Dear SaaStr: If You Sell a Multi-Year Deal, Does The Whole Amount Count Toward Quota?
Dear SaaStr: As a salesperson, if you sell a multi-year SaaS deal, does the whole amount count towards your current year quota? Or just the part attributed to your current year? Approaches vary here. First, what you pay on vs. quota retirement can vary. On commissions...
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 a while back 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...
Founders: Get Your Comp Package Approved By Your Board of Directors
So something quietly changed in the past few years. Maybe it was the investing craziness of late ‘20 through late ‘21. Maybe it was VCs not wanting to rock the boat. Maybe it was a lot of startups just plain not having real boards of directors. What’s changed is...
Dear SaaStr: How Does a CEO/Founder Pick Their Own Salary?
Dear SaaStr: How does a CEO/founder/owner pick their salary? I’ll share my stories. In my first start-up, we raised $9m in our seed round — a large first round, but the times were different. The VCs set my salary without discussing or consulting with me...
Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares. Should I?
Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares. Should I? Goodness. Congratulations on the change for some liquidity. It’s both exciting — and confusing. Marc Benioff sold a huge amount of his Salesforce stock before its run...
If You’re Underpaying Your Sales Reps, You Need to Course-Correct Within a Quarter
Q: How would you deal with a situation if you realize months later that the sales system in your company has calculated the commissions much less than what your employees should be getting? I’ve implemented and experienced all three sales commission outcomes with...
Half of You Are Giving No Raises for 2023
So raises are a nuanced topic in start-ups. In the early days, most of your team won’t even have been there for a year. So that’s often seen as no point in raises. And even later, many founders are resistant to giving “across the board”...
Dear SaaStr: What Percentage of Software Sales Reps Have Earned Over $1m a Year?
Dear SaaStr: What Percentage of Software Sales Reps Have Earned Over $1m a Year? It’s rare and it’s tough in SaaS as a sales rep to earn a fairly stunning $1,000,000 a year. But … it’s not impossible. I remember the first time I saw a rep make...
Dear SaaStr: What Sales Comp Plan Should I Use For Our Very First Sales Rep?
Dear SaaStr: What Sales Comp Plan Should I Use For Our Very First Sales Rep? At the end of the day you have to solve for two things: A plan that gives the reps a living, fair wage; and A plan that you know and feel is accretive to the company. Sales reps have to be...
8 Ways To Motivate The Sales Team After A Rough Patch with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin (Pod 620 + Video)
The last half of the year has been rough for some, but Cloud and SaaS aren’t dead. When a rocketship blasts into space, like the explosive buying and growth during the Boom of the last two years, it eventually has to decelerate. Deceleration doesn’t mean recession or...
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...
Dear SaaStr: What Is a Fair Amount of Equity for a Late Co-Founder?
Dear SaaStr: What Is a Fair Amount of Equity for a Late Co-Founder With 2 Original Founders? The “late” co-founder seems more and more common to me these days. I call them ex post facto co-founders. And they are wonderful. You absolutely can find a just epic...
A Framework For Your First SaaS Sales Comp Plan (Updated)
I’m not ashamed to admit that when I set up our first SaaS sales comp plan, I had no idea what I was doing. In my first start-up, yes, I sold to the enterprise. I sold $6m our first year (man, that sounds good looking back on it). But I did all the sales...
Dear SaaStr: When Should You Give Raises? And To Whom?
Dear SaaStr: When should you raise the salary of your employees as a startup? A few thoughts to at least think about: Try to pay “market” to all your employees as soon as you can. Some folks that join a start-up will be OK taking a salary cut when you have almost no...
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