Alper Yurder 🤝

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

Most B2B founders at $500K-5M ARR hit the same wall. Great product. Scaled with founder-led everything. Now you need to enter new markets, get the word out, and build a system that scales without you at every step.I’ve been there. 

As a founder & as a CRO/CMO.

At Flowla, I was the co-founder who became the sales team then marketing. Hired twice. Failed twice. £30K gone. 

The problem wasn't the people - I hadn't built the system.So I built it. Scaled to $1M ARR with zero paid ads. Just founder brand, content, and systems that compound. Flowla became a sales tool used by hundreds of sales teams, so I understand GTM from both sides: selling and enabling sellers.

Before that: Accenture &; Bain → MindGym (employee #20 → IPO entering new sectors) → General Assembly Expansion to UK &amp; Europe (acquired) → Witco GM for International Markets (seed to Series A, scaled UK & US from scratch).

Today I advise VC portfolio companies and teach GTM at leading European accelerators.

I run Forte Growth. We help B2B SaaS founders go from GTM chaos to predictable revenue in 120 days - system and strategy first, then inbound and outbound execution with my team.

How? Modular GTM engines - positioning, content, outbound, sales process - built with you in 12 weeks, then transferred so it runs without you. 

Or we stay on for ongoing execution. 

Check out our case studies &; testimonials from founders we worked with to date.

For founders who want a partner, not just a playbook, I offer fractional CMO / GTM leadership.

If you've built a great product but the market doesn't see it yet, DM me.

If you're entering a new market and don't want to burn £100Ks on failed hires and big-cheque CROs/ CMOs, DM me.

If you're a VC or Accelerator and need someone to guide your portfolio. Let's talk.

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!

💪 French PropTech. Series A. Zero UK presence. 

8 months later: £1M pipeline in the UK.

Here's what happened.

5 years ago today, I was handed a first man on the ground job: expand a French proptech into the UK and US. 

The problem? Nobody there had ever heard of us.

Nobody knew who we were.

We tried everything: 
👉 PR agency at £5K/month 
👉 SDR outreach 
👉 Cold emails 
👉 LinkedIn ads

Nothing worked like we wanted.

Response rate: low, closing not yet.

THE BREAKTHROUGH:

I mapped the market. And realized our strategy was off.

My immediate addressable market was only around 1,000 commercial real estate buyers or so.

They all go to the same real estate events. They all read the same magazines. 

They all know each other.

Spray-and-pray wasn't going to work.

So I changed the approach:

👉 Be at those events in Leeds, Manchesyer 
👉 Be in those magazines they read 
👉 Build trust before selling 
👉 Let inbound warm the outbound

Every week, step-by-step, we built presence in THEIR world.

Not ours. Theirs.

AFTER:

8 months later: 
✅ £1M Pipeline in the UK 
✅ 20+ enterprise conversations 
✅ 6 channels operational 
✅ UK team hired and trained

First deals closed in 4 months then in 8 we went to + £200K ARR with a system built generating consistent pipeline. 

This is the real world. 

No non-sense to the moon numbers for a product where ACV is 20K and sales cycle was traditionally 12 months,

The lesson:

Before you scale your sales effort in a new market, map where your buyers actually are.

Go there. Be visible. Build presence.

👉 And more importantly. Keep doing the right things every week!

Every week iterate-improve- build further!

👉 What market are you trying to enter? Where do YOUR buyers hang out?

Alper Yurder

Founder @ Forte | Cofounder-level GTM for B2B founders scaling from $1M to $10M ARR | Former SaaS Co-Founder | 20 startups, $200M pipeline + $60M Revenue (1 IPO, 1 Exit)

🚀 8 months ago, Forte was a one-man show.
Me, a laptop, and a hypothesis that B2B founders needed GTM systems not more tactics. 

1️⃣ 12 clients 
2️⃣ 5 fractional engagements 
3️⃣ 7 founders in coaching
4️⃣ And dozens of founders I touched in some shape and form 

later, we're ready to rock 2026!

🚀 New products launching next week
🙏 Working with B2B founders across UK, EU, and US. 
🙏 Connected to some of the best VCs and accelerators in the ecosystem. 

Building something I'm genuinely proud of.

Still figuring a lot out. But the foundation is real now.

Which means... we need more people.

Alin, Fatih, Boris based out of London, Sofia, Istanbul and I - all over the place! are looking for our new colleagues to join us!

