It may seem counterintuitive to seek out a sales leadership hire during this time of slowed hiring, but it’s the number one topic that many founders talk about and many SDRs, AEs, and sales managers ask about.
Founders may ask, “how do I find the right sales leadership hire?” While someone in sales may ask, “how do I become a CRO someday?”
In today’s episode of CRO Confidential, Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, discusses these very questions with the previous CRO of Lattice, Dini Mehta.
Video: https://youtu.be/6eyB4G8y214
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Join Cliff Bockard, Senior Vice President of Revenue at DigitalOcean, as he discusses how DigitalOcean has won “big numbers” from “small customers” by tapping the underserved market of startups and SMBs. Cliff will discuss how companies can prioritize the success of their customers and benefit in turn, as well as why customer-centric and responsible, profitable growth matters more than ever.
Full video: https://youtu.be/vbj20ekVKsE
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Ready to kick-start 2023? Worried about team morale after a less-than-stellar Q4 (and Q3)? Jason shares 8 ideas that you can use right now to keep your sales team motivated and have a better Q1.
Full video: https://youtu.be/ji8mYoAGGjU
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Join Sarah Patterson as she shares key lessons on scaling marketing engines from her experience as a Marketing EVP at Salesforce and now the CMO at Samsara. Sarah will share three key lessons she has learned along the way, from building successful feedback loops to knowing when to invest for the long term or push for rapid growth.
Video: https://youtu.be/z7qITAzT5wc
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For many SaaS companies, serving the world’s largest businesses requires evolving some of its most critical business strategies and operations. In this session, Airtable’s Howie Liu sits down with Coatue’s Caryn Marooney to share the lessons he’s learned from scaling Airtable. From how to think about competitors and categories, to the importance of building the right organizational culture, Howie and Caryn reveal what SaaS leaders need to consider as they move upmarket.
Video: https://youtu.be/if4nKnNMl4s
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In today's CRO Confidential, Sam chats with Rippling VP of Sales Matt Plank. Matt was employee #5 and the first sales hire at Rippling. In this episode, he shares how he built and scaled Rippling's sales team.
Video: https://youtu.be/yAloXeNI1Qw
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There are so many interesting things everyone selling to SMBs can learn from HubSpot. Don't miss this talk with Hubspot's and SaaStr's CEOs Yamini Rangan and Jason Lemkin where they'll dig into how HubSpot is growing a stunning 41% year-over-year at $1.7 Billion in ARR.
Yamini and Jason discuss:
-why Hubspot chose to "take a step backward" by moving from sales-led to product-led
-why focusing on free makes your product better
-the importance of having multiple products
-why NRR should be a North Star metric for SaaS businesses
-working with partners
-international expansion and localization: why less is more
Full video: https://youtu.be/sNU4h7LpHOI
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SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin recently moderated a session with 3 of the best investing in SaaS: Doug Pepper, GP at Iconiq, Arun Mathew, GP at Accel, and Alex Kayyal, VP and head of all of Salesforce Ventures. The four deep-dive on the real state of venture capital today and into 2023.
This podcast was recorded live during G2's digital reach event. Check out the rest of the sessions over at Reach.G2.com
This episode is an excerpt from the session. Watch the full video: https://youtu.be/hTvNqr395nY
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Sam, Jason, and Jameson discuss:
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To scale your business customers need to be at the center of all you do. The reason for your business is to solve their largest problems and be mission-critical to their success. If your customers succeed your business will too. However, what if you can’t find or engage your target buyers? The way technology is bought and sold today has dramatically changed. The buyer’s journey is not linear but something they want to control. According to Bain and Co study, 94% of prospective buyers are well informed about a product before ever engaging with a sales team. From our research at TrustRadius, virtually 100% of buyers want to self-serve, 58% of buyers say word-of-mouth is a top source for discovery and evaluation. We’ll evaluate these buyer trends and provide strategies to find and win these new-age customers now and in the future.
Full video: https://youtu.be/eGL9ndS3Kmk
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SDRs are the most efficient channel for predictable B2B pipeline generation, but successfully scaling a team isn't easy. This session will cover the pillars of effectively recruiting, training, aligning, and empowering SDRs from the early stages of revenue through a global operation. Lars Nilsson has designed and built 25+ SDR operations at B2B SaaS software companies, and currently leads Snowflake's 200+ SDRs. Come have a listen to what all the buzz in SDR-Land is about!
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Building a flexible platform for your products and a strategic ecosystem around them is the key to fueling sustained growth. But when you’re in the throes of putting it together, it’s challenging to track the countless workstreams, investments, and partnerships involved – not to mention bringing all these pieces into alignment. Join Atlassian’s Chief Revenue Officer, Cameron Deatsch, to learn how to invest in an ecosystem, how to optimize your platform for innovation, and why long-term thinking is crucial to becoming a $10 billion company.
Full video: https://youtu.be/eVDucwrUgq8
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Keeping a Saas unicorn on the track of profitable, responsible growth requires clear alignment across the leadership team, and a purposeful approach to making decisions that drive the corporate mission. In this session, Algolia's Bernadette Nixon and Michelle Adams will discuss the dynamics of building a highly effective, open, direct and empathetic relationship between the critical CEO and CRO roles on the leadership team.
Full video: https://youtu.be/tJAPaW5GoxU
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The two biggest mistakes business leaders can make in a competitive space are thinking their competitors are too smart or, alternately, too dumb. The game on the field has shifted dramatically over the past 12 months, and what matters to a startup today is much different from a couple of years ago.
