The Latest from SaaStr: Hiring Risks vs. Hiring Flags. Make Sure You Get it Right.

So we took a look at ServiceNow a little ways back at $5B in ARR, but I thought it was worth another deep dive now for a very specific reason: Their very seasoned CEO has sees no real slowdown or downturn in their business. 

At $7 Billion in ARR, growing ~30% annually, quarter over quarter over quarter. 

Given that customers sign 3+ year, $1m+ contracts, one wouldn’t expect any massive decline in revenue from any shorter-term macro effects anyway.  But new bookings aren’t really down, either.

In many companies, the longtime dispute between sales and marketing prevents them from collaborating or agreeing on a goal. Divvy’s CRO, Sterling Snow, created a structure aligning these two teams with others to create a formidable revenue team.

This structure drove the company to a $2.5 billion-dollar acquisition by Bill within five years.

In this episode, Snow shares the journey to realizing the strength of revenue alignment through sales, marketing, and customer success and the principles for implementing this structure to yield tremendous results. 

SaaStr’s Poya Osgouei has a great Uncharted podcast that does a deeper dive with many SaaS execs.

Up this week is Adam Tesan, Chargebee’s CRO, on one of the top topics in SaaS today: How to Sell to the CFO.  It’s something many of us didn’t think about much just 12 months ago, and that everyone needs to be great at today.

During the Boom Times of late ’20-early ’22, we all often confused Taking Risks in hiring … with Just Plain Ignoring Flags.

Great risks to take, IMHE:

• Been a Director, but never VP.  The best VPs of Sales I’ve hired were Directors of Sales before.  Not ICs, not top reps.  But folks that had built small teams themselves, and were ready to go to the next level.
• Very smart, but no industry experience.  Everyone over-indexes on industry experience.  The smart ones can pick up what matters in 30-60 days, though.
• Not perfect background, but showed up incredibly prepared.  Who cares where they went to school if they can crush it.  Even if you are quietly biased here, let it go when they show up incredibly on top of how your business works, and where it should go.  That’s far better in my experience than hiring a random top-tier university grad.
• Non-traditional educational experience.  See previous point.  A number of my very best hires never finished high school.
• Someone truly great tells you they are great.  The best folks you know … know the gems.  Even if you can’t quite see it yourself at first blush.

Well, of course it already exists.

You really think you’re the only person on the entire planet that has tried to do this?  It’s the Fermi Paradox of Start-ups.

Of course they have.  But — it doesn’t mean it matters.  Not if they aren’t at scale, or at least getting there, yet.

I suggest the “2-60-Google Rule”.

If two of you spend 60 minutes on Google each trying to find a competitor that is at scale.  If neither of you can find anything that looks like a real start-up … then don’t let this stuff worry you.

What that probably means is there isn’t a huge competitor than can stop you.  And, of course, there will be tiny competitors.

There always are.

As SaaS founders are looking to scale and raise funding, it can be confusing and stressful to navigate in the uncertain market of the past few years. Valuations have dropped, and investors are more selective with their capital. So how can you tell if you’re on the right track?

In this session of SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays, the Managing Director & Head of Growth Equity at OMERS Growth Equity, Mark Shulgan, shares advice for focusing on the fundamentals and keeping profitability at the forefront.

This edition of the SaaStr Daily is sponsored in part by Brex

Brex is reimagining corporate cards and spend management to help founders get fast access to 10-20 times higher credit limits, unlimited virtual cards, a no-fee business account, and built-in software. 

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