We're hiring for two roles:

Content Specialist - LinkedIn content, lead magnets, blogs, visuals, video. Master AI tools like Claude, Gemini, Napkin. Work directly with me and founder clients.

AI-Led SDR / GTM Engineer - Build prospecting workflows with Clay, Apollo, Sales Nav. Engineer outbound systems that actually work. Learn the AI sales stack before everyone else.

Both roles: Remote, part-time with potential to grow into full-time if you like.

You won't be watching from the sidelines. You'll be building this with me.

👉 DM me or email alper@fortegrowth.co

p.s. Grateful to every founder who trusted me early. You know who you are.

Cofounder-level GTM for B2B startups scaling from <​$1M to $10M+ | Former SaaS Co-Founder & CRO | 20 startups, $60M closed, 1 IPO, 1 Exit | First SQLs in 60 days, bespoke system that scales by month 4

Join us at Forte 

💡 There's an emerging pattern in VC right now.

I was at the HubSpot for Startups' GTM event last month with investors from early stage VCs 

Same priority from all of them:

Great product people. Strong technical founders. AI and deeptech expertise.

Sitar from Connect put it bluntly: "We're obsessed with product founders. Technical is ideal, but product is a must."

Luke added: "At Series A, at least one founder needs to deeply understand the customer. That's what creates defensibility."

Will made another point: "For GTM, it's much better if that experience comes from the sector. If you've sold to defense or chips before, you get it."

Their logic: GTM can be fixed. Product can't.

And they're not wrong.

Then Gamma's founder got on stage.

He shared the moment they had to choose: invest in marketing or double down on product.

They chose product.

His logic: "If people aren't talking about your product organically, marketing won't fix that."

It worked. Gamma is everywhere now.

So yes. Product comes first.

But here's where it gets tricky.

GTM can be fixed. But not with just any hire.

I've seen this play out too many times.

Technical founder builds something great.
Raises money.
Hires a "Head of Sales" or "Marketing Lead."
Expects them to figure it out.

6 months later: nothing.

Not because the hire was bad.
Because GTM at early stage needs co-founder level ownership.

Someone who's in the trenches.
Someone who can make decisions without asking permission.
Someone who treats GTM like product. Test. Iterate. Improve.

A hire runs a playbook.
A co-founder builds the playbook.

That's the gap most technical founders don't see until it's too late.

Product first. Always.

But when it's time to go to market, don't just hire for GTM.

Find someone who owns it like a founder.

Brilliant sessions from Sitar Teli, Luke Smith, Will Wells, Uthish Ranjan among others.

Thanks to Anna Gordon and HubSpot for Startups for bringing this together. One of the best GTM events I've been to in London.

🤖 I've been running GTM workshops for VCs and accelerator portfolios for a year now. 👉 And I realize: While we are obsessed with AI tools, the "human" sales leaders I talk to are struggling with:

- How do I get my team to turn relations into business?

- How do I get them to follow up consistently?

- How do I build a sales process that actually works for my team, AI or not?

Last week I ran a workshop with the Tenity team on exactly this.

Tenity connects corporates with startups across Europe and MENA.

I work with their startups on B2B sales, growth and GTM.

👉 But like most teams, they wanted a framework to do it with more intention. A refresh of what sales means, why it's not a dirty word, how to do it better.

A nice change for me, from mentoring startups to mentoring the mentors :)

We covered sales essentials in 2 hours with 40 slides. Bit much, I accept!

Here's what we covered:

✅ The 30-second pitch: Problem. Solution. Proof. Ask. No jargon. Practice until it's natural.

✅ Matching your message to awareness: Most people give an Unaware prospect a Product Aware pitch. Then wonder why it doesn't land.

✅ Each channel has ONE job: LinkedIn posts build trust. Comments build reach. DMs book meetings. Email creates awareness at scale. Stop using every channel for "lead gen."

✅ The daily habit that compounds 5 new connections. 5 meaningful comments. 1 real conversation. That's 15 minutes. Do it for 30 days. Watch what happens.

✅ Consistency beats intensity: If your TAM is 1000 buyers. Don't run spam campaigns. Know your buyer exactly and show up every day!
 None of this requires fancy AI workflows.

👉 Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of AI. We use 5-10 AI tools weekly for all our workfows at Forte

🤖 We build AI workflows for our clients to do GTM better and faster.

