Don Erwin, Head of Revenue @ Mixmax
Podcast: SaaStr Episode #280 Don Erwin sits with Jason Lemkin and lays out the playbook he used to shift Mixmax from a self serve product to an upselling and outbound…
Marginal gains, compounding returns
Podcast: SaaStr Episode #280 Don Erwin sits with Jason Lemkin and lays out the playbook he used to shift Mixmax from a self serve product to an upselling and outbound…
One of the biggest things first-time founders intuit wrong is how much sales efficiency plummets … just as it is getting good. Usually, most SaaS start-ups follow a pattern where the CEO starts off doing founder-led sales. Then, after she hires a few sales reps, and makes a few mistakes.
The first SaaStr post that got widespread distribution was this one — “Want to Understand SaaS? If Nothing Else — Understand That It Compounds.”
It means it’s really, really hard to get revenues going. You close a customer for $120 in annualized revenue, you only get to recognize $10 of that a month. A lot of work for ten bucks.
The most important thing is not to chase the shiny penny, assuming you are growing at least 60% Year-over-Year. You’ve done the Impossible. You’ve gotten 50, 100, whatever # of businesses to pay you $1,000,000 a year. There are 10,000 new apps out there. It’s “impossible” to get to $1m.
The SaaStr Blog is hosted by Jason Lemkin with contributions from thought leaders, founders, and VC’s. Amazing resource with a never-ending stream of easy to digest content, easily my favorite source for SaaS content.
So a while back on SaaStr, we did a couple of posts about how B2B and SaaS marketing needed to catch up. That you needed your VP of Marketing to make a real lead commit, to have a true quota of some form. Not just get you blue pens with your logo on it.
One key post I missed on the VP Sales journey was how to pay this critical role. I don’t think it’s necessarily as nuanced and interesting a topic as how to pay and scale the sales team itself, or how to hire for this role.
I’m not ashamed to admit that when I set up our first SaaS sales comp plan, I had no idea what I was doing. In my first start-up, yes I sold to the enterprise. I sold $6m our first year (man, that sounds good looking back on it).