Dear SaaStr: What’s the #1 Way I Can Accelerate My Career Growth?
Dear SaaStr: What’s the #1 Way I Can Accelerate My Career Growth? My uber-learnings: Find the best boss you can; and Take on every initiative, project, task, and endeavor you possibly can from her. And work for them for a while. Long enough to get promoted once,...
If You Don’t Think You Need a VP of Product, VP of Marketing, Etc. — Then You Haven’t Worked With a Great One
If you are between $1m and $20m ARR, and maybe even a bit later, this might be the #1 most important post and piece of advice I can give you: That yes, a truly great VP for any role will move the needle. A truly great one. And if you don’t think so —...
90%+ of VP+ Candidates Can’t Tell Me What They’ve Learned After 10 Interviews. That’s a Disqualifier.
I’ve been a board member and investor for a long time now, and I’ve developed a simple habit with executive candidates. I try to be one of the last interviews. By that point, the candidate has usually done 8, 10, sometimes more conversations with the...
Dear SaaStr: We Are Growing Too Fast to Handle the Workload, but We Can’t Afford to Hire New Employees. Help!
Dear SaaStr: We Are Growing Too Fast to Handle the Workload, but We Can’t Afford to Hire New Employees. What’s wrong with our business model? Nothing. We’ve all been there. Almost all of us, at least. In SaaS, this typically happens somewhere between $3m...
Dear SaaStr: What Were The First Five Hires You Made After Product-Market Fit?
Dear SaaStr: What Were The First Five Hires You Made After Product-Market Fit? My first 5 hires at Adobe Sign / EchoSign, beyond the core founding+ team, once we had paying customers and first, if early, product-marketing fit: #1: Full-time sales rep at $8k-ish MRR....
Dear SaaStr: What Are The Traits That Define a Great VP?
Dear SaaStr: What Are The Traits That Define a Great VP? The difference between a Good, a Great, and a Mediocre VP: A Good VP Maintains Velocity in Their Functional Area. This is hard enough as it is. If you grew 100% last year, growing 100% again this year is more...
Dear SaaStr: How Does a First Time Founder Identify 10x Hires?
Dear SaaStr: How does a First Time Founder Identify 10x Hires? How do you hire a great CTO, a great VP of Product, a great VP of Sales … if you’ve never worked with one? It’s hard. If you haven't worked with one before, then, yes, 10x engineers...
Dear SaaStr: What’s The Toughest Skill to Learn to Scale in B2B?
Dear SaaStr: What’s The Toughest Skill to Learn to Scale in B2B? You need to learn to become a parallel recruiter. To constantly, painfully, boring-ly be recruiting the next level of management and managers — all the time. Doing 30+ interviews a month — minimum....
Your (Belated) SaaS New Year’s Resolution: Add a Layer
I know you don't do OutboundEventsWebinarsTravel to customers Have a BD teamOffer enterprise edition And you are doing great But what if you did? — Jason ✨👾SaaStr 2025 is May 13-15✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) January 13, 2025 I agree with most Start-Up Truisms. One...
Dear SaaStr: How Far in SaaS Can a 10 or 20 Person Team Go?
Dear SaaStr: How far in the SaaS can a 10 or 20 person team go? I know many are talking about AI fueling 1 person, $1B start-ups. I hope that happens. But maybe … not so much in SaaS. Today, the most efficient public SaaS company is probably Doximity, at about...
Your Top 5% Employees … And Bottom 5%. It’s Time to Go Through Them.
Tough lesson for CEOs to learn: You have to treat Great employees differently from Good ones Great ones want their careers enabled, want you to have their back, and want no politics. That's about it. Let them run. Good ones want many other, varied things. And need...
Dear SaaStr: If a Startup at $1.5M ARR is Hiring a COO, How Much Equity Should They Get?
Dear SaaStr: If a startup is at $1.5M ARR and is looking to hire an experienced COO how much equity should they give him/her? 0%. I think $1.5m ARR is too early for an experienced COO in 95 cases out of 100 — unless it’s a total rocketship and you plan to...
Dear SaaStr: I Don’t Know Marketing. Should We Try to Do It Ourselves or Hire an Agency?
Dear SaaStr: I Don’t Know Marketing. Should We Try to Do It Ourselves or Hire an Agency? I’ve never seen a marketing agency get a startup qualified leads, especially at the earliest start-up phases. Never. The only value I’ve really seen in marketing agencies is...
A 4 Point Test To Know If You Are Ready to Hire BigCo Folks
As you approach $50m, $60m, $100m ARR You can hire folks that always worked at Big Companies You'll need them Then — Jason ✨????SaaStr.AI Sept 10-12✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) July 24, 2024 It’s easy to say “only hire people with start-up...
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