Alper Yurder 🤝

Co-founder & CRO of Flowla, interactive deal rooms your buyers LOVE 👉 Follow our podcast #salestherapy by Flowla 🎙️ on spotify

I’m a former B2B SaaS founder with 10+ years of experience in sales, marketing, and go-to-market strategy.

I’ve built and scaled startups through the seed-to-Series A journey raising VC funding, leading sales teams, and turning unknown products into trusted brands.

Today, I work as a fractional CRO & CMO, helping B2B founders design and execute their go-to-market systems from message-market fit to scalable revenue.

I act as the founder’s right hand to:

- Build GTM strategy, positioning, and demand generation
- Turn your brand from unknown to known through founder-led content and sales
- Install repeatable sales and marketing systems that actually drive revenue

Alongside my client work, I advise and mentor founders at accelerators and VC programs across Europe, and lecture on founder-led growth and GTM strategy.

If you’ve built a great product but the market doesn’t quite see it yet or if you feel your growth stalled and can use some support, I help make it seen, understood, and bought.

👉 Feel free to DM me if you’d like to chat about your GTM or sales strategy.

Co-Founder

Hey there, I'm an ex-sales leader turned co-founder, and I spend all day sharing ideas, solving problems and having #salestherapy with sales professionals from every sector and level. If you're after sales and G2M advice, you've come to the right place! And believe me, I've been through it all - from building SDR teams to closing multi-million dollar deals and everything in between. So, let's have some fun and chat sales!

🙌 I'm a big fan of Gamma (AI presentation builder that hit $50M ARR in 2 years), so when HubSpot For Startups invited me to hear founder Grant speak, I cleared my calendar. One of the best events I've been lately. Key GTM insights below 👇

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👉 **The state of B2B SaaS investing**

AI funding VC Panel with Sitar Teli (Connect), Luke Smith (Molten), Will Wells:

Sitar: "We look for 70-80% margins in B2B SaaS. But with founders building on existing platforms, we're seeing 10-20% instead."

The democratization of building has a trade-off - easier to ship, but unit economics under pressure.

Luke: "At Series A, we need at least one founder who deeply understands the customer. That's where defensibility lives."

Will's focus on European deeptech: neo computing, AI inference challenging Nvidia, foundational businesses in defense and space.

Europe's deeptech moment feels real.

---

👉 **What's changing for technical founders**

The commercial co-founder requirement is softening.

VCs increasingly back product founders who partner with experienced operators early, then build commercial teams later.

The bar: Deep product understanding + customer empathy.

GTM can be layered on. Product vision can't be outsourced.

---

👉 **AI agents are here**

HubSpot's new Breeze AI agents: prospecting, content generation, customer service.

What stood out: truly contextual outreach beyond templates.

We're past "AI tools." We're entering "AI agents that execute workflows."

---

👉 **Building AI unicorns** (Husayn Kassai, Onfido)

His framework: 6-12-18 max team for speed.

Culture: "How are decisions made when you're not in the room?"

Product-led growth as foundation.

---

👉 **Product always wins** (Grant Lee, Gamma)

"If people aren't talking about your product organically... you're in trouble."

This resonated deeply from our Flowla journey.

When product hits home, you scale to $50M ARR in 2 years like Gamma did.

I've seen founders try to scale without organic pull. It never works.

Marketing amplifies what exists. It can't create something from nothing.

When PMF is real, GTM pours fuel on fire.

When it's not, GTM is expensive noise.

---

Two days of high-signal conversations with investors, founders, and operators.

Grateful to be part of these discussions.

Many thanks to Anna Gordon and HubSpot For Startups for curating such a strong lineup and for the invitation. Great inspiration for my upcoming workshops and speaking events! And why looking so serious in the pic Richard Lee 😉

Alper Yurder

Founder at Forte | We build scalable GTM systems for B2B startups with founder brand, AI-led inbound-outbound and scalable sales process | Exited B2B SaaS Founder | Angel Investor | Fractional GTM leader to +20 startups

🙂 Great pleasure being with the founders of Tenitys latest cohort last week for the series of Sales Masterclasses. We workshopped on founder brand, how to grow on LinkedIn, finding scalable growth loops, and building trust with early customers to get to your first 100.

these are late-seed and pre-Series A founders - making the move from £500K or £1M ARR to what's beyond, and figuring a scalable growth loop! love it!

And honestly? The challenges are similar to what I see in general:

"How do I make this repeatable?"
"How do I build trust with new clients fast?"
"How do I get more visibility without spending millions?

---

We went through real examples from founders in the room and I gave examples from recent work on building trust, expanding beyond first network and trying different gtm motions such as:

-> building trust for a fintech app through private dinners with CFOs, one is a happy customer, let them evangelize you in a private setting,

-> Another is an edtech - now truly beyond founder-led sales so doing paid search, retargeting, and cold calls all at once in a sequence that makes sense.

Each founder's business is unique.

But there's still a playbook 👇

Finding and recording signs of:
→ Faster sales cycles (who closes in 2 weeks vs 2 months?)
→ Good ICP fit (who converts easily vs who ghosts you?)
→ The one scalable motion that's unique to YOUR business

Then doubling down on what works for you.