In the second installment of CRO Confidential, Founders Fund Partner Sam Blond, previous CRO at Brex, goes head-to-head with the CRO at Divvy, Sterling Snow, previously bitter rivals turned curious comrades. Snow and Blond dive deep into competition — how to position yourself against competitors and make the most of that competition.
Brex and Divvy are adversaries in the corporate card space, with many deals going up against each other. There has always been a ton of respect there and a bit of animosity, too, because of how competitive the businesses were.
This poses the question: Does staunch competition lend itself to better business? Psst… the answer is yes! Let’s see what Snow and Blond have to say about competition.
Full video: https://youtu.be/7LTyMpxy9LQ
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At the end of Day 3 of SaaStr Annual 2022, Jason opened up the mic for an AMA. This episode is the second half of the session.
In this episode, Jason discusses:
The first half of the session was published in Episode 607.
You can watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/apc5GwLlaDI
At the end of Day 3 of SaaStr Annual 2022, Jason opened up the mic for an AMA. This episode is the first half of the session.
In this episode, Jason discusses:
The second half of the session will be published in Episode 608. You can watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/apc5GwLlaDI
Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the 🌎largest community for B2B software.
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The foremost topic on every founder's mind right now: how to weather the ups-and-downs of an unpredictable economy. Gusto, has swerved with every economic curve since its founding 10 years ago. But throughout it all, Gusto has defined valuation differently—in terms of the value it provides to customers vs the value it extracts.
In this talk, Gusto CEO and founder Josh Reeves can speak to how Gusto has weathered the ups-and-downs of the economy—and why aligned success models (what's good for the customer = what's good for society = what's good for your business) are so important, especially now. Josh can share the specific business decisions Gusto has had to make with this approach, particularly over the past few years and today.
Full video: https://youtu.be/TuJnbPG3Tmk
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Top of mind for many startups during a downturn is the question, “How do we balance investment in growing our business while maintaining a modest burn to extend our time to next funding?” In this session we will explore some creative techniques to grow your business with efficiency. Hear from three VC partners with experience successfully co-founding, leading, and growing startups during previous market downturns
Full video: https://youtu.be/hQ-lDnEMCgo
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Founders Fund Partner and former Brex CRO Sam Blond joins the SaaStr podcast to host this series with SaaS CROs.
But first, to kick off the CRO Confidential series, Sam chats with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin about whether tech founders still need to be based in SF, the current correction of the VC market, and what to look for in an investor.
Full video: https://youtu.be/rwHdE318dqA
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Founders Fund Partner and former Brex CRO Sam Blond joins the SaaStr podcast to host this series with SaaS CROs.
But first, to kick off the CRO Confidential series, Sam chats with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin about gross margins, macro impact on 2022 revenue, and sales leadership recruiting.
Video: https://youtu.be/yAyym4uJMcs
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The rapid proliferation of cloud services has added to overwhelm among enterprise workers. Over the years, Grammarly has learned effective strategies to stand apart with users and business decision-makers while channeling customers’ needs, whether in customer support, sales, HR, and marketing. CEO Brad Hoover shares the customer-centric principles and lessons that he has learned in growing their user base to tens of millions of enterprise and individual customers, with teams from Accenture to Zoom.
Full video: https://youtu.be/zoyxXSYeZhM
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“Find a need and fill it” is a well-known maxim. After identifying the white space, though, understanding how to navigate category creation is key in order to grow and scale a company for the long term. For many SaaS businesses, the first category others consign you to may not match your ambitions as a founder. Entrenched forces have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and it takes courage to stick to your convictions about the future. As industries expand and mature, new strategies are needed to further deepen the competitive moat to secure and retain category leadership. Product is just the beginning: Ongoing success hinges on the growth and cultivation of the team, the company culture, and the larger stakeholder community—the work is never done.
When Braze was founded in 2011 with Bill Magnuson as CTO, smartphones were just becoming mainstream and mobile marketing was in its infancy. At that time, the category term ‘customer engagement platform’ did not exist yet, but the cofounders believed that technology which enabled brands to better understand and serve customers across mobile and beyond was the future for Braze. Fast forward 10+ years, and the founding team’s conviction has enabled Braze to become a leader in the nascent customer engagement category, reaching $100M in ARR in eight years, then doubling that to $200M less than 18 months later, to then making its public company debut at the end of 2021. In this session, Braze Cofounder and CEO Bill Magnuson will share best practices and lessons learned from his experience scaling Braze and establishing the company as a leader in the recently formed customer engagement category, including:
Full video: https://youtu.be/T5r6ajAHyvI
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Tune into Founder Confidential with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Hubspot Founders Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan to hear their key learnings and considerations of what it takes to be a Founder in today's SaaS landscape.
Full video: https://youtu.be/gn01HIUyE9M
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It’s no secret that 2022 has brought market shifts that even the previous two years lacked. While previously, investors were a bit more open and hyper-focused on growth, now SaaS VCs are more interested in proving efficiency alongside growth. As always, investors still have high-growth expectations, which have not changed. But in 2022, there is a new focus on efficiency. In fact, 82% of investors in a recent survey said that efficiency is more critical this year.
During this year’s SaaStr Annual event, Christophe Janz, Partner at Point Nine Capital, shares the secret to attracting investors in the new landscape.
Full video: https://youtu.be/nBYHFm-H8pA
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Leading a scaling business requires systems and plans for various stages of growth. Dave McJannet shares lessons learned from scaling HashiCorp, including: how to implement overlapping systems for the business (finance, people, product, go-to-market); how to manage the layered time horizons of various teams (36 months for a CEO, 90 days for sales); and how to reinvent these systems as the company enters new phases of growth.
Full video: https://youtu.be/KJk5B3R9rBw
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