But first thing first, sales requires clarity on fundamentals and the discipline to execute.

👉 If you want the workshop slides, drop a comment or DM me. Happy to share.

👉 If you're a VC or an accelerator and would like me to run a workshop for your portfolio, send a DM

As usual great pleasure being in the company of you Tenity and thanks for inviting me to run this workshop for your team Eda Kaan Paolo Elif Ilayda Sabina Hilal Aysude

❌ Your outbound isn't broken. Your inbound is.
👉 And until you fix it, every cold email is fighting uphill.

Here's what I see constantly:

Founder at £1-2M ARR. Pipeline is inconsistent. Solution: "Let's scale outbound."

Hire SDRs. Buy tools. Send emails.

Response rate: 1-2%.

Then they blame the SDRs. Or the messaging. Or the tools.

But here's the truth: It's not your SDR or your messaging that doesn't work.

It's that nobody knows who you are.

You send messages, nobody knows you. It's cringe.

When you have inbound working:

Your name shows up in their feed before your email hits their inbox

They've already seen you solve problems like theirs

The cold email isn't cold anymore

When you send a DM, it actually works

The math:

Cold outbound to strangers = 1-2% response rate

Warm outbound to people who've engaged with your content = 15-30%

Same effort. 10x the result.

This is how you do it: Build your inbound. Build your presence. Then when you send that DM, it lands.

I did the same at series-A proptech Witco: 200+ enterprise conversations. Not spray-and-pray. Content that warmed the market first.

Inbound is the best outbound. 

Same system.

LinkedIn is cringe. 
Founder brand is cringe. Posting is cringe!
Until it's not 👉 Until your buyers discover you and book meetings.

And you build a $1M pipeline from it.

My friends tell me this all the time.

I used to think the same thing.

Then we built businesses on it.

At Flowla: £1M ARR pipeline. Zero paid ads. Just LinkedIn.

At Witco: We were paying a PR agency £5K/month. I started writing myself with one content person. Built £2M in pipeline in 180 days.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: It works.

Not the performative nonsense. The actual system.

20 likes? 5 comments?

Sure. If they're your buyers!

LinkedIn is a trust-building machine. Every post is a conversation with hundreds of potential buyers. Every comment is a relationship starting. Every piece of value compounds.

But most founders get it backwards.

They post company updates nobody asked for. 

They share "we're hiring!" announcements. 

They treat it like a press release channel.

Then after 2 weeks of crickets, they decide LinkedIn is cringe.

That's not LinkedIn failing. That's running tactics without a system.

Simple formula to build a pipeline on linkedin:

✅ Record your sales calls and what your buyers ask you
✅ Write your thoughts into posts -> which then become your blog -> your SEO -> engine for your paid ads!
✅ Turn it into thought leadership and content you share from this channel and others 
✅ Pick 3-5 topics you can speak to from real experience 
✅ Treat every comment like a warm intro

The best outbound is inbound. And LinkedIn is where unknown B2B companies become known.

❌ You don't need 1000 leads.
✅ You need a system that finds, converts, and multiplies the 5 buyers you have.

👉 Launching from zero?
👉 Entering a new market?
👉 Expanding to a new country?

Same system.

STEP 1: Message-Market Fit

Talk to 30 people. Don't pitch.

"I'm building something for [ICP]. Trying to understand [problem]."

Listen. Take notes. Use their words.

The goal isn't leads.

It's learning how they describe the problem.

That language becomes your website. Your outreach. Your pitch.

STEP 2: Demand Generation

Now you know the words. Use them.

Post content that speaks their language.
Comment where your ICP hangs out.
Send outreach that sounds like them, not you.

You're not generating "awareness."

You're generating trust.

STEP 3: Sales-Market Fit

Some will say "let me know when it's ready."

Others will say "can I see it now?"

Focus on the second group.

Close 5 paying customers.

Not pilots. Not free trials. Paying.

Money is the only real validation.

STEP 4: Build the Playbook

Document what worked.

Which message converted?
Which channel performed?
Which objection kept coming up?

Your first 5 deals are your playbook.

Now you can multiply.

THE SYSTEM:

Message-Market Fit → Demand Gen → Sales-Market Fit → Playbook.

That's how you go from 0 to 5.

And from 5 to 50.

This is what we build with founders in 12 weeks.

