Welcome to Episode 160! Mark Mader is the CEO of Smartsheet, the company that allows firms the best way to plan, track, automate and report on work. To date, they have raised over $105m in funding from some of the best in the business, including Insight Venture...
We were very happy to have the Salesforce “Mafia,” consisting of four executives–three who have since moved onto their next ventures–on the Strategy Stage so they could discuss some important lessons learned from being a part of the 19-year-old SaaS...
Mark Roberge, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and former CRO at Hubspot, takes the Deep Dive Stage to answer burning questions that we all have about sales and running a successful sales organization. What’s the ideal churn rate for your sales team? How do...
Well, ideally you do both at the same time 😉 But personally, I’ve done it each way. In my first start-up, I identified the opportunity (implantable batteries made from nanomaterials), and then talked my co-founder into joining me. The gap was only a few weeks, but I...
VP of Marketing. Whatever you do, at $4m in ARR, don’t hire mid or low-level marketers yourself. It’s way, way too late. There’s too much to do. You need the head of marketing in place — now. Hire a true VP of Marketing and give her (x) a revenue commit and (y)...
Aaron Ross of Predictable Revenue hosts a panel on something we CEOs and founders all want to do: scaling the sales to $100m in ARR. He’s joined on the Hypertactical stage with Andrew Bothwell, VP of Inside Sales at TalkDesk, Aaron Schilke, VP of Enterprise Sales at...
I generally recommend every startup I invest in and/or work with have at least one administrative assistant of some form (in-house or virtual) for each ten employees. Why? You need leverage on your time. Your CTO staying at home for a cable modem appointment? No good....
Scaling from $0 to a few million is already tough enough as it is, but many companies face the seemingly impossible hurdle of breaking through that $5-$6 million ARR wall. Laura Bilazarian, CEO at Teamable, leads this session with Louis Jonckheere, Co-CEO at Showpad,...
I actually don’t think this is THAT big of a deal if it’s relatively early. Quite a few startups I’ve worked with have flipped who the CEO is, among the cofounders, as the company migrates from idea -> first 10 customers -> first real revenues. In SaaS, as you...
I say yes. Just by asking the question, I’m fairly certain: You’re a startup person, and you want to grow. This is probably worth a short term salary cut for that type of person — if the role is the right one. If it can help accelerate your career and/or...
Welcome to Episode 154! Greg Sands is the Founder & Managing Partner @ Costanoa Ventures, one of the leading early stage enterprise funds on the West Coast, with their latest $175m fund raised earlier this year. At Costanoa, Greg has made investments in the likes...
I really like most of this structure — for a “late” cofounder. Being a true co-founder is a long term commitment. And it involved more buy-in, more ownership, than a pure VP. This equity package is consistent with that. You are getting: 1% now. This is basically a...
I hope everyone reading this is thinking much more about taking action re: diversity and inclusion than they were 12 months ago. It’s a big topic, but there is one piece from SaaStr data I thought it might be helpful share. We have a small “list”...
Managing change when your company is going through hyper-growth is exciting and frightening all at once. There’s no set playbook for it since every company is different and the landscape changes all the time. That being said, we can learn a lot from the experiences of...
Welcome to Episode 146! Chris Caren is the CEO of Turnitin, the company revolutionizing the experience of writing to learn with backing from the likes of IVP, Norwest Venture Partners, and GIC. Chris has scaled the company to serve over 25m students and 2m...