---

Always a pleasure working with founders who are in the thick of it, building real businesses.

Thanks for having me Tenity 🙌 

And special thanks to Eda Taskin, Wiktoria (Victoria) Przybylska, and the team for organizing. And great pleasure to meet Mehnaaz Maleta who're doing wonderful work helping create the new Nordic unicorns! Looking forward to collabing more on that too...

---

👉 If you're a founder cracking these things right now (£500K-£2M ARR, trying to make founder-led sales repeatable) - DM me, happy to share my playbooks and presentations from these events

👉 If you're a VC or accelerator looking for someone who's actually built this to share real practical tips with your portfolio - hit me up too.

✈️ Many are heading to Slush and wanted to drop my real-talk GTM stack before wheels up for you to up your GTM game on the go.

These aren't bookmarks I never opened. These are resources that actually built my knowledge on sales, AI workflows, and founder-led growth.

Playbooks & Books That Moved the Needle:
- SaaStock sessions with Adam Robinson, zero fluff, all systems
- Balderton's B2B Sales Guide, best advice for technical founders
- Predictable Revenue, still the outbound essentials
- The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon, hire sales or close deals better
- Founder Brand by Dave Gerhardt, your personal brand IS your GTM 
- Series A Benchmarking Report, know your numbers before you raise

Podcasts Worth the Flight:
- 20VC, Harry Stebbings bringing founder + investor truth weekly
- Lenny's Podcast: product, growth, GTM from operators who've done it
- Balderton Podcast: European founder focus
- Startup Sales: Adam Springer's early-stage B2B playbook
- How I Built This: for when you need founder energy
- My own "Sales Therapy": shameless plug but listeners say it helps

GTM + AI Stack I'm Using Now:
-Brian Balfour's essays, growth loops + systems thinking
-Holloway's GTM Playbook, comprehensive, not surface-level
-My AI workflow: Fathom → Claude → 10 LinkedIn posts per sales call (will share the prompts soon)

Tools I actually use: Clay, Gamma, Napkin, Replit, Claude (enterprise version is fire!) Relevance.ai tests, Empler.ai, Ujji.ai

Founders/Operators I Follow:
davegerhardt - founder brand + content harrystebbings — founder + VC mindset 
pierreherubel - B2B positioning frameworks
justinkan - raw founder perspective 
lennysan - product-led growth 
alexgarcia - distribution tactics
and me (obviously) - sharing how I help founders build systems starting with their own founder brand -> trust building -> linkedin -> outbound -> sales process -> inbound engine -> scale creator marketing and referrals

Drop a 🔥 if you find this useful!

💪 I'm always in awe of technical founders who hit £1-2M ARR with almost no marketing. Just pure product. Deep expertise. Word of mouth. Which honestly is gold. But not enough 👇

Yesterday I spoke with a founder who:
- Built IoT security for 20M devices
- Grew to £1M+ ARR in 14 months  
- Has only ONE salesperson
- Posts on LinkedIn "only when there's really valuable content"

Here's what always happens at this stage

👉 The Pattern:

→ Revenue plateaus around £1.5M
→ Sales is 100% founder-led (doesn't scale)  
→ Pipeline is unpredictable
→ Competitors with worse products but better marketing start winning

👉 The breakthrough isn't working harder

It's adding structure to what already works

If you're at £1-2M ARR with minimal GTM, here's what to fix:

1️⃣ Document your customer language

Interview 5 customers: "How did you describe us internally?"

That's your messaging. Not your features.

2️⃣ Make the founder visible

You close deals in the room. Get in more rooms.

LinkedIn: 2 posts/week sharing what you see in the market + 1 for credibility and social proof

3️⃣ Create repeatable outbound

You've proven the product works. Now prove you can find customers systematically.

Target → Message → Test → Scale 

Record tests somewhere, review every month to hit message-market fit

4️⃣ Build forecastable pipeline

Stop hoping referrals arrive. Build a system that generates 20 qualified conversations/month. Either an inbound engine with a content hire,

AIO, founder brand

or trust building activities like webinars and private dinners

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👉 The founders who scale past £2M don't have better products

✅ They have better distribution

You've done the hard part (building something people need)

Now do the uncomfortable part (telling people it exists)

---

DM me "GTM" if you're at this stage and would like a chat - I'll send you the full diagnostic I use with founders.

Greg Mccallum

ThinkWork

🚀 Fractional Chief Commercial Officer & Growth Partner for high-growth B2B SaaS, AI & Tech startups.
ThinkWork helps ambitious founders and their teams move from early chaos to structured, scalable revenue engines that attract investors and accelerate growth.

We’re not just a solo advisory shop. Led by Greg McCallum, ThinkWork brings in specialist talent as needed, from sales enablement to RevOps, so you get the impact of a full GTM team without the headcount risk.

