Iliya Valchanov

Team-GPT

Used by companies like: Maersk, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, Shift4, EY, Charles Schwab, and many more.


Private Enterprise sofware for using LLMs.

0 to 25K users in 9 months.

Learn, collaborate, and master ChatGPT in one shared workspace.

Co-founder & CEO

Udemy

1.5M+ students in the field of statistics, data science, machine learning, and deep learning.

Bestselling courses:
- The Data Science Course: Complete Data Science Bootcamp (750,000+ students and 150,000+ reviews)
- The Business Intelligence Analyst Course (250,000+ students and 45,000 reviews)
- Statistics for Data Science and Business Analysis (220,000 + students and 45,000+ reviews)

AI Course Creator

3veta

3veta is a product company, specializing in video conferencing, scheduling, payments, and more.

Our core products are: 
→ A SaaS that simplifies scheduling and streamlines video meetings for remote and hybrid teams
→ A white-label video conferencing tool
→ API for appointment scheduling
→ Marketplace builder

Co-Founder & CEO

365 Data Science

By 2020 reached:
- 1M+ students on Udemy
- Our own learning management system
- 500,000+ students on our own platform
- 30 employees
- $1M ARR

---

It started as a simplistic WordPress website showcasing our portfolio of courses. With time, our team started growing and we developed more complex software solutions until we launched our own learning management system and developed comprehensive in-house marketing expertise.

My role was closest to that of a COO. My OCD has always been preoccupied with structuring work and developing processes in order to never miss a step or a deadline. Therefore, scaling our team and processes was more of a relief (of my obsession for structure), rather than an occupation. 

But as a co-founder I have worn many different hats with the C- in front: CFO, CTO, CMO. Nonetheless, I have never neglected the specific business driving activities of our industry, such as creating and editing content (video and text), content dissemination (automatic, semi-automatic, and unfortunately, at times, manual), social media management automation, technical SEO, tracking, ads management (running Facebook ads until my last day) and probably many more.

On the managerial side, apart from overseeing most processes, I was head of content creation and have personally read and edited all the educational content that came out of 365 Data Science. This has proved invaluable for expanding my programming knowledge base and providing me with incredible breadth of data science skills (all types of statistics and machine learning, incl. regressions, clustering, dimensionality reduction, credit risk models, price elasticity models, visualizations, feed-forward neural networks, convolutional neural networks, and more). 

In December 2020, I exited 365 Data Science to devote more time to other projects.

Co-Founder

365 Careers

365 Careers is the #1 best-selling provider of business, finance, and data science courses on Udemy. The company’s courses have been taken by more than 2,000,000 students in 210 countries. People working at world-class firms like Apple, PayPal, and Citibank have completed 365 Careers trainings.

During my time with 365 Careers, I have worked extensively on creating, managing, editing, and curating the data science content of 365 on Udemy. 

I am the author or co-author of the following courses:
-> The Data Science Courses: Complete Data Science Bootcamp
-> The Business Intelligence Analyst Course
-> Statistics for Data Science and Business Analysis
-> Deep Learning with TensorFlow 2.0
-> Python + SQL + Tableau: Integrating Python, SQL, and Tableau
-> Machine Learning 101 with scikit-learn and statsmodels
-> Customer Analytics in Python

I have overseen the creation through editing and/or project management of the following courses: 
-> The Data Analyst Course: Complete Data Analyst Bootcamp
-> The Data Visualization Course: Excel, Tableau, Python, R
-> Convolutional Neural Networks with TensorFlow in Python
-> Credit Risk Modeling in Python
-> Probability for Statistics and Data Science
-> Web Scraping and API Fundamentals in Python

I have also lead the translation effort of video content in German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese, resulting in the following courses:
German:
-> Das komplette Data Science Bootcamp 2021 in Python
-> Statistik für Data Science und Business Analytics
Spanish:
-> Bootcamp Completo em Data Science com Python 2021
-> Estadística para Data Science y análisis de negocios
Português:
-> Entrenamiento completo en Data Science con Python 2021
-> Estatística para Data Science e Análise de Negócios
Chinese:
-> 数据科学和商业分析中的统计学

Content Manager

CEO @ Team-GPT | 1,300,000+ AI students on Udemy

👉1 sentence about me: 
I teach AI to 1.5M students on Udemy; also CEO of Team-GPT: A leading Enterprise AI software. 

