Q&A
When should you hire your first demand generation marketer in SaaS?
My overly specific rough rule is about $20k in MRR. A deep dive on that here: I Hired My VP of Marketing at $20k MRR. It Wasn’t a Week Too…
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Q&A
Q&A
How should I calculate the “cost of acquisition” of a SaaS product that is still an idea and is not regenerating any revenue yet?
You can sort of half test it via paid spend. This is a good exercise to do. Budget $500 to spend on Adwords and Facebook marketing. Do multiple campaigns and…
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Q&A
Why are all hugely successful entrepreneurs jerks as a person?
They aren’t. At least not in B2B / SaaS. Although sometimes, they were a little bit arrogant or jerky on the way to being successful. I’ve interviewed and talked backstage…
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Q&A
What is it like to be a CEO?
It’s not what you’d think. It’s not: A power trip. Well, it can be a power trip in some sense I guess, but not if you are doing it right….
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Career Growth & Advice, Growth, Q&A, Sales, Sales
What is the biggest challenge salespeople are facing when it comes to closing deals (last stage of the sales funnel)?
Urgency. Urgency does not really exist in 95%+ of deals. There really is no burning need for most customers to buy today, this month, or often even, this quarter. The…
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Growth, Leadership, Other, Q&A
Is Quora at risk of another question and answer site emerging? I have been here a few years and Quora seems to have slowly but continuously gotten worse as they attempt to generate more revenue.
I don’t think so. Not until the paradigm changes. Here’s why. Quora has a unique combination of: The largest on-point audience, and By far — by far — the best…
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For how long should a CEO continue being the head of products?
Roughly for me, for as long as it’s about a 10-hour a week job. Or often, maybe only up to $3m-$5m in ARR or so. In SaaS at least, founders…
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Q&A
A partner in a top tier VC who funded our competitor is interested to invest on us and even gave us couple of good intro to potential customers. He claims they have separate funds in different locations, so it’s not a conflict. Should I trust him?
Maybe. A few thoughts: First, conflicts are somewhat fluid and even subjective and not AS big of a deal as some make it out to be. I know this is…
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Career Growth & Advice, Exit, Exit Strategy, Leadership, Q&A
What did it feel like to exit on your first business?
Much better the first time than the second. The first time we sold, I had far exceeded any expectations I had as a founder. First, I barely believed I could…
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Career Growth & Advice, Hiring, Leadership, Q&A, Scale
Why did Jason M. Lemkin change his point of view on the value of a COO for an early stage startup?
I try to work with (and invest in) CEOs that are better than me. I found, when I was a SaaS CEO, that the CEOs that complained about needed a…
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Career Growth & Advice, Growth, Leadership, Q&A
How much time does Jason Lemkin spend answering questions on Quora?
I try to spend about 20 minutes a day. I really enjoy writing on focused questions, it sharpens the mind and more specifically, helps me collect and “succinct-ify” my thoughts…
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Career Growth & Advice, Growth, Q&A, Sales, Sales
Is Salesforce good for startups?
The one thing I do strongly recommend is letting each VP you hire pick her core tools and system of record. Forcing a VP of Sales to use a CRM…
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Where do Y Combinator founders stay while in the program?
If you are in B2B/SaaS, you’re welcome to work from the 18,000 sq ft SaaStr CSS in SF/SOMA. A bunch from the last batch did, all of whom got funded…
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Career Growth & Advice, Early, Q&A, Sales, Sales
What is the best piece of advice on closing deals for a new, inexperienced salesman?
Add value. Most new salespeople focus a lot on the transaction. What’s your budget? Do you need a discount? How big a discount? Can I give you a bigger discount?…
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As an early employee, I own a part of a startup that’s about to IPO. These shares constitutes almost all of my wealth. As an aspiring conservative value investor of age 30, how much and at what rate should I sell off my shares after the IPO?
Goodness. Congratulations on the IPO! But what and how to sell is really a tough one. If you’d sold shares in almost any SaaS/Cloud IPO in the past 7 years,…
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