ventures. It’s taking the bets that will take longer to prove just because it’s new.

New CTO 174

New CTO Sales Hiring B2C CTO Hire 174

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Last night I read this question on Quora : In general terms, what is the ideal size and make-up of a team for a pre-revenue SaaS startup? I do have a slight preference with respect to the team size as well, but it's light because I've seen and worked with very successful SaaS startups with different team sizes.

CTO Hire 106

CTO Hire Startup Sales Hiring New CTO 106

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

Last night, SaaS Office Hours hosted Optimizely co-founder and CTO Pete Koomen. Pete was a Google Associate Product Manager for AdSense and launched Google App Engine. First, hire a management coach to work with you as the company grows. These were some of the things I learned from Pete. And you should do it right then.

CTO Coach 113

CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire Startup 113

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. They have service and all this, but the second cloud for them was sales. Your core models for sales, for marketing spend, for hiring and engineering and product.

Outsourcing Services 243

Outsourcing Services Banking CTO Hire New CTO 243

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. But of course, it wasn’t always quite that big!

Part-Time VPE 283

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 283

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2024

Growth is still good for them, but they had no net new customers last quarter. Even though HubSpot grew 23% at $2.5B, there was weaker demand and longer sales cycles, and they had to do pilots with CEOs and CIOs. HubSpots NRR has fallen to 100%, so to grow 23%, they must add 23% net new customers. UiPath saw a huge drop of 30%.

CTO Hire 141

CTO Hire AI Venture Capital Sales Hiring 141

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Before hiring, assess your current needs and hire as your company grows. Customer Onboarding Specialist: Responsible for helping new customers get up and running with the company’s products. Account Managers: They serve as the lead point of contact for all customer account management matters.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 21, 2022

Along the way, we’ve interviewed trailblazers, business leaders, makers and doers to share their experience and insights on all things startup strategy, product management, design, marketing, customer experience, and much, much more. For Slack, that was clearly the engineering and dev communities, who love new tools.

Outsourcing Services 215

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Acquisition 215

OPEXEngine

JUNE 16, 2020

This all relates to a core Kellblog theme of ownership — who owns what — that I’ve explored in some of my most popular posts: What It Really Means to be a Manager, Director, or VP , which touches on the real differences between people operating at different levels. Hired CEOs: It’s the Board’s Company vs. It’s My Company to Run.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Venture Capital Technical Advisors 59

Kellblog

JANUARY 29, 2020

The majority of startups solve a problem that is already being solved in some way today. Unless you are solving a brand-new problem (e.g., Unless you are solving a brand-new problem (e.g., If they are already solving the problem in some way, your new solution more likely represents an optimization than a breakthrough.

Startup 99

Startup Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO 99

OpenView Labs

MARCH 17, 2020

When you ask average questions, you get average hires. If a potential senior hire has gotten so far as to talk with the CEO , she’s probably someone the company wants. Mixmax isn’t the only company that tries to talk new employees out of staying. Zappos famously pays new employees to leave after the first month.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

If your sales team has 20 plus reps, we’re confident Apollo could be a game changer for you. Topping the list of most-loved sales platforms, Apollo has a 4.8 and a New Era in Sales Tech Last week, we unveiled Operator , the first company incubated within GTMfund, alongside the announcement of a $3.6 The result?

Technical Review 74

Technical Review Scale Technical Cofounder New CTO 74

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 24, 2021

Great to see a lot of repeat attendees and some new ones. A thanks to [Marsh 00:00:34] for stepping in at the beginning of the month, and a great session with our own Jason Warner and Adrian, the CTO of Zendesk. This is a program where we invite luminaries from the startup world to share their insights. I’m Travis Bryant.

CTO Coach 157

CTO Coach Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 157

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2019

Today I wanted to talk to you about something a little bit unconventional, which is around doing M&A, as a startup yourself. I used to be a CTO and operator, co-founder of a SaaS start up. And something of insight so we are New York based, global venture and equity investor. So basically start ups, acquiring other start ups.

Outsourcing Services 109

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring CTO Hire Technical Review 109

User Pilot

MARCH 7, 2024

So I talked to several female leaders in SaaS – about their experience with breaking into leadership positions in tech startups – what challenges they’ve faced, and how they managed to overcome them. It was an iPad interactive brochure and sales tool for sales centres. Sima Banijamali – Sr.

Technical Review 105

Technical Review CTO Coach Sales Hiring CTO Hire 105

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 5, 2022

Suddenly, the team got to know SOC 2 Reports all too well and realized just how burdensome and unscalable it could become, especially for high-growth startups. And then, in the 50s, they introduced this new thing, and there was resistance. Evernote’s CTO on Your Biggest Security Worries From 3 to 300 Employees.

Scale 211

Scale Software Review compliance Technical Review 211

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2019

Join Vlad Shmunis, founder, chairman, and CEO of RingCentral as he discusses RingCentral’s journey from a two-person startup to a $7B market cap global enterprise communications company (NYSE:RNG) — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Vlad: So what’s the new reality? So we needed to kind of get the new mindset going.

Scale 199

Scale Business Sales Hiring CTO Hire 199

SaaStock

MARCH 29, 2019

Which is why you should sign up for the 2 for 1 Insider Sale and get two people for the price of one. Don’t overextend your resources when testing new SaaS growth ideas. Here is what he writes: Kieran Flanagan , VP of marketing at HubSpot, shared some interesting insights on approaching new ideas for scaling up your business.

