BitcoinAddict

How would you all go about picking a healthy SaaS company to work at in 2024?

The Big Corps like IBM, Salesforce, and the like pay peanuts on base and overall pay. A lot of them have small territories which have likely been worked to death.

The Series A and B startups might pay a lot but they are unstable and you will be looking for a new job within a year.

RepVue can only tell you so much as a lot of companies ask their reps to give them good reviews on it.

I wonder if really the trick is to find Series C and Series D startups that are hiring for AEs? How about a company that recently went public?

I like to hear your thoughts on this.

☁️ Software Tech

👥 Hiring

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Ask this question in all interviews: Are you profitable?

If the answer is no: when is your break even projection?

If they aren’t thinking about that horizon line, put them in the reject bucket.

Profitability is a signal of healthy and longevity. VC attraction is no longer something I value in an organization.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Straightforward and professional. I like it Picasso.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Nothing extraneous

SaaSguy

Tycoon

Account Executive

Most series A/B are a ways off from profitability, a good metric is FTE.
If FTE looks off, its likely a reduction in workforce would be the easiest way to profitability and hence make working their riskier.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I’m not sure I agree. Series B FTE could be 50 or 250.

SaaSguy

Tycoon

Account Executive

Fair! I'd look at it as part of a holistic understanding of company health. Im just saying profitability isnt the best metric, best companies ive worked for were not yet profitable - but we sold a lot of shit and reinvested in more engineers/marketing/events that continued us on a non-profitability stretch but allowed me to earn big $

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Today the name of the game is profitability. Massive VC rounds don’t mean shit when companies with $100M cash in the bank can still fail.

countingmyinterest

Politicker

Account Executive

FWIW, the last two W-2 jobs I've had were at series C and Series D.
Series C was "allegedly profitable" and half the sales team got laid off.

BigShrimpin

Catalyst

Account executive

if theres appropriate runway it comes down to personal risk tolerance, if you understand the vertical and players in the space you can make an informed decision of their likelihood to succeed.
if youre going into a new space you know nothing about its a crapshoot

DataCorrupter

Politicker

Account Executive

I've worked for a few of these Series C-D companies (and will continue to do so) and have figured out (after some trial and error) that the best way to ask is:

A. Revenue, how much did you do last year, and how much did you do this year. The delta between those two number should tell you a lot. It's either going to flatten out or the machine is just getting started. A lot of these companies don't make it over 15m in ARR, so if they're already over that hump, your odds are better that it's not a total loser. If last year was 10m and this year 13m, then that's not really much of an improvement, is it? 10m to 25m is though. Divide that by the number of AEs and you've got a rough idea of how AEs performed last year (and how likely you are to perform there). You can't argue with performance, and these are totally reasonable to ask in an interview.

B. What is your NRR (net retention rate). If it's over 100% then they're selling more to the accounts each year, more expansion ARR and more money for you. If it's below 100% then they're probably not keeping every customer that comes in (which you should totally read into and ask why). If NRR is lower, than they're losing more money than they're bringing in, which (again) you should totally read into.
I kinda agree with poweredbycaffeine, but also don't. The thing is, each VC is different, has differing strategies, so does each VC principal, so they may want the company to be unprofitable for a long time and that's just their strategy. Amazon did it, so did many others. I would just say on profitability "it depends". I respect PBC highly, but think revenue is a slightly better measurement. Your mileage may vary though.

Armageddon

Opinionated

Enterprise Account Executive

You need to interview the company as much as they are interviewing you. Are they profitable, do they have significant runway, and is there a true product market fit / are reps winning deals

medhardwaredr

Opinionated

Director of Sales NA

Use your network. I ping my IT channel closest, trusted contacts/friends and ask what they are seeing. Works great!

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Got a dartboard? That is as good a guess as any.

Founding BDR

Do your due diligence with the companies you interview with. If possible, try and connect over a chat with some of the team (ideally the same roles your targeting) and try and get some insight through that. Worked pretty well for me when vetting companies.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I work for a smaller privately-held company. It's stable, profitable, but not really a C or D. Don't limit yourself. Look within a vertical you'd like to be in. Search for the competitors and look at all of them.

BitcoinAddict

Opinionated

What does FTE stand for?

DataCorrupter

Politicker

Account Executive

Full time employees

Tf1859

Good Citizen

Account Executive

Salesforce pays a ton to its top performers (who have all been there a few years). It’s just the selection bias where the people with the bad territories are the ones who leave and then talk about how they didn’t make enough there. There are lots of folks absolutely killing it there who just don’t go on Bravado and the other sales forums because they aren’t looking for other roles IME

Chief Revenue Officer

I would ask a couple of questions
Are you EBITDA positive?If not, What is your cash burn
What is your churn? (7% or less is good)
What percentage of your receivables are over 90 days? (10% or less is good)
What is your MRR/ARR growth over the last 2 years? (20%+ is very good)
What is your sales and marketing staff retention?
Do you have a single client that is more than 20% of your revenue?

PhlipOut

Politicker

Account Executive

Ask a wizard.And then tell me the answer. Please!

Sid18

Enterprise Account Executive

In addition to the comments posted here I would go right to the “end game”. What is their exit strategy if it is PE backed. Also, do a strong due diligence on the PE form and see if you can learn about how and why they invest. i.e. are they looking for sustained growth or a fast 3 year exit?

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BitcoinAddict

How would you all go about picking a healthy SaaS company to work at in 2024?

21 comment

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