SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2025

In general, I find most start-ups want to keep engineering comp fairly flat. Back in the day, my CTO just wanted 3 tiers: entry level, top IC, manager. Equity varied a lot more, but I know it was important to my CTO that everyone on his team felt like equal stakeholders, relative to experience. That was it.

Engineering 289

Engineering AI New CTO CTO 289

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2024

I felt part of your core job as CEO was to assemble a management team, not complain about how you couldn’t get it all done. Or couldn’t stand your CTO. I still believe a CEO should “do it all” in terms of building a decent management team first before hiring a COO. Hiring a strong COO between Management Team 1.0

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale Startup 263

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2024

Worked out great for my CTO who stayed (proud of him), but if things were structured differently, I would have made nine figures just staying. Hiring a controller that didn’t care. I avoided this mistake for my first two-startups, but then made it several times after. We ended up needing another 6 months of runway.

CTO Hire 279

CTO Hire CTO Banking Finance 279

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

The Best Speakers In The World With hundreds of sessions from proven SaaS leaders who have scaled companies to significant revenue milestones, SaaStr Annual offers practical, actionable insights you won’t find elsewhere. Meet and Find Your Next VP / CXO!

Sales Recruiting 190

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 190

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Many companies believe excellent product design comes from hiring the best engineers and signing up for the latest software instead of building from the users’ perspectives. Stripe’s CTO, David Singleton, shares how they use a system of feedback, iteration, and fast shipping to create products that meet users’ expectations.

CTO Hire 298

CTO Hire CTO Payment Methods Payment Solutions 298

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2023

You really need a great CTO, not just a good business team. A mediocre tech team, a part-time CTO, or even just a decent CTO just doesn’t get you there. Wait until you find a great partner here. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the startup. It’s just too competitive today.

Part-Time VPE 300

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 300

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How does a First Time Founder Identify 10x Hires? How do you hire a great CTO, a great VP of Product, a great VP of Sales … if you’ve never worked with one? There’s a reason almost every founder you talk to had a mis-hire for their first head of sales. It’s hard.

Sales Hiring 292

Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 292

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2022

SaaStr 564: Top 10 Learnings Architecting a High Throughput Critical API with RevenueCat CTO Miguel Carranza. SaaStr 565: Classic Episode: The Importance of Company Values, a Great Hiring Process, and Ownership Culture with Gusto Co-Founder & CEO Josh Reeves. Product-Led Growth: Panacea or Boondoggle?

CTO Hire 295

CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring Innovation 295

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

The shift towards AI-driven ad technologies enables brands to set and achieve highly specific engagement KPIs, moving away from generic strategies to more personalized, data-driven approaches that resonate with their target audience. This not only speeds up hiring but also lowers the costs associated with lengthy recruitment cycles.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI AI CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2022

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: Be Careful Hiring “Dualies” — Folks That Are a VP of More Than One Thing. SaaStr 565: Classic Episode: The Importance of Company Values, a Great Hiring Process, and Ownership Culture with Gusto Co-Founder & CEO Josh Reeves.

CTO Hire 296

CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring Scale 296

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Lately I’ve been working with 5+ SaaS companies all hiring their first VP of Product. And critically, most have a really strong CEO-CTO partnership. A few general learnings: A VP of Product that Reports to CTO / Engineering Rarely Meets With That Many Customers. I just see this time and time again.

Part-Time VPE 321

Part-Time VPE Outsourcing Services CTO Hire CTO 321

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. 95% of the time, your super-smart hacker co-founder is not that person. She can be your CTO forever.

Part-Time VPE 309

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 309

SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2020

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to recruit a lot of types of folks over the years where my domain knowledge was limited. I’ve had to recruit Ph.Ds. Anyhow the one thing I learned, beyond getting help screening and hiring for these positions from domain experts, is to look for Flags. Why join a start-up?

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 259

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

In SaaS, once you have even a few million in ARR, the #1 challenge is recruiting top-tier VPs and building a truly top-tier management team: SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. She can be your CTO forever.

Scale 279

Scale Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE 279

SaaStr

JANUARY 19, 2024

He made many great leadership points, but one in particular rattles around my head a lot and I think deserves its own post: You usually won’t know if you’ve made a 10x hire … when you make the hire. A good / great employee can become 10x in a new environment was part of Auren’s point. But I didn’t know they were truly 10x hires.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO CTO 301

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? You can find the full slide deck from David’s presentation on Slideshare. Positions Needed: FP&A Analyst, Accountant, HR, Ops, Recruiter.

CTO Hire 290

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 290

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2024

The numbers are strong, but the CTO isnt good enough. They waste a ton of time. I find them torture. They frustrate everyone and waste precious time. Not all the deals, but probably 80% of them. The Almosts. These are brutal as an investor and confusing for founders. Theres good stuff there, so its close.

