Pitch Customization Guide: Sales Pitch for Series B SaaS CTO

Audience: Technical buyer (CTO) at Series B SaaS, 200 employees, scaling engineering 3x
Tone: Peer-to-peer technical depth, data-driven, consultative
Focus: Engineering velocity, team scaling, technical architecture, developer experience

---

Opening Hook (First 45 Seconds)

Use this opening:

“Thanks for your time, [Name]. I know CTOs at Series B SaaS companies scaling engineering teams 3x are juggling fifteen priorities—hiring pipelines, velocity metrics, technical debt, investor expectations—so I’ll respect your time and focus on the specific challenge you mentioned: maintaining engineering velocity while tripling your team from 60 to 180 engineers.

I’ve worked with 30+ Series B-D SaaS CTOs who hit this exact inflection point. What they all discovered: Adding more engineers actually decreased velocity because onboarding friction, process bottlenecks, and tool chaos turned talent into overhead. Let me show you how to avoid that.”

Why This Works:

• Acknowledges their specific context (Series B, 200 employees, 3x engineering scaling)
• Frames the conversation around THEIR problem (velocity paradox), not your product
• Demonstrates understanding of CTO priorities through specific language (“velocity metrics,” “onboarding friction”)
• Shows peer validation (other Series B SaaS CTOs)
• Sets clear expectations and respects their limited time
• Uses data-driven framing that appeals to analytical technical leaders

---

Slide 1: Intro / Company Overview (45 seconds)

CUSTOMIZE FOR THIS CTO

What to Emphasize:

• Peer company references (other Series B SaaS companies at similar stage)
• Engineering-focused positioning (not generic “business solutions”)
• Specific problem domain expertise (scaling engineering teams)
• Technical credibility signals (engineering team background, technical founders)

What to Skip:

• Company founding story (they don’t care)
• Generic awards or accolades
• Lengthy corporate history
• Marketing fluff or buzzwords

Specific Talking Points:
“Quick context on us: We specialize in helping Series B-D SaaS companies scale engineering from 50 to 500 engineers. We work with [Similar Company 1], [Similar Company 2], and [Similar Company 3]—all at your stage, all facing the same scaling challenge.

Our founding team are former CTOs who lived through the ‘hire to slow down’ paradox. We built this specifically to solve the problem you’re facing right now.”

Questions to Ask (make it conversational):

• “How many engineers are you at now, and what’s your target headcount 12 months out?”
• “What’s your biggest fear about tripling the team—velocity, culture, or something else?”

---

Slide 2: The Problem (3-4 minutes)

CUSTOMIZE FOR THIS CTO

Frame the Problem as THEIR Problem:

“Most Series B CTOs hit the same wall when scaling engineering from 60 to 180+. Let me walk through the three challenges I hear consistently—tell me if this resonates:

1. The Velocity Paradox
You hire more engineers to build faster, but engineering velocity decreases. Why? Because every new hire adds communication overhead, onboarding drag, and process bottlenecks. Your 90-day hire cycle means you’re bringing on 5-7 engineers per month. Each one takes 6-8 weeks to ramp, during which they consume senior engineer time. The math doesn’t work.

2. The Deployment Bottleneck
Manual deployments that took 4-6 hours with 60 engineers become unmanageable at 180. Your deployment frequency—which drives velocity—can’t scale linearly with headcount. You end up with deployment queues, merge conflicts, and frustrated engineers waiting to ship code.

3. The Technical Debt vs. Features Dilemma
Investors expect you to maintain 3x growth trajectory. Sales wants features. But you’re accruing technical debt faster than you can pay it down. Every quarter you delay investing in developer experience infrastructure, the problem compounds. By the time you feel the pain, it takes 6-9 months to fix.

Does this match what you’re seeing?”

What to Emphasize:

• Engineering velocity metrics (CTOs obsess over velocity)
• Quantified scaling challenges (use their numbers: 60 to 180 engineers)
• Data and timelines (90-day hire cycles, 6-8 week onboarding)
• The compounding nature of the problem
• Investor and board expectations (Series B CTOs face pressure)

What to Skip:

• Cost savings messaging (CTOs care about velocity, not cost reduction)
• Generic efficiency claims
• Compliance or security (unless they bring it up)
• Marketing-speak or buzzwords

---

Slide 4: Architecture / How It Works (5-7 minutes) - MOST CRITICAL FOR CTO

CUSTOMIZE FOR THIS CTO

Go Deep on Technical Architecture - This Is Where You Win:

“Let me walk through the technical architecture because I know that’s what matters to you. Feel free to interrupt with questions—I want this to be a technical conversation, not a sales pitch.

Architecture Overview:

Control Plane (Our Cloud):

• Multi-tenant SaaS architecture (SOC 2 Type II certified)
• Kubernetes-native orchestration
• Control plane manages workflow orchestration, policy enforcement, observability
• Self-hosted option available if required (some enterprise customers prefer this)

Data Plane (Your Infrastructure):

• Lightweight agents run in your environment (containerized, minimal footprint)
• No code or data leaves your infrastructure
• Agents communicate outbound only (no inbound firewall rules needed)
• Supports AWS, GCP, Azure, hybrid environments

Integration Architecture:

• Version Control: Native GitHub/GitLab integration (webhook-based triggers)
• CI/CD: Works with existing pipelines (Jenkins, CircleCI, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions)
• Cloud Infrastructure: Deploys to existing infrastructure (no rip-and-replace)
• Container Orchestration: Kubernetes-native (if you’re on K8s) or ECS/GKE/AKS support
• Observability: Integrates with Datadog, New Relic, Grafana, or your existing stack

