Geert Van Kerckhoven, CEO & Co-Founder of Oper Credits

As a fellow SaaS founder, I’ve gained invaluable insights from my journey that I’d like to share. While my experiences may vary from yours, these tips can offer valuable guidance: 

1. Hire Strategically, Be Uncompromising: The saying “hire the right people” is a cliché for a reason—it’s crucial. Don’t settle for less than the best. Despite the temptation to expedite growth by cutting corners in recruitment, it’s a costly mistake in the long run. Stay stringent in your hiring process to ensure you surround yourself with top-tier talent. Remember, quality over quantity is key. 

2. Only scale a process when it works and it hurts: Avoid the trap of throwing resources at every issue that arises, especially post-funding. Instead, only scale when you feel you hit the nail on the head. If you feel your sales motion works and your salesperson is not effective anymore because there’s too much to work on, scale. Don’t hire more salespeople when they don’t know what to sell.  

3. Prioritize Diligently, Utilize Time Wisely: Use the Eisenhower Matrix to categorize tasks based on urgency and importance. Allocate ample time for non-urgent but important tasks, delegate urgent but less critical matters, and steer clear of non-essential distractions. Running long days and working hard on non-important / non-urgent items makes you feel busy, but it doesn’t move the needle for your business.  

4. Stay Hands-On, Lead by Example: Regardless of how your team is growing, remain actively involved in operational aspects. Technical founders should still carve out time for coding, while go-to-market founders must prioritize sales efforts. Leading by example instills a strong work ethic within your team and fosters a culture of accountability. Never lose sight of the operational side of your business as it’s where the true battles are won. 

5. Offer direct feedback generously: Founders often have an intuition when something isn’t right—this is (or at least should be) your superpower.

Therefore, tackle problems head-on rather than avoiding them—the issues rarely disappear on their own. Ignoring issues can only lead to frustration. Lead by example, you have an incredibly high bar for yourself so communicate that kindly to others.   

Michael Gonzalez, CRO Mindee

As we edge closer to the pivotal second half of 2024, it’s clear that for startups aiming not just to survive but also to thrive, rethinking traditional strategies is not an option — it’s a necessity. Here’s a distilled strategy that cuts to the chase.

Start with Your Customers

Putting customer centricity at the core isn’t just nice to have; it’s your lifeline. Every piece of your startup puzzle, especially sales, needs to click into what your customer really wants. This means every team, not just customer service, gets down in the trenches to understand and solve real customer problems. When your product hits that sweet spot of customer need, your sales pitch practically writes itself. It’s genuine, powerful, and most importantly, effective.

Tighten the CS-Sales Loop

Forget about silos between Customer Success (CS) and Sales. These teams need to be so in sync that they practically finish each other’s sentences. Why? Because insights from CS can turn into gold for Sales, helping tailor pitches that resonate. This isn’t just about improving customer satisfaction; it’s a strategic move that directly boosts sales figures by ensuring your offer is spot-on every time.

AI in Sales: The Game Changer

First off, embedding AI into sales isn’t just smart; it’s essential. Think of AI as your team’s superpower, automating the grunt work and ensuring your sales force zeroes in on leads that matter. This isn’t about replacing the human touch but amplifying it, letting your team focus on relationships and closing deals where they can truly make an impact

Martin-Pierre Gaultier, CCO & CMO at Lemonway

Don’t anticipate the market. This may sound strange, but this is the hard truth for strategists today. We’re now in a new era where the payback period needs to be shorter and certain. Start/scale-ups that could re-finance themselves in case of a late or uncertain product-market fit will no longer have this option. 

Unless you are building a deep-tech innovation that is — in essence — requesting a long financing period without a short-term return, all other companies starting series A will be requested to deliver a short-term profitable action plan (12/18 months). This means that having a deep understanding of your unit economics and your return on investment is mandatory. 

Multiple sub-processes need to be assessed: When is your time to hire? What is then your time to revenue (two very important KPIs for your CRO)? You can also move up in the company value chain by measuring how fast you go from product design to product delivery.  How does this resonate with your market maturity and your competitive landscape?

So, to finish 2024 strong, you need to be in full control of your company’s key performance indicators, and those KPIs need to show evidence of the new profitability paradigm.