SaaStr 855: How Anthropic Rebuilt Its Sales Org From Scratch When Demand Went Vertical with Eleanor Dorfman, Anthropic Head of Industries
SaaStr 855: How Anthropic Rebuilt Its Sales Org From Scratch When Demand Went Vertical with Eleanor Dorfman, Anthropic Head of Industries When Claude Opus 4.6 shipped in December 2025, Anthropic's commercial team came back from winter break to find demand had gone vertical. They hadn't hired for it. They hadn't planned for it.
As Eleanor Dorfman, Anthropic's Head of Industries who runs the commercial and industries sales team, put it on the SaaStr AI Annual 2026 stage: even if they'd been ready to 3x or 4x or 5x the sales team, you can't absorb that many bodies fast enough to deliver a positive customer experience.
So in January 2026, they rebuilt the entire sales org around AI from scratch.
Four months later, the result: 54% of new enterprise logos in 2026 came through the self-serve funnel. Real enterprise logos. Real ACV. Real terms of service. Real invoicing. Self-served.
Here's how they did it, and the four investments any B2B + AI sales leader can copy today.
SaaStr 745: Mastering SaaS Sales Hiring, Customer Retention, and Growth with OpenAI, Retool, and 20VC
SaaStr 745: Mastering SaaS Sales Hiring, Customer Retention, and Growth with OpenAI, Retool, and 20VC
Dominic Grill, Head of Technical Success at OpenAI, and Eleanor Dorfman, Head of Sales at Retool, answer some of the most pressing questions from Harry Stebbings, Founder at 20VC, about mastering the customer lifecycle, how roles and motions in sales and post-sales have changed, the role of AI in sales, and some of the biggest lessons learned at these hyper-growth companies.
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20 Sales: How To Interview Sales People; The Red Flags and What to Look For, How Sales Leaders Should Change Goals and Quotas in Harder Markets and What Reps Can Do To Ensure They Hit Their Numbers in These Markets with Eleanor Dorfman, Sales Leader @ Ret
Eleanor Dorfman is a Sales Leader @ Retool, the company that allows you to build internal tools, remarkably fast. Prior to Retool, Eleanor joined Retool when there were only three account executives and has scaled the sales org sales to over 30 AEs, many SEs, and an entire SDR team. Before Retool, Eleanor was at Segment, where she built out the company's customer success operations team before pivoting to creating an expansion sales team, renewals team, and a new business sales team. Finally, before Segment, Eleanor made her way into startups, starting as an unpaid intern at Clever, just four years later, Eleanor was Head of Customer Success and Solutions Engineering.
In Today's Episode with Eleanor Dorfman We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Sales from Working with the US Education Department:
How did Eleanor get her first role as an unpaid intern at Clever?
What are 1-2 of her biggest takeaways from her time at Segment?
What are the biggest advantages of sales reps having experience in customer success?
2.) The Sales Playbook:
How does Eleanor define, "a sales playbook"? When does it need to be created?
Does it need to be the founder who creates it or can it be a Head of Sales?
Is it possible to run a PLG and enterprise motion from Day 1? How does this change your sales playbook?
How does Eleanor advise founders on when is the right time to layer on an enterprise motion, on top of a PLG motion?
3.) Who, What and When: Building the Sales Team
Should founders hire a Head of Sales first or sales reps first? If sales reps, should founders always hire sales reps in two's?
How does Eleanor structure the hiring process for all new sales team recruits?
What are the clearest signals of 10x sales hires? What are red flags in the interview process?
How does Eleanor use demo's and case studies to determine technical ability?
4.) The First 30, 60 and 90 Days: The Onboarding:
What is the right structure for all new sales hires to be onboarded?
Why does Eleanor believe you will always hire your Head of Sales Enablement too late?
What are the signs that now is the right time to hire your Head of Sales Enablement?
What tools, materials and resources can founders provide to shorten the ramp time for new AEs?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make in the onboarding of new sales reps?