Compensation, Early, Leadership, Podcasts, SalesWelcome to Episode 181! Jerry Jao is the Founder & CEO @ Retention Science, the startup that brings intelligence to your marketing automation through artificial intelligence that delivers a personalized customer…
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Compensation, Customer Success, Leadership, Metrics, Podcasts, SalesWelcome to Episode 179! Dave Kellogg is the CEO @ Host Analytics, the leader in cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM). Previously, Dave was SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce and CEO…
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Goodness. Congratulations on the IPO! But what and how to sell is really a tough one. If you’d sold shares in almost any SaaS/Cloud IPO in the past 7 years,…
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Career Growth & Advice, Compensation, Early, Leadership, Q&AIn the Bay Area, $1X0,000. Once you raise $5m+ it’s time to pay the founders the low or middle end of “normal”. Founders may have different views of which end…
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Career Growth & Advice, Compensation, Growth, Leadership, Podcasts, Sales StrategyWelcome to Episode 173! Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr, the world’s largest SaaS event, with over 20,000 of the world’s best SaaS founders and investors attending every year….
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Career Growth & Advice, Compensation, Growth, Q&A, SalesApproaches vary here. First, what you pay on vs. quota retirement can vary. On commissions / pay-out: For start-ups where cash matters, I strongly suggest compensating the reps mainly on…
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I believe the main historical reason is that tax-advantaged stock options — so called “ISOs” — have a maximum 10-year term under the tax code. A smaller, but related issue…
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Career Growth & Advice, Compensation, Early, Leadership, Q&AIt’s a tough one because the pie only adds to 100%. You really want to give the early folks a ton. At least — the very best ones. But it…
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Compensation, Q&A, Sales, ScaleGenerally speaking, you need a sales rep to bring in 4x-5x what they take home in total compensation (base + commission). To make your business model work. You can pay…
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Compensation, Early, Leadership, Q&AI would have the board approve CEO salary, all material expenses (>$5k-$10k), and an overall CEO expense policy. In a startup, the reality is a CEO can probably do almost…
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Compensation, Early, Fundraising, Leadership, Q&ATwo thoughts: First, it’s time. If you took a salary cut to join a start-up, and they’ve raised even $10m+, let alone $25m, it’s time for that salary cut to…
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Company Culture, Compensation, Early, Fundraising, Leadership, Q&AMy one life lesson here: As CEO, you may not care that much about salaries. Because you are focused on making your equity worth 100x your salary. So you can…
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Compensation, Growth, Q&A, Sales, Sales StrategyBecause they are in the top 1%. Every sales-driven SaaS company at some point, maybe after $40m or $50m in ARR, and sometimes earlier, has their first sales rep that…
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Compensation, Early, Hiring, Leadership, Q&AHere’s the tough part. It’s really hard. What you should do is give them say 3x their forgone salary in stock — 3x to account for risk. So let’s say…
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Compensation, Early, Leadership, Q&AMy rough rules are: In the very early days, the CEO should be one of the worst paid. Until you have material revenues and/or funding, the CEO should ideally only…
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