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Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Growth, Hiring, Leadership, Q&A

Dear SaaStr: What is The Biggest Difference Between Running a 10 Person Startup and a 100 Person Startup?

Dear SaaStr: What is The Biggest Difference Between Running a 10 Person Startup and a 100 Person Startup? The biggest structural difference is you have to hire all the VPs by employee 50–100. You won’t be able to scale this far without a full management team — VPs of Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Customer Success…
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Blog Posts, Compensation, Fundraising, Growth, Human Resources, Q&A

Dear SaaStr: What Percentage of Shares Should Be Set Aside for Employee Equity?

Dear SaaStr: What Percentage of Shares Should Be Set Aside for Employee Equity? Nuanced answer: A lot. But, the precise number today doesn’t matter. At a practical level, if you are growing quickly, you’ll typically grant 6-8% a year in additional grants (and dilution) — and maybe get half back as folks leave. VC answer:…
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Blog Posts, Q&A

Dear SaaStr: What’s It Really Like to Be CEO of a Startup?

Dear SaaStr: What’s It Really Like to Be CEO of a Startup? Let me just throw out a few things I’ve learned that being a CEO of start-up isn’t, or isn’t as you’d expect: It isn’t glamorous until you are At Scale and Hot, at the very minimum. At $10m-$20m+ in revenues, maybe. Maybe not even until pre-IPO….
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Blog Posts, Customer Success, Customer Success, Early, Hiring, Q&A

Dear SaaStr: Who Should I Hire First to Get Customer Success Going?

Dear SaaStr: Who Should I Hire First to Get My Customer Success Function Going? Key criteria for first customer success hire: – smart – truly understands and cares about the problem your product solves– lives and breathes making customers happy Rest, you can give on — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  (@jasonlk) August 20, 2023…
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