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 305

Part-Time VPE Outsourcing Services CTO Hire CTO 305

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 262

Scale Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE 262

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 258

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 258

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 236

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Sales Recruiting VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 236

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 225

CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring Innovation 225

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 238

CTO Hire CTO Sales Hiring Scale 238

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 220

Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 220

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 261

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 261

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 240

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 240

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 237

Sales Hiring CTO Hire New CTO CTO 237

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 219

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 219

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 355

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 355

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 235

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO CTO 235

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 202

CTO Sales Recruiting Compensation Startup 202

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

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 263

Outsourcing Services Engineering CTO Scale 263

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 289

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 289

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 282

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 282

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

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 282

Investment Sales Recruiting CTO Startup 282

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 237

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 237

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 294

Sales Recruiting CTO Compensation Software Review 294

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.” If your customers love your product now, hire reps. 10. “Your job as an entrepreneur is to find hard problems to solve.” ” A good reminder to us all.

CTO Hire 342

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Airlines 342

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 263

New CTO CTO SMB Venture Capital 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 256

CTO Hire CTO Banking Finance 256

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 228

Sales Recruiting CTO Startup Sales 228

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 181

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 181

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

It is a prerequisite to hire folks with a high IQ to success in software. You probably need a wicked smart CTO, some incredible engineers, maybe an insanely smart head of product or marketing, etc. But if you can recruit people smarter than you … which is a superpower … then that works, too.

CTO Hire 197

CTO Hire CTO Engineering Software 197

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2024

The HubSpot co-founders, for example, had $100m exits the first time. As Dharmesh Shah co-founder and CTO notes in the SaaStr Annual deep dive below, the second time … they just really wanted to go big. (And most things in venture dont really work.) HubSpot was their second one. Today, its worth almost $40 Billion.

Venture Capital 251

Venture Capital New CTO CTO Product Marketing 251

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

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. Can’t Recruit a Great VP Team / Only Able to Recruit Mediocre VPs. Some founders can do a lot on their own with a small team, but just never recruit great VPs.

Startup 230

Startup Scale CTO Pricing 230

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 201

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting CTO Scale 201

TechEmpower SaaS

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Developers become annoyed at testers for finding bugs. The same bugs/problems occur over and over again, and no one wants to find the source of the problem. New features always require significant rewrites, and consequently a lot of time. Developers can’t explain why changes will require more or less development time.

Underperforming Technical Team 390

Underperforming Technical Team Development Software Review Technical Review 390

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

The first 2 scaled reps you hire that hit plan (some may churn before then) get special training. They get CTO training. Usually, this is sort of solved when you find a strong first VP of Sales. And so we see reps 3-10, or reps-from-#3-until-The-VP-of-Sales-is-Hired … fail. They get CEO training. And they fail.

Scale 342

Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO 342

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

Many teams got to come together and meet each other in person for the first time. Founders were able to recruit on-site. We had Lew Cirne, Founder & CEO of New Relic, Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot and for the first time at Annual, we added office hours with the top VCs in SaaS.

Scale 296

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 296

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

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 335

Sales Recruiting New CTO Scale CTO 335

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2021

What are the signs that an entrepreneur will always be small time? What makes a bad CTO? I’m Head of Product and I think our CEO is actively recruiting a VP of Product. As a CTO in a startup, what should I do when the CEO wants to interfere with making technical decisions? What should I do? What should I do?

Software Review 299

Software Review CTO Coach Technical Review Sales Recruiting 299