Check out the slides for the first phase, and drop a comment if you find this content useful

First buyers in a new market

🔗 I ran a GTM webinar with Ekky and Rob from Scribe. Link in comments

50+ early-stage founders joined. One question came up 3 times:

👉 "I sent this to 200 people and only 2 replied." "Noone replied" "What's a good reply rate?" and so on.

While we do have industry standards for reply rates. that's not the main issue.

So I ask: do you know why?

Is it the product? Is it your messaging? Your positioning? Your targeting?

The answer is almost always the same: "Not sure."

Here's the thing:

"Nobody likes my product" is almost never true.

So there's a GTM issue somewhere. You just can't put your finger on it.

3 things I shared:

1. GTM is more than sending 1000 emails hoping for 1 meeting
👉 Outbound only works with inbound 
👉 Trust is the basis of sales 
👉 Authority & credibility are the bases of product marketing 
👉 Treat your GTM like your product. Test. Iterate. Improve.

2. There's a buyer for every product
The problem is rarely your product. It's usually messaging, positioning, or targeting.

3. Product-market fit isn't a moment. It's a moving target.

It evolves. It sharpens. It gets clearer over time.

GTM is the same. You iterate on it just like product & tech.

Treat go-to-market like a product problem, not just a sales problem.

Drop a 1, 2, or 3. Which one are you struggling with?

Full recording in comments.

💰 There's $500K+ pipeline hidden in your LinkedIn.

No ads. No massive following. No cold DMs to strangers.

Here's the system we've built for 5 startups in the last 6 months.

Every one of them generated new pipeline within 90 days.

Quick tactics, and a strategy that compounds over time.

STEP 1: Fix Your Profile (It's a Landing Page)

👉 Headline: Who you help + how (not your title) 
👉 Banner: Branded visual, crisp messaging 
👉 About: Speak to your ICP's pain 
👉 Featured: Pin 1-2 key posts or wins 
👉 CTA: "DM me X if you want Y"

STEP 2: Comment First, Post Second

👉 Identify 5-10 creators your ICP follows 
👉 Comment daily with real takes 
👉 Your comments = borrowed reach 
👉 Warm up the algorithm before you post

STEP 3: Connect Like a Human
👉 View their profile
👉 Like + comment on something real 
👉 Send connection with context 
👉 Follow up with value, not a pitch

STEP 4: The Conversion Loop
👉 Post high-trust content (POV, proof, playbooks) 
👉 Comment under ICP posts 
👉 DM warm engagers 
👉 Offer value. Book call. Close deal.

The best outbound is disguised as inbound.

I put the full playbook in a Notion doc. Profile templates. DM scripts. Content calendar. The whole system.

Comment "pipeline" and I'll send it over.

What's the one thing stopping you from doing this daily?

👉 Entering a new market? Trying to find new buyers?
❌ Don't scale. Test. 

Most leaders I work with want to skip this step. They go straight to: 
👉 Hiring SDRs 
👉 Running paid ads 
👉 Building SEO content 
👉 Signing BD partnerships

6 months later: "It's not working."

Here's what they missed:

LinkedIn isn't just a posting platform. It's a GTM testing lab.

5 things to validate before scaling anywhere else:

1) Message-market fit → before cold email
2) Content themes → before SEO or YouTube
3) Outbound hooks → before SDR scripts
4) Partnership signals → before formal BD
5) Distribution allies → before paid amplification

Why LinkedIn?

24-hour feedback. Real buyers. Free.

Test here. Scale everywhere.

I made a carousel breaking down each one. ↓ Save it. Share it.

linkedin testin to enter a new market

👉 A founder asked me last week:
"How many LinkedIn messages should I send? 10 a week? 100?"

My answer: "What's working right now?"

"I don't know."

That's the problem.

Most founders doing outbound have no idea what "good" looks like.
👉 What's a normal reply rate? 
👉 How long before you change the message? 
👉 When do you scale vs. iterate? 
👉 How many touches before giving up?

They're not missing tactics. They're missing benchmarks.

Here's what I tell founders:
Send 50 messages with one approach. Track replies. Track objections. If reply rate is under 5%, change the message. If objections repeat, your positioning is off.

That's it.

The metric isn't "more messages." The metric is "signal per message."

Quick reference:
👉 Under 5% reply rate = change your message 
👉 Same objection 10x = change your positioning 
👉 No responses after 100 = wrong ICP or wrong channel 
👉 Good responses but no meetings = weak CTA

Stop asking "how much?"

