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...
Avoid Trapdoor Decisions: 5 Lessons Learned from Stripe’s First COO Claire Hughes Johnson (Video + Pod)
As we gear up for 2024 SaaStr Annual, Sep 10-12 in SF Bay, once again on our 40+ acre indoor-outdoor campus, I wanted to take a look back at a few sessions that I’ve come to appreciate more with time. This was one, when Stripe’s first COO, Claire Hughes Johnson, came...
5 Secrets to a 97% Employee Retention Rate Over 5 Years with Beefree’s CEO and People & Culture Director
Massimo Arrigoni, CEO of Beefree, and Enrica Lipari, the People and Culture Director of Growens, share 5 secrets to a high employee retention rate.
You Can’t Hire a VP That You Don’t Love
Recently, a good friend of mine running a Hot SaaS Start-up asked me if he should hire a particular VP of Product candidate I knew well. The team he’d be managing was a big thumbs up on him. The board was in favor. And I knew this VP. This VP is a 10/10. But...
How to Run All Hands Meetings the Right Way with Guru Founder and CEO Rick Nucci
How do you build a culture of openness and collaboration as your company scales? Founder and CEO of Guru, Rick Nucci, and previously founder of Boomi, on track to IPO soon at $200m+ ARR, shares how to run all-hands meetings the right way. Guru is about a decade old...
How to Build Happier Employees – Lessons From HubSpot’s CTO Dharmesh Shah and Chief People Officer Katie Burke
At SaaStr Annual we had a great session with HubSpot Founder & CTO, Dharmesh Shah, and their Chief People Officer, Katie Burke, on building happier employees. We’ve had a ton of great HubSpot content over the years but you may have missed this one, and it...
Dear SaaStr: How Do Investors Feel About “Acquihires”?
Dear SaaStr: How Do Investors Feel About “Acquihires”? Back when I started investing, in 2013, VCs worked on getting acquihires for their struggling startups. A lot of energy was put in to find a “soft landing” for struggling investments...
The $2 Million(*) Dollar Man/Woman: How to Think About Scaling Your Customer Success Team (Updated)
In SaaS, there are a lot of great “rules” that do make sense overall but can be confusing or borderline misleading at times. E.g., Sales +Marketing Expenses < First Year ACV = Success? I.e., keeping the Magic Number at or above 1.0. Great rule...
Dear SaaStr: What Happens to Employees After Your Startup Gets Acquired?
Dear SaaStr: What happens to employees after your startup gets acquired? It varies — a lot. But as a rule: Top engineers will all be given retention packages, extra money / RSUs / options designed to keep them for 2-4 years. All engineers and product people...
10+ Signs of a Mediocre Hire
Dear SaaStr: What do mediocre employees do that the best employees don’t do? The #1 sign you need to move on from a team member? You're doing a lot of their job — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin ???????? (@jasonlk) December 6, 2023 My list of what mediocre...
When The Team Revolts
After the recent events at OpenAI, I thought it might be a good time to update this classic SaaStr post on “revolts”. My lesson learned: when the full team revolts (or a big part of it(, you have to act. You may not be wrong — but they are “right.” — Jason ed....
Dear SaaStr: What is The Best Way to Hire Your First Sales Rep?
Dear SaaStr: What is The Best Way to Hire Your First Sales Rep? I’ll tell you the trick. It’s going to sound simple, but it isn’t, because almost everyone gets it wrong. For at least your first few reps: hire someone >>you<< would buy >>your...
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