👉Multi sentence about me: 
I used to compete in Maths for 10 years and was quite good at it. To this day, my work ethic is highly influenced by my Math competitor days.

I graduated in Finance and have all the financial knowledge I could ask for. It was not my calling, so I never pursued it... but I find it quite useful in running a business. 

At 23, I co-founded an educational startup for online data science courses - 365 Data Science. I helped it scale to 30+ people with millions of students worldwide and $1M+ ARR. Courses that I have personally created have been taken by 1,300,000+ students. This EdTech business was bootstrapped to $30M+.

Currently, I'm Co-founder and CEO of Team-GPT. Team-GPT reached 25K users in 9 months and is used by enterprises all around the globe.

I'm a very curious guy, who loves to build stuff.

Learn, collaborate, and master ChatGPT in one shared workspace.

You got into marketing because you love the work. 

The strategy. The creative. 
The moment a campaign clicks and everything comes together.

But that’s buried. 
Dozens of tools. Hundreds of workflows. Endless details.

You spend more time managing systems than creating. 
More time switching contexts than turning ideas to life. 
More time explaining what you're doing than actually doing it.

This isn't what you signed up for.

Marketing should be simpler. 
Much more delightful.
More like... Juma!

-

Juma is the workspace where your team does their best work.

Everything you need to plan, create, and launch lives in one place. 
Your team has the same context. The same tools. 
The same ability to move fast. 

A place where work stops feeling like a burden.
Experience the joy of marketing.

Think together, move as one!
Welcome to Juma.

juma.ai

CEO @ Juma | 1,500,000+ AI students on Udemy

Когато пиша за политика, алгоритъмът се обърква, тролове коментират, маркетинг стратегията ни пропада, а бизнесът ни страда.
Но има нещо от което бизнесът ни, както и на много други българи, страда повече.

Това, че ни спират тока, като им пречим.
Това, че съдебната система е завладяна от мафията.
Това, че взимат бизнеси на хора безнаказано (Илия Златанов от Изамет и Осемте Джуджета, както и десетки неразказани истории).
Това, че държат кмета на Варна 6 месеца в затвора без причина и без присъда.
Това, че саботират полезните действия на кмета на София.
Това, че Европейската прокуратура трябва да се намеси, за да търси справедливост срещу кметове на ГЕРБ и безумията им. 
Това, че САЩ трябва да използва Магнитски, защото сами не можем да се справим с корупцията.
Това, че от години в България няма истинска журналистика, защото разкараха всички достойни журналисти.
Това, че медиите показват каквото им се каже, а социалните мрежи показват истината.

Това, че закърпват държавния бюджет с парите на най-здраво работещите хора. Не за да ги дадат на учители и лекари, а за да приберат парите в джобовете на безкрайно оядени престъпници. 
 

Ние сме хората, които градим, а не рушим.
Които вкарваме външни инвестиции в страната и увеличаваме богатството на България.

Протестираме, защото заслужаваме много повече от прасе и тиква.

New product, who dis?

Soon to empower every marketer in New York.


Proudly created this in Juma

devote-academy

LinkedIn

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #ai, #chatgpt, #startup, #buildinpublic, and #entrepreneurship

Now 15,000+ people follow my content here.

I'm the CEO of an AI startup but don't use AI to write on LinkedIn.

Why?
-> I think AI can help with wording.
But it can't help with self-expression.

-> Lots of work will be automated by AI.
But human connection is not one of them. 

-> AI writes cheaper, faster, better than me.
But I mainly write to structure my own thoughts.


That's why I'm on LinkedIn -> 
to structure my own thoughts, express myself, and hope to connect with likeminded people on the way. 


In the last 3-4 years of posting, I shared the good, the bad, and the ugly.
-> Reached millions of AI students with 365 Data Science 
-> Closed 3veta and shared why
-> Built Team-GPT in public from Day 1: 0 to 10K users posts, fundraised $4.5M, posted investor reports, shared deeply dramatic insights, hit $1M ARR, and even posted the OpenAI legal letter suing us


I share because 𝘺𝘰𝘶 have shown me it's useful!
And am thankful for your time. 