📦 Stage-specific services:
→ GTM FastStart – Building sales foundations that actually work
→ Sales Engine Builder – First hires, systems & processes to scale pipeline
→ fCCO-as-a-Service – Strategic GTM leadership without the full-time cost
→ PeerReview – Independent skills diagnostics powered by Peer

🔍 Why founders choose ThinkWork:
We don’t deliver fluffy strategy decks. We build and embed the commercial engine, validate performance with real data, and make sure your GTM function can scale.

🎯 Book a free 1:1 GTM Audit to see what’s working and what’s not.

Founder & CEO

Founders Unplugged

Long-form casual conversations with Founders, Entrepreneurs and Investors from around the world.

20K listeners across the globe! 
Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and more. 

Currently on Season 3. Applications for Season 4 guest spots are opening soon. 
Sponsors and partners welcome. 
Presskit here: https://podk.it/foundersunplugged

Founder & Host

Peer

Peer is setting the standard for sales skills and competency assessment, giving Revenue and Enablement leaders a clear, consistent way to measure, benchmark, and grow the capabilities that drive performance.

Get a free Sales Skills Assessment of your team now!

Co-founder & CEO

tl;dv - AI Meeting Assistant

- tl;dv (“too long, didn’t view”) is an AI Meeting Assistant that goes beyond simply recording, transcribing, and summarising your team’s meetings.

- tl;dv provides insights from relevant meetings across various teams and individuals within your organisation. It seamlessly integrates with CRMs, ticketing systems, knowledge management platforms, and over 5000 other tools.

Fractional Chief Commercial Officer

Zonder Studios

The world’s first exploration game and travel companion.

GtM Advisor

NovaSquare Ltd

The AI companion for Streamers, Gamers and online communities with personality! 
Roleplay. Icebreaker. Humour.

Angel Investor and GtM Advisor

Observic

Measure, Track and Improve the Skills of Your Sales Team.

Claim your FREE Sales Skills Snapshot!

GtM Advisor + Exec Coach

Edeal Enterprise Agency

EDEAL is a not-for-profit agency providing fully funded, confidential & impartial business advice, training & coaching.

The Cheeky Panda | Certified B Corp

Angel Investor

TW Syndicate

A group of Angels and Micro-investors focusing on Early stage Creator Economy startups

Principal

The 🚫🐂💩 Startup Mentor & Commercial Advisor! 👉 1h FREE advisory sessions. 🌱1K+ Founders 🧩 Co-Founder & CEO @ Observic 👨‍💻 Host Founders Unplugged 🎙️ Angel Investor

$1B+ Revenue influenced 
500+ founders advised
9 x fCCO
2 x Founder & CEO
3 x FT CCO
5 x Angel Investor
4 x Sales & Marketing Leader
2 x Father (to humans)
1 x Father (to dog)
1 x Husband
99.99% 🚫🐂💩
0.01% 🐂💩
Occasional Idiot

Podcast Host

Raw, unedited long-form conversations with entrepreneurs and startup founders from around the world.

Watch/Listen here: https://linktr.ee/foundersunplugged

Delighted to announce I am now the CEO of tl;dv - AI Meeting Assistant.

In classic British fashion, I’ll be celebrating this promotion by causing absolute chaos before the end of the day.

Immediate changes include:

 – Mandatory tea breaks every 45 minutes
 – All meetings must begin with “right then…”
 – All slide decks must now include at least one meme
 – Christmas break extended indefinitely
 – And an immediate investigation into why half the company 
thinks they’re the CEO today

Busy day ahead.

#therealceo

Builder of revenue engines, fixer of broken ones, and fine-tuner of high-performing ones.

Well, while I (and half of tl;dv - AI Meeting Assistant) became the CEO on Friday, unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. 

Many methods of determining the "real" and "true" CEO were discussed (many of which included violence), but ultimately, it seems that we collectively realized we like our roles as they are. 

So, for now I'll just go back to empowering organisations to build their AI company brains with meeting intelligence insights, in my capacity as fCCO. 😉


GG team. GG. 


PS: apologies to all the well-wishers in my comments and DMs who thought this was actually real! 🤣

This week, I had the honour of giving a sales workshop to some wonderful local traders of our famous Eastbourne Market thanks to the EASTBOURNE AND DISTRICT ENTERPRISE AGENCY LIMITED and Edeal Enterprise Agency supported by the always impressive Eastbourne UnLtd Chamber of Commerce.

I firmly believe that the commercial/sales skills we tech startup junkies implement to grow shouldn't be gatekept and offer a huge amount of opportunities to SMBs of all shapes and sizes. 

I have been on a mission for years now to demystify and democratise sales, marketing and CX, and being asked to do this with such a great bunch of talented, creative and entrepreneurial individuals keeps me motivated to keep doing just that! 

Thank you for having me/putting up with me!
(I'm not exactly conventional in my approach, so I'm always surprised when the feedback is good and they ask for more... even after all these years 🤣)

Looking forward to catching up 1:1 with some of the attendees soon. 
😊

Sometimes after work you just need to decompress for 10 mins before father/husband duties. 

I have very little time for gaming these days, but a few rounds of COD, The Finals or even Fortnite with my some still resets my brain pretty effectively. 

Shout out to all the gamers out there with no time to game! 😂

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