It’s very, very, very hard today to find seasoned enterprise SaaS VPs outside the Bay Area.
But let me define enterprise. I mean, real enterprise. Experience selling to, marketing to, meeting with, big companies.
It’s just a factor of where these very scarce resources come from. The vast majority of enterprise SaaS companies are in the SF Bay Area. Not all. But the vast majority.
Now … having said that …
The more “low-end” you are, the more freemium, the more SMB, the easier it is to hack it, and use less experienced, but overachieving, resources. Inside sales is easier to hack than field sales. Freemium is easier to hack than inbound sales. Etc.
Second, the very best SaaS companies find a way. They convince execs to move (e.g., Qualtrics). They create remote offices, which is hard, but can sort of work. The CEOs “live” in two places, really.