.
.
.

P.S.
If you don't know me -> let's connect!
If you know me -> Thanks for being around, I'll continue sharing 🫡

This weekend I finally did it. 
I've been avoiding it for 2 years.
I'm planning for it to last 50+ years. 

It's my personal website, featuring:
- links to my work
- some of my favorite articles and posts
- mini projects (e.g. beautiful QR code generator)

I have a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to publish online but LinkedIn doesn't feel like the right place. 

Check it out 👇

iliya (.) ai

graphical user interface, application, Teams

Първи ден на Джума и вече е в новините 😎 

Благодаря на Mary Ivanova и Капитал, че отново разказаха историята ни!

🤖 Преди година, малко след като #TeamGPT привлече 4.5 млн. долара финансиране в рекордна за млада компания на този етап сделка, в лондонския офис на дружеството пристига писмо, адресирано от OpenAI. "В него ни подтикваха да се откажем от търговската си марка в САЩ, Великобритания и ЕС, защото не можем да я притежаваме", обяснява Iliya Valchanov, CEO и съосновател на Team-GPT (българското дружество се казва "Тийм ГПТ").

📧 Екипът от петима бизнес партньори решава да игнорира писмото, защото компанията има запазени марки на трите пазара, одобрени от съответните контролни органи. Разбира обаче, че не можеш да игнорираш OpenAI така, "както можеш да не отговориш на съобщение на мъж след неуспешна среща", смее се Вълчанов...

🌍 Тази седмица стартъпът, който от две години обслужва вече над 75 хил. клиенти в САЩ, Канада и Европа, сменя своето име и търговска марка. Team-GPT вече се казва Juma. Какво се случи междувременно, какво правиш, когато технологичен гигант съобщи, че иска да те съди и какво казва законът? Четете в статията  на Mary Ivanova тук: https://lnkd.in/dJ-2qRqy

Open article: Team-GPT вече е Juma: какво правиш, когато OpenAI иска да те осъди by capital.bg

Team-GPT вече е Juma: какво правиш, когато OpenAI иска да те осъди

Founders, VCs, angels:
Our fundraising materials for raising $4.5M in San Francisco as Silicon Valley outsiders.

What it took? 
85 'NO's and a physical breakdown.

The steps?

Prep:
1. Read books
2. Meet founders
3. Prep materials
4. Get angels
5. Get VCs

The VC bits:
1. Create an investor list
2. Get warm intros
3. Pitch deck is used to get a 1st meeting
4. NEVER show the pitch deck in the first meeting
5. 1st meeting is to get a 2nd meeting
6. Follow-up with the f*cking best materials
7. Receive a term sheet or get a ‘NO’ ASAP


Unfiltered, 1-hour lecture:
👉 https://lnkd.in/dt6xEJhB

Other materials:
1. PPT presentation from video: https://lnkd.in/dhpirdmD

2. How to raise $5M-$15M from Silicon Valley? Learnings from a conversation with a VC from Sequoia Capital: https://lnkd.in/ggPfyJFh

3. How Team-GPT raised $4.5M- A True story - 100% real story about our fundraising. Journalled as it was happening.
https://lnkd.in/dZ3UxmfE


Thanks for the support along the way!

Our product is largely shaped by a couple of visionary clients.
VertoDigital is one of them.

Amazing webinar with their team starts in 1 hours. Don't miss it!

👉 https://lnkd.in/dmbh2QP3

No alternative text description for this image

Yellow alert!

We are changing everything about us next week.

New name, new agents.

Stay tuned!

Getting from 0 to 10K users was wild.

Revenue: $80,000
Net revenue: $ 47,819.58
Time: 170 days
Users: 9597

Who remembers the first days of building Juma (ex Team-GPT) in public?

- Took us 6 months to make $80K in total revenue.
- Last month we added $80K recurring revenue. 

The scale has changed drastically. 
But we still have the same passion! 
And much better direction.

Here's how we got from 0 to 10K users:
👉 https://lnkd.in/gFXPFhga

Not all $$$ are made equal. 

Recurring revenue is way more valuable than one time. 

Service revenue is easier than product revenue. 

