My lessons learned from #SaaStr. 1. It's fantastic to have online friends but even better to meet them in real life. I enjoyed that with all my heart even though I am not a big party person. 2. Everyone talks about category creation like it's an easy job, "Oh Drift, did, then we can do it too." What Drift did was a marketing gimmick that worked, and it might not work for you. 3a. Hande Cilingir from Insider. raised an interesting point about reading business books written by entrepreneurs; if they have done it before, the book will be exciting, and if they did not? Sometimes they hit the mark, but it is pretty rare. 3b. Hiring Good Sales Reps is necessary, but salespeople coming from most BIG organizations don't know how to sell. Yeah, you heard her :) They are used to a totally different environment and level of products. Try to hire salespeople from companies like yours or smaller, and they usually have it what it takes. 3c. In your organization, who holds the expansion function? Is it Sales or Customer Success? and Why? Some food for thought here. 3d. When you sell, ask your marketing to package the product. It looks nice. But don't spend too much time on it. 1. A slide deck with benchmark metrics. In short, the more organic you have - the better. If your 50-60% sales reps hit quota, then it's already good. Pilot programs and hypotheses are the bread and butter. 2. A good VP of Sales should bring results within one, max two sales cycles. Also, it's a good sign if they bring in good hires. 3. Lloyed Lobo talked about the stages of a company (PM fit, PC fit, Validation, Scaling) and what you should focus on in those stages. Until you reach product-market fit, focus on one channel. He said always concentrate on one channel :) I kind of disagree, but that's just a clash of opinions. He also shared a list of advice for teams. Overall, some talks were good, some mediocre, "let's call them just not for me," but overall, it was a great conference with good afterparties. p.s. They say Nathan Latka’s party was the best; wasn't there.