Different SaaS companies may have different roles within their organization depending upon the size of the company, how many full-time employees they have, is it a start-up or a well-established company, etc. Along with focusing on clearly defining each role, companies must also ensure that they have the right organizational structure in place. When you have the right structure in place, it is easier to attain your goals, objectives, and success.
While determining the structure, you must remember that the structure will evolve as your employees and company grow in size. In this post, we will take a look at what are some of the key roles and levels and how to structure your SaaS company depending on the number of full-time employees (FTEs).
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Key Roles and Levels of a SaaS Company
So, before we get into the details of how to structure your SaaS company, here’s a list of some of the key levels and their roles that are part of every SaaS company.
- Director – A director is someone who already possesses the required professional and leadership skills.
- Vice President (VP) – A VP is expected to possess thorough knowledge about the respective department that they are handling. He/She is also expected to have a strong team, recruitment experience, and leadership skills to handle teams of 25+ FTEs, including 7-8 direct reports.
- Managing Director (MD) – This level refers to the operations management board which includes all the MDs and the founders. Some of the core skills that MDs should possess include leadership, motivation, problem-solving, etc.
- Team Lead – Team leads are usually responsible for handling a team of 2-10 members. Compared to the other levels, team leads have limited leadership experience.
- Team Members – Team members are essentially the employees who are experts in their respective fields. They do not possess the required leadership experience but can be groomed and promoted to the level of team leader.
SaaS Company Organization Structure
For better understanding, we will explain the SaaS company organization structure by breaking it down into different groups based on the number of FTEs.
Prior to Initial Investment
At this stage, you will have about 3-6 members who are all ideally the founders of the startup. During this initial phase, the founders will be involved in all aspects of the business. The three main focus areas of the business for the founders include product and tech, sales and marketing, and admin and process. Each of the founders may have one team member to assist them. Before the initial finance, it is important to focus on these three business areas to ensure the success of your SaaS business.
Since the SaaS business has a dynamic environment, you need to always stay one step ahead. For example, when it comes to sales and marketing, even though you may initially not have any customers, you still need to have a robust sales and marketing strategy in place to keep up with your growing business.
The product and tech team is responsible for the development of your products and solutions. The team has to diligently work on fixing all the bugs, errors, and issues in the product before its official launch. While the admin and process team are there to handle all the legalities, accounting responsibilities, etc. As your startup grows, these three areas will become more detail-oriented, with multiple team members in each of the business areas.
SaaS Company with ~25 FTE
With the growth of the business, the founders who have the first seed investment can focus on creating new positions and hiring the right team leaders. These team leaders will be responsible for managing the operational teams for each of the three focus areas. Along with the team leads, the founders may also hire a Venture Manager. This is a crucial stage wherein the founders have to take a crucial decision of whether to promote the internal team members or hire someone from outside for the team leader roles. This may or may not lead to a conflicting situation, depending upon how the existing team members react.
The hiring of a Venture Manager will allow the founders to have more time on their hands to focus on other critical aspects of the business. Their primary responsibilities, such as hiring team members, CRM tool implementation, etc., will be handled by the Venture Manager. In the long run, the Venture Manager may also be promoted to COO.
SaaS Company with ~50 FTE
With your total employee size reaching 50, you can officially call your SaaS startup a SaaS company. At this stage, the volume of responsibilities is quite high, making it difficult for the founders and Venture Manager to manage everything between them. This is where you need to look out for professional VPs who have the experience to lead large teams and scale up the business. Each department should have a VP; for example, you should hire a different VP for sales, marketing, product, development, etc.
With the VPs in place, the founders are promoted to specific roles like CRO, CTO, CFO, etc. These roles allow the founders to focus their time and efforts on making key executive decisions and VP management. Along with making the founders’ work easier by hiring VPs, you also need to hire a well-experienced HR Manager who can help in reducing the Venture Manager’s workload as well.
SaaS Company with ~125+ FTE
With your SaaS company reaching the ~125 FTE mark, things may start getting complicated with negative impacts on your cost efficiency as well. The inefficiency may occur due to several reasons, such as an increase in overhead costs, lack of performance measures, etc. However, these inefficiencies can be tackled with sound judgment and by implementing various performance metrics. Also, with this employee bandwidth comes a crucial decision of promoting one of the founders to the CEO position. This decision can make or break the growth of your SaaS company.
You will also have to hire more resources and open up key positions like Director of Business Development, Director of Communications, Director of Implementation, etc. Your VPs will also need additional support to handle the growing company, which means hiring more professional and experienced leaders who can work under your existing VPs.
Conclusion
The success of any SaaS company does not only depend upon the products and services they offer. The organizational structure of the SaaS company plays a crucial role as well. Also, as the business grows, the motive is not just to hire more people but also to ensure that you are hiring the right talent who can further accelerate the company’s growth. We recommend you check out SaaSworthy to gain deep insights about more than 40,000 software across 300 different categories!
