When the Player-Coach is Just That. And No More.
We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about not screwing up that VP of Sales hire. Done right, it will accelerate your company to the next level. Done wrong — you can lose the better part of a year, and half of your last round of capital. And we’ve talked a...
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Decide Between Hiring a VP or Director/Manager of Product?
https://twitter.com/jasonlk/status/1321210631198887936 Hiring too junior a resource to own product is almost always a huge mistake — 9 times out of 10. You can take a lot of “stretch” risk in sales. Sales breeds leadership. But what I’ve seen time and time again is...
A Look Back: Asana at ~$60,000,000 in ARR with Dustin Moskovitz CEO (Video + Transcript)
As we gear up for SaaStr Europa 2023 in London on 6-7 June and SaaStr Annual 2023 in the SF Bay Area on 6-7 September, we wanted to take a look back at some of our most iconic speakers and sessions from over the year, that we can still learn from today. Asana today...
At the Top SaaS Companies, Founder-CEOs Own ~15% at IPO. And Most Co-Founders Are Not Equal (And That’s OK). UPDATED
I was curious the other day how many of the recent Cloud and SaaS IPOs had founders that were equal co-founders from an equity perspective. That was how I was brought up (the first start-up job I had, the founders were equal shareholders). And I generally thought...
As Soon As You Have Your First Real Management Team — It’s Time to Add Redundancy
A little while back I was walking on the streets of San Francisco and bumped into a terrific public company CEO. A beloved CEO of a beloved SaaS company several years post-IPO. We caught up briefly, and I asked if there was any way I could help. He said,...
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Solve “Hit By a Bus Risk”? With Great VPs
Q: How do you deal with bus factor in a startup? We are losing an employee which had a cornerstone role but he was tackling this area alone. Goodness, this is one of the toughest parts of scaling. I remember Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, and I discussed this at one of the...
All Your VPs Really Need to Do is Tilt the Curve
Going from a Good VP to a Great One generally increases the output at least 20% in that functional area VPS: Close rates go up 20%+VPM: Leads go up 20%+VPCS: NPS goes up 20%+ Now, compound that over a couple of years Go make the hire — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin ...
Time To Staff Up Your First Directors and Managers? Hire Half. And Promote Half.
There's always a 50% chance that manager you need to hire already works for you Double check that your top ICs aren't ready — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) February 10, 2022 The time comes for every growing SaaS company when you need to hire your...
How the Magic of IRL Drives Growth & Revenue: 5 Tactics to Implement Your Own IRL Strategy with TravelPerk COO Huw Slater + CPO Sally Sourbron (Video)
The way we work has changed. A rapid rise in remote work has led to broader talent pools and hiring options for companies and greater flexibility for employees. With office life forever changed, how can companies use in-person face time most effectively? In this...
The Perils and Pitfalls of the “Been There, Done That” VP: Posers and Mercenaries
Basically all of the SaaS CEOs/founders I know of have made at least one terrible VP+ level hire. It’s one of our enduring topics on SaaStr. Sometimes it’s VP Sales (OK, often, this is the most common mishire — another post here on what a really...
e-Staff Meetings and 1-on-1s: You Gotta Do Them
If you'd rather not do any of your 1-on-1's, Something is off. Goes for both sides. — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) December 19, 2022 For the first time in my career, I’ve worked with amazing first-time managers as CEOs. Before I was a CEO,...
Building a 10x Team: 4 Pillars For Creating a Generalist Team With Expensify COO Anu Muralidharan (Video)
What does successful company growth look like? Lots of SaaS founders are preoccupied with employee headcount as an important growth metric, but this indicator is not always true. Anu Muralidharan, COO at Expensify, says, “When a company is small, every single employee...
The Top 10 Mistakes Folks Make Hiring Their First Sales Team (Updated)
Given that so much has changed in SaaS the past few months, I thought it made sense to update this classic SaaStr post on The Top 10 Mistakes We All Make Hiring Our First Sales Team. Because especially in the boom times of Q4’20-Q1’22, we all made even...
How to Manage 100+ SDRs Across 4 Continents with Snowflake VP, Global Sales Development Lars Nilsson (Pod 612 + Video)
“The hardest part of closing any deal is finding it,” says Lars Nilsson, VP of Global Sales Development at Snowflake. Over his 35+ year career, Nilsson has managed 100+ Sales Development Representatives (SDR) across four continents, six countries, and ten cities. The...
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