Startup 264

Startup CTO Investment Marketing 264

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2023

SaaStr 662: Things You Think as a First-Time Founder That Just Ain’t So With Lattice Co-Founder & CEO Jack Altman and SaaStr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin  2. SaaStr 663: 9 Things I Wish I Would Have Told My 2013 Self: Lessons Learned from 9 Years with Heap’s Former CTO, Dan Robinson   3. appeared first on SaaStr.

CTO 246

CTO Sales Recruiting Compensation Startup 246

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2022

Co-founder and CEO of Plato, Quong Hoang, the #1 mentoring platform for engineering leaders , helped moderate a discussion between CTO of Change.org, Elaine Zhou, and Head of Engineering at Notion, Michael Manapat, on this subject. On a purely human level, most employees like to settle down if they find a place that feels like home.

CTO Coach 278

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO Engineering 278

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2022

Miguel Carranza, CTO at RevenueCat, shares ten learnings from firsthand experience in architecting an API & SDK that is currently on 5,000+ apps and has seen 3x growth Year-over-Year. . But the reality is that when you’re trying to find product-market fit, that probably shouldn’t be your concern.” What makes a great API?

CTO Hire 246

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

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. Unless again, you have a true CTO as well, that is also leading the company. But — Jobs had Woz.

Outsourcing Services 298

Outsourcing Services Engineering CTO Scale 298

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. That it’s time to bring in someone that knows. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs. I Need a VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

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

APRIL 7, 2021

The first type is the kind of management team hired by second+ time founders. And if you are, you are going to naturally start off hiring up-and-comers to your first leadership team. That CTO that doesn’t quite have the traditional background. There are roughly 2 types of start-up management teams.

Part-Time VPE 279

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 279

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2024

Dear SaaStr: I’m Being Recruited by a Startup That Just Raised $5m. I’d suggest a quick 2 part test: #1. Decide if the CEO is literally a 10/10 and ideally the CTO If you aren’t sure the CEO is truly great, and ideally, the CTO, then ask around. How Do I Vet Them? That’s never as easy at it sounds.

Sales Recruiting 293

Sales Recruiting CTO Startup Sales 293

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 230

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire Scale 230

SaaStr

JULY 30, 2020

I’ve been reminded of this question in several meetings lately where founders are doing pretty well, getting to and past Initial Traction, but with hindsight it’s interesting that the founder that took the CEO gig perhaps was better suited to a different role, say CTO or SVP of Sales or President or COO or SVP Product.

Sales Recruiting 328

Sales Recruiting Venture Capital CTO Hire CTO 328

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2022

Investments I've made that didn't work out: – Momentum investment – CEO a bit of bulls**t artist – CEO good at sales but weak product team / CTO. CEO good at sales, but CTO not that great. This was a bet I made a few times, and I learned. So now I try to only invest in Great CEO + Great CTO combos.

Investment 312

Investment Sales Recruiting CTO Startup 312

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 299

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 299

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2021

And if your team knows how to spend it, correctly — find a way to get them the capital they need to grow even faster than plan. And importantly, you need to spend more time with your existing customers (vs. But even if you’ve hired the world’s best VP of Sales … you can’t opt out of sales entirely.

Part-Time VPE 290

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 290

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2022

An updated classic SaaStr guide on how to know if that new VP you worked so hard to find, recruit and get on board … is really going to make it. 4 Signs You Might Have a “Bad” CTO — Or At Least, One That Isn’t Going to Make It. And 3 Things Not to Worry So Much About. Here’s what to do about it.

New CTO 305

New CTO CTO SMB Venture Capital 305

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2023

I should have camped in his office and literally never taken No for an answer. I had a great CTO, but I also needed a truly great VPE to scale past $10m ARR and deal with all those issues. Not finding a way to work through team conflicts better. Our CTO was amazing, but we didn’t work together as well as we should of.

Part-Time VPE 246

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting CTO Scale 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

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 need to pay up to recruit a “technical co-founder” and then she often will bring in 2x the engineers, at a higher price, than an engineer CEO. I’ve found that works equally well. How to be super agile.

Outsourcing Services 268

Outsourcing Services Engineering CTO SaaS 268

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. But how do you find the pirates and romantics? It’ll fail.

CTO Hire 242

CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 242

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2020

In fact, right after that we hired a roundtrip employee as our CTO in my first start-up and it was amazing. Especially in tougher times, folks may be knocking on your door again. First, what doesn’t work, or at least hasn’t for me, is re-hiring: Folks that left for a company that was a better fit.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire CTO Scaling Management 320

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2022

SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. SaaStr 600: Founder Confidential with HubSpot Founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah, & Founder and Executive Chairperson Brian Halligan. ?. Top Videos This Week: 1.

Sales Recruiting 306

Sales Recruiting CTO Compensation Software Review 306

TechEmpower SaaS

DECEMBER 11, 2023

While the appearance matters, remember you are hiring the development firm primarily for its development skills, not its graphic design skills. cto , product , saas Quality of Work: The end product should not only look good but function as expected. Don't be charmed by an impressive aesthetic at the expense of functional results.

Software Development 443

Software Development Development Software Review Software 443