We're just a few days away from SaaStr Annual 2023: Sept 6-7-8 at the San Mateo County Events Center.

This is it for tickets! 

Next week we'll be hosting 3 epic days of content, networking, mentorship, fun evening events, and connections with like-minded individuals - indoors/ outdoors, music festival-style. It is unlike any other B2B/ SaaS event you've ever been to. See for yourself. 

Our very last tickets are on sale now. Grab your ticket TODAY. 

So we’re finally, almost back from the IPO Drout in SaaS. The last SaaS leader to IPO was HashiCorp back in Dec 2021.  After that, the public markets began a precipitous decline — leading to an almost 2 year pause in SaaS IPO.

But now we’re almost back.

You may not have heard of Klaviyo until recently, if at all. 

But it’s the #1 break-out leader in the Shopify ecosystem, and the numbers are stunning:

• $650m+ in ARR
• Growing a stunning 56.5% at this scale (!!)
• 119% NRR from SMBs
• Profitable, and only burned $15m net to date
• 130,000 total customers

There’s not much to not love here! The only real risk is Klaviyo’s deep dependence on Shopify, which we’ll touch on below. But the metrics, especially for an SMB-focused SaaS business, are breathtaking.

Ah, hiring those first 1 or 2 sales reps.  So often, they are mis-hires.  But when you get that Sales Magician — they really can be a game changer.

If that’s you, hiring your first few sales reps, here are our Top 10 SaaStr Posts on Hiring Your First Few Sales Reps:

#1. When You Hire Your First Sales Rep — Just Make Sure You Hire Two.

A classic but updated post that now has become part of the SaaS playbook.  You can’t just hire one rep to start, or you’ll never know why they failed — or succeeded.

#2. How To (Successfully) Source Your First 2 Sales Reps 

Ok, you’ve closed 10+ customers yourself, and you’re ready to hire your first 2 reps.  But where do you find them?

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

Win customers by creating compelling offers with flexible pricing, billing, and bundling options with end-to-end automation. Learn more at the SAP booth in the Sponsor Hall, Hanger West! 

We have 250+ Braindates already for SaaStrAnnual.com 2023 next week!! Amazing smaller, deep dive sessions with top leaders in SaaS and Cloud.

The Most Popular 2023 Annual Braindates So Far:

#1. Navigating Corporate Venture Capital: Strategic Benefits for Early-Stage Founders with Erin Yang,  VP and Chief Technologist Workday Savannah Greene, Principle @ Workday 

#2: How Expensify Grew to 10M Users Through Word of Mouth Joanie Wang, Director of Marketing and Brand

#3. How I Took Our Team’s Sequencing From 2-3% Reply Rates to 18-26% with Katie Penner, Head of Sales Development Strategy & Enablement Sendoso  How Sales Can Use PLG to Accelerate Customer Acquisition and Expansion with Abhyuday “Uday” Chakravarthi, Founder & CEO of Clinch, Ex-Head of Product, Growth

#4. Demystifying AI for SaaS: Practical Steps to Drive Innovation with Bessemer Venture Partner’s Anant Vidur Puri  

#5. Ask a VC Who Has Invested Through Three Downturns, “”What’s Next”” with Neil Sequeira, Founder & Partner Defy.VC

#6. How Sales Can Use PLG to Accelerate Customer Acquisition and Expansion with Abhyuday “Uday” Chakravarthi, Founder & CEO of Clinch, Ex-Head of Product, Growth at Atlassian

I was lucky enough to be the first venture investor in a next-gneration ediscovery startup, Logikcull, way back in 2015. A flash-back to them at $1m ARR or so here.

Andy Wilson CEO has been part of SaaStr events and contents since then, and a great session below on how they scale, and a great post here on how they migrated from a services business to a true SaaS business here (always hard).

This edition of the SaaStr Weekly is sponsored in part by Booking.com

Upgrade your business travel with Booking.com for Business. Enjoy exclusive business rates and earn loyalty points on flights, accommodation and car rental, along with 24/7 travel support - all for free!

How do you hire a great CTO, a great VP of Product, a great VP of Sales … if you’ve never worked with one?  It’s hard.

There’s a reason almost every founder you talk to had a mis-hire for their first head of sales.  Because they didn’t really know who a 10x hire would be, at that stage, back then.

But you can bend the odds. Here’s how to hire a 10x VP or other hire in any are you don’t … fully understand yourself.

• First, interview at least 30.  Yes, that’s a lot.  But by interview 10-15, you’ll find at least 1 that stands out.  You’ll start to get a sense of who at least could be great.
• Second, watch some tactical videos of great ones.  Listen carefully, how they think.  It helps.  Watch SaaStr videos, Plato videos for engineering, etc.  Really hands-on content.
• Third, ask your mentors and investors for intros to the best they’ve worked with.  You may not be able to hire them and that’s OK.  Your goal here is to meet someone truly get and understand the bar.
• Fourth, ask the very best people you’ve ever worked for, and with … who their best recommendation is for Position X.  This pretty much always works.
• Finally, find a great CTO, CMO, VPS, VPM, etc. to interview your top candidate.  And be honest with their feedback.  It may be critical, even when you do find a 10x hire.  But they’ll at least help you hone your thinking.

Remember, you have to take some risk if you don’t have the hottest start-up in the world.  But the corner you can’t cut is someone that seems good on paper, but you just … aren’t sure.  So you gotta follow the 5 part process above, especially for the hires in areas you aren’t an expert yourself.

© SaaStr 2023

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