Deployment Workflow (Technical Deep Dive):

1. Developer pushes to feature branch → GitHub webhook triggers our control plane
2. Control plane schedules build in your CI/CD system (we don’t replace it)
3. Tests run in your existing test infrastructure
4. On passing tests, our system orchestrates progressive deployment:
   • Canary deployment (5% traffic)
   • Automated health checks and metric monitoring
   • Progressive rollout (5% → 25% → 50% → 100%)
   • Automatic rollback on error threshold breach (configurable)
5. Deployment completion notification to Slack/PagerDuty
6. Full observability trail in your logging system

Questions to Ask (make it technical):

• “What’s your current deployment architecture—Kubernetes, ECS, or something else?”
• “Are you on GitHub or GitLab? What CI/CD system are you using?”
• “What’s your biggest concern about changing DevOps tooling mid-growth?””

---

Likely Objections from Series B SaaS CTO

“We’re planning to build this internally”

Response:
“I hear that often, and it’s a valid option. Here’s the trade-off: Building this internally would take 2-3 senior engineers 6-9 months to build and maintain. That’s 12-18 engineering months of opportunity cost.

The question isn’t can you build it—you absolutely can. The question is should you spend senior engineering cycles on internal tooling instead of your core product, especially during your Series B growth phase when investors expect you to maintain your 3x trajectory.

What if you could get this off the shelf in 2-4 weeks, proven at scale with other Series B SaaS companies, and redeploy those 2-3 senior engineers to your product roadmap? Would that change the equation?”

“What if we outgrow this as we scale beyond 200 engineers?”

Response:
“Great question—shows you’re thinking long-term. We work with customers from 50 to 5,000 engineers. [Large Customer] has 2,200+ engineers on our platform deploying 150+ times/day.

The architecture is designed to scale horizontally—we handle the scaling infrastructure, you don’t. As you grow from 60 to 180 to 500 engineers, the platform scales with you without re-architecture.

What specific scaling concern do you have? Is it deployment volume, team size, or something else?”

“My team is comfortable with the current process”

Response:
“Your current team is—they’ve learned to work around manual processes and bottlenecks. They’re the 60 engineers who survived the early stage.

But what about the 120 engineers you’re hiring over the next 18 months? Do you want to onboard them into slow, manual workflows that take 7-8 weeks to ramp, or fast, automated workflows that take 2-3 weeks?

The real question: Can you maintain your 3x growth trajectory with current processes at 180 engineers?”

---

Overall Pitch Strategy

Opening (2-3 minutes)

Hook: “How do you maintain velocity while scaling engineering 3x?”
Acknowledge: Series B stage, 200 employees, specific challenge (scaling from 60 to 180 engineers)
Promise: Technical depth, peer-to-peer conversation, not a sales pitch

Middle (18-25 minutes)

Problem (3-4 min): Frame around velocity paradox and their specific scaling challenge
Solution (4-5 min): Position as engineering velocity platform, not DevOps tool
Architecture (5-7 min): Go deep here—this is where you win. Let them ask technical questions. This should be the longest section.
Proof (4-5 min): Series B SaaS peer case study with CTO reference offer

Close (5-7 minutes)

Pricing (3-4 min): Transparent, scale-aligned, ROI framed in velocity
Next Steps (2-3 min): Technical POC, peer call, or technical deep dive—their choice

Total Time: 25-35 minutes (leave 10-15 minutes for Q&A and conversation)

Tone Throughout

• Peer-to-peer: CTO to CTO, not vendor to buyer
• Technical depth: CTOs hate surface-level explanations; go deep when they ask
• Data-driven: Use specific metrics, timelines, and numbers (not generic claims)
• Consultative: Ask questions, listen to their answers, adapt your pitch
• No pressure: Technical validation process, not sales urgency tactics

---

Series B SaaS CTO Context

Top Priorities (Ranked)

1. Engineering velocity and productivity: Maintaining or increasing velocity while scaling team 3x
2. Team scaling and hiring efficiency: Hiring pipeline, onboarding speed, ramp time
3. Technical architecture and infrastructure: Scalability, reliability, technical debt management
4. Investor and board expectations: Meeting 3x growth trajectory, demonstrating operational maturity

Decision-Making Style

• Analytical and data-driven: Wants to understand how it works technically, not just what it does
• Risk-aware: Prefers POC/pilot before full commitment; wants to de-risk the decision
• Peer-influenced: Trusts other CTOs more than sales; peer validation is critical
• Build vs. buy evaluation: Default mode is “can we build this internally?”—need to show opportunity cost

Language to Mirror

• “Engineering velocity,” “deployment frequency,” “time to production,” “developer productivity”
• “CI/CD,” “observability,” “incident response,” “deployment automation”
• “Kubernetes,” “microservices,” “technical debt,” “infrastructure as code”
• “3x growth trajectory,” “Series B expectations,” “velocity tax,” “operational maturity”

Do’s for This Persona

• Go deep on technical architecture
• Use peer validation (Series B SaaS CTOs)
• Offer POC/pilot (low-risk technical validation)
• Ask technical questions (make it a conversation)
• Be transparent about pricing
• Frame as strategic infrastructure, not a tool

Don’ts for This Persona

• Don’t be generic (“faster, better, cheaper”)
• Don’t gloss over technical details
• Don’t oversell or hype (CTOs resist marketing-speak)
• Don’t pressure or create false urgency
• Don’t focus on cost savings (CTOs care about velocity)