Early roles that drive SaaS revenue

Early roles that drive SaaS revenue

Early roles that drive SaaS revenue

By Lars Nilsson , special advisor at True

As part of my role as True’s special advisor focused on SaaS sales, I help guide founders of very early stage software companies on how to lay the groundwork for their revenue operations. 

At the earliest stage of a SaaS company, a #founder has often made a dozen or so hires, many of which are engineers building out a product offering. But I’m always surprised to learn that there aren’t yet many, if any, customer-facing roles by the time a company has reached that headcount of a dozen.

By the time someone questions a #SaaS company’s early hiring, inbound sales leads have often already fallen to the floor. Or, too many directors have been hired and the founder is scratching their head as to how they have so much talent on their team but nothing is happening with their sales pipeline.

If you’re a founder of a B2B SaaS startup and you’re beginning to build out your team, consider hiring these revenue-driving contributors in the order outlined below so you can empower your sales team and get cash positive sooner.

A Digital Marketer or Content Creator

Once a founder has built something they’re proud of, they need a partner in crime to help shout it from the rooftops. Ideally, this is a mid-level digital marketer or content creator who can help develop a library of assets that can inspire and educate potential customers.

Look for someone with experience writing newsletters, articles, scripts for explainer videos, and copy for marketing materials or case studies – and who has experience interpreting a vision into succinct stories catered to various audiences. Consider how you can broadcast these assets in all directions so prospects “trip” over your stories, take notice, and want to learn more.

A Pair of Sales Development Representatives

Your next pipeline hire should be a mid-level sales development representative (SDR) or two. They’ll have the sole task of setting up qualified meetings, or discovery calls, with prospects to generate pipeline. Once they do, the founder can attend meetings and sell the product or service.

I recommend hiring two SDRs at once if you can so you have two individuals generating pipeline alongside one another. Hiring in pairs can save a lot of time if one of the hires doesn’t work out. It also gives you something to compare in terms of productivity.

The digital marketer will be creating content and collateral that can inspire and teach prospects what they have to gain. The SDRs will use those materials to line up meetings. And the founder will be the passionate brand champion closing those initial deals.

A Quota-Carrying Sales Representative

Next, you’ll need a mid-level, quota-carrying sales rep’ who can quickly fold into operations and take over the deals in your pipeline. This mid-level sales rep’ should have experience successfully closing deals for other companies and shouldn’t be so experienced that they’re hesitant to roll up their sleeves.

At this point in team growth, founders should only attend sales meetings with the biggest and most important prospects. Otherwise, they can hand over the reins to the sales rep’ who is going to want to shine in as many meetings as possible to meet their quota. One sign of a great sales rep’ is if they join you and immediately ask: “Okay, so where’s the content? What do you have for me?”

A Revenue Operations Lead

Once your digital marketer is cranking out sales materials and content, your SDRs are using those materials to set up discovery calls, and your sales rep’ is closing deals, it’s time to hire a revenue operations lead who can set up what’s needed to programmatically scale operations and forecast.

This senior manager-level generalist should be responsible for implementing your CRM and stitching together your technology stack. Other platforms to consider when pulling together your revenue operation include a marketing automation platform, data provider, and sales engagement platform, among other key systems to help with both outbound and inbound demand generation.

A Customer Success Representative 

As you begin to onboard your first few customers, it’s critical that they begin to receive value from your product or service immediately. In the B2B world of more complex software solutions, customer success provides this function. 

Once your sales rep’ closes a deal, they then hand the relationship to customer success to keep customers happy and using the product so renewing is an easy “yes.”

While different #B2B SaaS teams will benefit from various combinations of the roles above, these five or so roles hired in the distinct ordering above can set a strong foundation for anyone looking to build scalable revenue operations.

Tweet from our Blog or learn more about our teammate Lars.


2023 True Ventures Fellows

No alt text provided for this image
The 2023 Class of True Fellows

This summer, we’ve welcomed 15 students to the True Ventures Fellowship where they’ll each partake in a summer of startup work for True Portfolio companies around the world. 

Every company we invest in is welcome to hire a True Fellow as entry-level talent across disciplines, from bioengineering, to product design, to software development, and beyond. Good luck to you this summer, fellows! We’re thrilled you’re here.


Portfolio News

Aisera 's Muddu Sudhakar: Entrepreneur of the Year

Endel Partners With Universal Music Group, Rolling Stone

Gridware  in VICE and Business Insider

Madison Reed ’s Amy Errett, Diligent Robotics ’ Vivian Chu: Fast Company Queer 50 List

Moderne 's Jonathan Schneider: NYSE Floor Talk 

System Inc. ’s Adam Bly for The Information

WattCarbon ’s McGee Young on My Climate Journey


10-Second Team Thoughts

No alt text provided for this image
True SF Office

What’s the ‘new-new’ in crypto these days? What’s exciting you?

“While there’s always something new in terms of what’s of the moment in web3, what I continue to be fascinated by is the scope of categories where crypto is a foundational part of the technology. The scope continues to expand to include more products, services, and communities related to music, biology, consumer products, you name it. Crypto and web3 have transcended from novel approach to foundational layer for many companies.” -  John O'Connell

What's something that’s stood out to you in recent pitch meetings?

“I’m drawn in when a founder shares their humanity. We seek to understand how a founder’s personal story and journey informs what they’re doing, what they’re building. There’s a beautiful balance in doing that while keeping the momentum going in terms of explaining what a company does and how it fits into the current market or creates a new one entirely.” -  Clarence Bethea

Tell us about a marketing strategy that’s worked for you during your career as an entrepreneur.

“At about.me, we had 26 advisors and were a four-person team… What those advisors were bringing were social insights in terms of how these models work. Them adopting about.me early on and putting it on their own pages was influencer marketing before we had words for that. And they were promoting the product and we were getting tons of sign-ups.” - Tony Conrad (Source: Beyond the Human Podcast)


Career Opportunities

Search career opportunities across the blockchain, climate technologies, sleep science, the future of veterinary care, and more. View all jobs.


Get the True Newsletter straight to your inbox.

www.trueventures.com/team

David Owusu-Akyeaw

Tech/Media/Publishing/Education/Creative Arts/Telecom/Investments/Environmentalist/Home Based/Office Administration

1y

Thanks for the invite to your newsletter

Like
Reply

To view or add a comment, sign in

Insights from the community

Others also viewed

Explore topics