Q&AWhat should the dynamic between co-founders be like?
I think there’s one sign you can see in healthy co-founders: if they want to catch up every day. Being a founder and a leader is … isolating. There’s often…
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Q&AHow do I motivate a sales team working commission only?
It is really, really tough. While I am sure there are examples of “1099 reps” that have done extremely well, I haven’t seen it work in SaaS. Pay the reps…
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Q&AIn sales, is it most important to know exactly what a client wants?
Yes, but realistically, the bigger the check size, the bigger the deal, the more important it is. Ideally, very small deals are close to 1–2 call closes. A handful of…
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Q&AWhen Is It “Too Early” To Hire Your First Marketer?
In a perfect world, you’d learn something about marketing first before you hire someone to take it over. I.e., you’d experiment and at least make some progress in: Content Marketing….
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How does Zoom have better streaming quality than its competitors?
I think the meta-answer is that the best of the WebEx team rebuilt WebEx with all their 100s of top people-years of learnings from scratch. As Zoom. CEO Eric Yuan…
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Blog Posts, Q&A, Sales7 Things The Best Sales Reps Get Right
The best sales reps solve my problems: They listen to my actual problems and show me the best solution using their product — and other products. They learn my business…
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Q&AWhat is the best way to protect your IP when showcasing a product to a potential competitor?
There are without question certain cases where your IP is so confidential it simply can’t be shared. In my first start-up, we were acquired by our arch competitor, and we…
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What are simple hacks that salespeople use to confuse customers?
Well I’m not sure confusing customers so that they buy works, but the one tactic that does is FUD. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt It’s the process of finding weakness in…
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Q&AWhat should an entrepreneur look out for when negotiating a term sheet with a VC?
One simple thing: complexity. 99% of terms and term sheet should be simple and straightforward: price the amount invested (and % ownership for investors / cap table) pool for stock…
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9 Thoughts on What Makes For a Good Pricing Page
What makes for a good pricing page? A few thoughts at least — mainly about what to copy from the big leaders, and what to maybe not copy from them:…
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Q&AWhat are some techniques SaaS companies use to combat trial abuse?
Let it go. A lot of things will drive you a bit nuts when you are small: Folks that do repeat free trials. Folks that share accounts. Early customers that…
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Featured Q&A, Q&AWhat are some of the biggest mistakes you made with enterprise SaaS sales?
Boy a lot. A list of some of the bigger ones: Not mapping out — and getting to know — all the stakeholders. This is a skill you need to…
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Have YC batches become too big? How can startups expect to get the same value and surface area vs. the old days?
Probably not. The Cloud has grown 100x since YC started. There are 100 Cloud Unicorns alone, vs. 1–2 when YC started. The size of the batches seems roughly proportionate to…
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How long did it take you to grow your side project $1000 MRR?
We kicked off a side project to structure the best SaaStr content into “SaaStrPro.com” — weekly structured lessons that CEOs could use to automatically train their teams in how to…
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What are the legal implications in Y Combinator’s Template Sales Agreement?
I love 99.9% of what YC does. I do not love their Template Sales Agreement. Why? It was written by a lawyer at a Big Law Firm who almost certainly…
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