Scale 103

Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire Social Media 103

Sales Hacker

MAY 5, 2021

Listen to Hang Black’s podcasts to learn about the future of sales enablement or how to lead with empathy. RevOps leaders are talking about trends in the market, and how the move towards RevOps will change everything from marketing to sales development to post sales. Fixing visibility issues in your sales org.

Scale 121

Scale Technical Cofounder Technical Advisors Sales Hiring 121

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

In this framework, you’ll learn how to design a scoring system that aligns to your growth strategy, brainstorm and select leader indicators of success, and operationalize the system across your startup. Identify ideal customers and hone sales personas. Drive new levers of growth. Strategically allocate CS resources.

Startup 91

Startup Scale Systems Review Technical Review 91

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Major challenges facing a new CEO [19:40]. Sales enablement is easy: all you have to do is create perfectly targeted content, stay informed on email best practices, drive more engagement quarter over quarter, spend less money, and do all of this with less time. We’re on iTunes.

Scale 119

Scale CTO Hire CTO Coach Scaling 119

Sales Hacker

MARCH 25, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we interview Simmone Taitt , CEO of HeartSpace Consulting , and a longtime sales leader and consultant in the New York community. How intuition and heart can be built into a sales organization. How to build diversity into your hiring practices. We’re on iTunes.

Sales Hiring 92

Sales Hiring Revenue CTO Coach CTO Hire 92

Sales Hacker

JUNE 12, 2020

This video training was originally presented at the 2019 Sales Hacker Success Summit. In it, Co-Founder and CRO of Kronologic, Aaron Bollinger, shows us how to close enterprise level deals when you’re a startup. How to overcome limited sales support. How to overcome limited sales support (06:15). ? What You’ll Learn.

Enterprise 81

Enterprise CTO Hire Startup Technical Cofounder 81

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2021

With that in mind, before we welcome the new year and all the good things to come, we’ve gathered our favorite insights and nuggets of wisdom from 2021 in a special wrap-up episode. Will Larson , CTO of Calm. Maggie Hott , Director of Sales at Webflow. Des Traynor , Co-founder and CTO of Intercom.

VP of Engineering 118

VP of Engineering Technical Review Scale Outsourcing Services 118

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 18, 2020

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we’ve got a fantastic episode for you. He even managed to help pivot the company from a programmatic transactional revenue model to a subscription model over the course of, not just the last three months during COVID, but over the course of the last few years. Sales enablement is easy.

Payment Features 116

Payment Features Subscription Scale Underperforming Technical Team 116

Upscope

JANUARY 5, 2020

A lot of startups built the equivalent of Dropbox but never became Dropbox. It’s the underpinning of your go-to-market strategy and impacts everything from marketing to sales, to customer success and the product itself. My really crude definition : When I come across a new product I tend think "Wtf is this?

Strategy 128

Strategy Marketing Sales Hiring Engineering 128

Hull

JANUARY 22, 2019

Over the past few years, we've seen a new role emerging at within scaling startups - the growth engineer. These roles are filled by engineers that roll up to the CMO/COO (not CTO) as part of a growth team. It shared the repeatable process to operationalize sales, particularly sales development. It made sense then.

SaaS Payments 77

SaaS Payments Engineering Technical Advisors Payment Solutions 77

Mucker Capital

APRIL 6, 2023

Hila Qu joined Mucker’s Tony Yang for an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) conversation about Product-Led Growth (PLG) for Startups to kickoff the 2023 Mucker Growth Series. Hila Qu has been the Head of Growth or VP of Growth at a number of different companies and startups, most notably Acorns and GitLab. You need a lot of education.

Startup 52

Startup Scale CTO Hire Outsourced Development 52

Point Nine Land

APRIL 9, 2021

So if you’re a US-based startup, you might be able to shoot slightly higher ;) Unlike SaaS companies which have been around for years, B2B marketplaces are a relatively new category and not many investors have invested in them yet. As a result, we could not collect as many data points as we do for our SaaS napkin.

Marketplace as a Service 59

Marketplace as a Service Payments B2B SaaS Payments 59

Chart Mogul

JULY 1, 2020

Simply put, you conduct customer discovery interviews before launching a new product, or whenever you want to discover potential customers. After missing the mark on product/market fit for their first startup, the founders decided to find a new business idea and validate it with potential customers. Click To Tweet.

Interviewing 76

Interviewing B2B Marketing Underperforming Technical Team 76

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

If you missed episode 125, check it out here: The Power of Authenticity and Emotional Intelligence in Sales with Mykal White. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Sales enablement is easy. REGIE uses artificial intelligence to create entire outbound, inbound and even follow-up sales campaigns faster. We’re on iTunes.

Scale 91

Scale Artificial Intelligence Sales Recruiting Consulting 91

ProfitWell

JANUARY 24, 2020

The Athletic , a subscription-based digital sports media company, has officially raised $50 million in a Series D funding round led by Bedrock Capital, now apparently valued at $500 million after this new raise. Brendan Schwartz , Co-Founder and CTO over at Wistia, has spent a lot of time learning to trust his instincts.

Sales Recruiting 40

Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO Sales Hiring 40