Start asking "what's the data telling me?"

—

P.S. If you've sent 200 messages and can't tell me what the patterns are, you don't have an outbound problem. You have a tracking problem.

🚀 Let's make 2026 the year you stop wasting 18 months on GTM. Build a revenue engine in weeks, not years!

Hi, it's Alper. Happy New Year. Let's make 2026 the year you move from tactical wins to a GTM system that scales without you burning time, cash and yo

Open article: GTM Journal- January 2026 by Alper Yurder • 5 min read

Murat Derya Ozen

Smart Kiwi

Smart Kiwi specialises in AI-driven demand intelligence and supply/demand planning optimisation. By leveraging advanced ML and GIS, we provide hyper-accurate forecasting and decision optimisation, significantly enhancing operational efficiency and profitability. Our AI algorithms analyse over 260 real-world demand drivers, helping businesses minimise resource waste, optimise utilisation, and improve operational planning.

Our innovation has been recognised with a prestigious Innovate UK AI Grant and investments from leading angels and VCs, including SFC Capital, Plug and Play, and Startup Wise Guys.

With a proven track record of successful collaborations and notable cost savings for major mobility, logistics, and supply chain clients, Smart Kiwi combines advanced spatiotemporal demand analytics with decades of AI expertise to enable sustainable and profitable operations.

Co-founder & CEO

Leading Smart Kiwi's tech and product strategy, integrating it with our go-to-market and business initiatives. Grew a top-tier team of data scientists and engineers, spearheading proprietary, advanced AI tools that delivered hyper-accurate forecasting and decision optimisation. This significantly reduced costs and optimised operations for our major logistics and supply chain clients. Our success was recognized with a highly selective and prestigious Innovate UK AI Grant.

Co-founder & CTO

ScareCrow Intelligence

Advisory leadership in AI, IoT, and wireless technologies, building AI-driven automation and predictive analytics for business transformation.

AI Strategy Consultant

Antler

Global early-stage VC where I cofounded Kiwi.

Entrepreneur

Heartspace

Heartspace was an AI-based digital companion that helped couples improve the quality of their relationship. It initially started as a side project and grew bigger into a startup with the launch of our mobile app. I led a team of 4 and was responsible from overseeing and developing product strategy, app development, Instagram community growth, content creation.

Founder

Bloomberg LP

- Launched multiple high-visibility projects and initiatives on Bloomberg's very data-heavy mobile app from initial concept/design to completion/maintenance with some of these moving priority metrics up to 80+% YoY.

- Led Events-based data-heavy products and projects on Bloomberg's mobile app. (Technical leadership, iOS/Android development (Swift, Obj-C, Java, Kotlin), backend development (Java, Python, C++, Javascript)). Coordinated multiple cross-functional teams across organizations from UX to Development.

- Co-founded and led an organization-wide `community` to streamline usage and best practices of internal technologies, catering to thousands of engineers.

- Experienced in recruitment and designing and conducting interviews.

Mobile - Project Lead & Senior Developer

- AI-based Demand modelling, predictive analytics and optimisation of airline fleets’ maintenance costs using regression models, SVMs and decision-trees combined models.

- Led the development of SAP's Hana Python-based database driver.

Software Developer

Turkcell

Mobile Financial Services - Turkcell Wallet/Mobile Payment
Java - server-side

Software Engineer

Pozitron

Intern

Oracle

Summer Camp Trainee

Microsoft

Summer School Trainee

Entrepreneurial Product & Engineering, AI Lead. Currently leading Smart Kiwi where we deliver a demand forecasting and optimisation platform to increase operational efficiency. 10+ years of experience in building and managing tech and data products for mobile and the web, leading cross-functional teams and launching ideas from initial concept to completion.

Always appreciate an invite to connect on LinkedIn, however, please include a note as to why you’d like to connect when doing so.

Kiwi builds next-generation data intelligence products for mobility, logistics and beyond. Right now, we are building a new SaaS platform that helps shared mobility companies optimize their fleet distribution by predicting the demand through machine learning and geospatial predictive modelling, allowing them to increase their ridership and optimize their costs.

Kiwi is backed by leading investors SFC Capital, Plug&Play, Startup Wise Guys and is striving to help make cities more livable and sustainable through its tech.

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