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Blog Posts, SaaStr NewsWhat We Are Hiring for at Team SaaStr!
So SaaStr Inc. is on a growth spurt and our tiny team needs some help. We’ve learn a lot over the years and really we only want to hire folks…
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Blog Posts, Growth, Leadership, Marketing, Marketing, Product, SaaStr Events, VideosSmall Business Will Drive the Next Billion for SaaS with Kabbage (Video + Transcript)
Representing 98% of all U.S. businesses, 57% of all U.S. jobs and more than half of all non-farming GDP, small business is big business. As one of the most difficult…
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Blog Posts, Growth, LeadershipMaybe 80% of Public SaaS Companies Are in the SF Bay Area
These days, you clearly can build a successful SaaS and Cloud company outside the Bay Area. Shopify, Atlassian, Canva, Hubspot and so many others leaders founded and HQ’d outside SF…
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Blog Posts, SaaStr EventsHere’s Why SaaStr Annual 2020 is All About the Workshops
It’s not all about the speakers this year. If you’re wondering what you should be doing in between sessions or maybe just after breakfast before things really kick off in…
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Blog Posts, Fundraising, Q&AHow to Stand Out to VCs? Really, Really Know Your Sh*t
What can entrepreneurs do to stand out to prospective investors during a pitch? The best founders really know their sh*t. The best founders just know everything cold about their business:…
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Blog Posts, Tech NewsThe Top Cloud Stories of the Week: Sophos for $3.82 Billion; More Ransomware; Amazon Takes On Coachella; Hitting The ’20 Plan
We now have over 250,000 (!) subscribers to the SaaStr Cloud Daily on Quora, 9,200,000+ views, and are adding thousands of new followers per week. One benefit from Cloud Daily is our community speaks…
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Blog Posts, Product, Q&A, ScaleThe Return of the Suite: More and More SaaS Leaders Have Multiple, Successful, Integrated Products
In the SaaS world there is often a debate between “best in breed” point solutions and all-in-one or full stack solutions. Which path do you think wins out over the…
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Blog Posts, LeadershipAsk Every VP You Interview for A List of Everything They Want to Do. They’ll Only Do The Top 4-5.
There are a couple of exercises you just have to do when you go to hire your first VPs. Because the cost of a mis-hire is so high. It’s not…
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Blog Posts, GrowthIf You Want to Hit The ’20 Plan … You Gotta Be Making the Hires Now
A few seasons back, we wrote a post on hitting how in SaaS, you have to be putting the resources in place by Q3 to hit the plan for the…
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Blog Posts, Engineering, Growth, Leadership, Metrics, SaaStr Events, VideosFounder’s Guide to Scaling Applications: When to Build, When to Buy and What Breaks by Algolia Co-founder (Video + Transcript)
When it comes to seamlessly scaling your applications, a top-notch engineering team will be your foundation. Next comes the decisions to build or buy your infrastructure, DNS, monitoring, and analytics…
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Blog Posts, MetricsYes, If You Ask Customers If They Want To Cancel, They Will. And That’s OK. The Data from RevenueCat.
There’s a bit of a dirty truth in freemium and VSB (Very Small Business) recurring revenue apps: a lot of folks pay and don’t use. And thus, in many ways,…
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Blog Posts, Exit StrategyShould You Sell Your Company? A Great SaaStr Podcast with Salesforce Essentials
Salesforce Essentials and Mission.org came by SaaStr HQ and did a pretty unique podcast interview with me. We talked a lot about exits. About selling your company, lessons learned, and…
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Blog Posts, Early, Marketing, Product, SaaStr Events, Videos5 Effective Things We Did to Move Upmarket and Built Pipeline with Mapistry (Video + Transcript)
Lots of us fantasize about moving upmarket, but are unsure of how to get started. Is it just a matter of hiring a team of SDRs and getting them to…
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Blog Posts, SaaStr EventsShould You be Attending the SaaStr 2020 CXO Summit?
Are you a company with $20 ARR or more, or getting close? Perhaps this is the SaaStr event you haven’t (but should’ve heard of)! This year, SaaStr is hosting it’s…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Human Resources, SalesYour Variable Comp Plans for Next Year: You Probably Need More of Them
Hopefully, sometime over the next few weeks, you’ll finish up your model and planning for next year. If not, please try to do it before 12/31 … 🙂 I’m working…
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Popular Q&A
Why do all the tech giants rely on “shadow forces” of temporary employees?
There are probably a multitude of reasons. But let me suggest one reason I learned when I was an exec in a F500 tech company: Headcount was mostly fixed for a year. But, Budgets were more elastic and flexible. Top tech companies might employee 10,000–30,000 or more...
When Not to Offer a Free Trial. Answer: When Your App Simply Can’t Pull it Off.
Lots of SaaS companies don’t offer a free trial — intentionally. A free trial is a bad idea if: Your product has a lengthy and/or complex deployment process. If it’s going to take 30–60 days to go live, a Free Trial will just lead to failure. That’s way too much work...
What is the hardest rejection you’ve ever had in sales?
The hardest rejection I’ve had in sales was around renewals. Especially ones I thought we really had earned. But still lost.In particular, in the early days of EchoSign / Adobe Sign, we had a particular manager at a strategic partner where I did everything I could to...
What are the qualities of a good co-founder?
My list: Same values and commitment as you. No matter how smart you both are, you also have to share the same values and commitment. Are you both 100% all-in? Are you both willing to go 18–24 months before initial product market fit? Are you both willing to do what it...
What skills do you look for in an entry level sales person?
If you are a founder hiring salespeople to manage yourself (i.e., you don’t have a VP of Sales or other sales leader yet) … your #1 criteria should be trust. Specifically, does your gut and time with him/her say you can trust her with a lead. Leads and potential...
How difficult is to become a venture capitalist after 45?
It can be harder than you might think. The further you are along in your career, the easier it is to have the time, networks and personal capital to be an investor. No question. And it can take a decade or more to make any real money from investing. It’s hard to have...
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