Blog Posts, Compensation, Hiring, Sales
I want to spend a few posts and some time on sales comp plans for early-ish stage SaaS companies (up to say $20m in ARR). Because almost all the sales…
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Blog Posts, Compensation, Hiring, Sales
In SaaS, #1 most common misfire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. In fact, there’s a VC saying that I used to really hate. It goes something like…
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Blog Posts, Customer Success, Hiring, Leadership, Metrics, Q&A, Scale
Some thoughts on things you don’t really get until about $8m-$10m ARR or so: Churn Lurks. Churn doesn’t happen overnight, especially with annual contracts. It lurks. Use customer visits, NPS…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Sales, Sales
One of the very first SaaStr presentations ever was How to Hire a Great VP Sales (And Not Screw It Up). The content of the presentation will be familiar to most…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Sales, Sales
Ah, the first sales rep. Being the first salesperson into a start-up is a rewarding — but very tough job: Your Founder Boss likely will never have managed a salesperson…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Leadership
I know these days we’re all talking about Unicorns and Decacorns, but not too long ago, it was all about Rockstars. That you absolutely, positively, have to only hire “Rockstars”…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Sales
The time is probably going to come when you have to build a sales team in SaaS. It may be Day 1 if you have plenty of capital and are…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Marketing, Sales
One of the starkest differences I see between First Timers in SaaS and Second Timers is when they hire their VP of Marketing. Second Timers know. They often hire a…
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Blog Posts, Growth, Hiring, Human Resources, Q&A
There’s an exercise I’ve been through with many founders that are just getting to Initial Traction, say $1m-$2m in ARR or so, sometimes less, where I map out their future…
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Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Growth, Hiring, Leadership, Marketing
Advice is very context-sensitive, so take this post with a grain of salt. But I thought I’d take a stab at the Top 10 Pieces of Classic SaaS Advice ……
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Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Hiring, Human Resources
There’s nothing wrong with hiring folks from the competition It’s just, when you do, you’ll overlook too many of their weakness, and give them too much credit for their competitive…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Human Resources
A little while back, I gave a great SaaS Founder CEO a Gift. A real gift. This founder CEO was at about $1m in ARR, doing well, but with only…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Marketing
As you try to hire up for your SaaS company, you’re going to be faced with a lot of choices and trade-offs. No hire is the perfect package. Do you…
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Blog Posts, Hiring, Sales
We’ve talked a lot about hiring a VP, Sales. It’s just such a critical accelerate-or-decelerate decision for a post-Initial Traction SaaS company. We’ve talked about the 48 Different Types of…
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Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Growth, Hiring, Leadership
Burnout is a real risk in SaaS. Not usually in the early days. But as time marches on — It’s a huge risk. One piece of “evidence” — a…
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