B2B revenue is easier than B2C. 

Enterprise revenue is hard to get, hard to lose.


The goal of each business?
It's not generating money but generating free cash flow.

So it's not about how much money you make. 
It's about how much money is left.

86% of marketers believe AI will benefit their work.
Only 26% can actually execute on it.

That's a 3x gap between confidence and capability.

Many teams are stuck:
- Not decisive enough to commit. 
- No internal drive to manage the adoption.
- Not technical enough to set AI up for success.


The Growth Syndicate made a report which covers 110 B2B marketing leaders and breaks down:

1. Where teams are actually using AI (91% for content, only 20% for sales enablement)

2. Why skills matter more than budget (60% cite training needs vs 25% budget constraints)

3. Much more


My contribution to the report:
"Don't be afraid to make changes to your strategy as you learn more. But with any marketing activity, if you give up after one post on LinkedIn, have you really tested the channel? 
Same with AI tools—commit long enough to learn, then course-correct."

Link:
https://lnkd.in/d3seAUE7

Next week AIEF After Hours is in our office. So I couldn't miss it, even if I wanted to.
But I wouldn't miss it because Rangel Milushev (YC-founder, Harvard gradudate) will be talking about AI.

You should totally come: 
👉

Open article: AIE.F Europe After Hours #46 · Luma by luma.com

To make $1M per year,
you need:


1,000,000 customers paying you $1
100,000 customers paying you $10
10,000 customers paying you $100
1,000 customers paying you $1,000
100 customers paying you $10,000
10 customers paying you $100,000
1 customers paying you $1,000,000


Which one do you prefer?

San Francisco hits different when you're all-in building.

Sure, the investment money helps. 
But it's not about that.

It's about the energy. 
The ambition. 
The history.

The belief that you can actually change the world with a laptop and a vision.

You're the average of the 5 people closest to you. 
When that may be Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Satya Nadela, and Jensen Huang you either become a supervillain or you get really ambitious. 

Hope it's the latter.

We're cooking up something that will change how people market stuff.

More soon!

I know these tease posts have been a bit too much...

But I literally have only 2-3 days left to do them.

Stay tuned- 
dropping our biggest update ever next week!

How do you know your outbound sucks?

It's outdated.

I still receive calls for 365 Data Science. 
I receive emails for 3veta.
LinkedIn messages for Team-GPT.

Idk where these people get their data but a message like this kills trust immediately. 

0% chance to work together.

graphical user interface, text, application, email

'Dogfooding' means being our own customer.
All successful startups practice dogfooding.

I'm in top 1% of the users of Juma, using AI more than 99% of the people on the platform.

Juma (ex Team-GPT) has saved me ~2 months of work in 2025. 

My favorite capability? 
Projects!

I hate Black Friday.

After building multiple products and runnning many promotions-
Black Friday deals work only for ecommerce.  

- For software, it cheapens the product and the experience. 

- If you do this often, people get used to it and 'wait for the discount'. 

- Loyal existing users feel betrayed that you gave a deal to someone else, while that someone else only chose you cause you are cheap, not because of your value prop. 

+ the revenue is not that much anyways

There is a lot of hype in AI because there has been a big shift in what's possible. 

It's clear a lot of value is being unlocked. 

Truth is- we are all figuring it out. 

👉 We, the builders, are trying to build new age tools which create 10x or 100x more value than existing software for our users. While figuring it out, we are often creating more noise and not making it easier for users. 
(when you have more clarity a rebrand often comes, see us as an example haha)

👉 For AI adoption leaders it's absolutely clear they need to act. But what to do? The best results are seen when:

1) There is a clear owner who is responsible for making sure people in the org use AI. This person should be empowered to make decisions, rollout the way they see fit, and keep going with this decision for at least 3-6 months. 

2) Don't be afraid to make changes to your strategy as your learn more. But similar to (say) LinkedIn posting, if you give up after you post 3 posts on LinkedIn, have you really tried?
Same with the AI tools- 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁.

3) Do weekly check-ins with people using these tools. The fact that a tool has been purchased, doesn't mean it is being used. Be on top of it and measure. Make data-driven decisions. 


AI is not overhype.
NVIDIA, OpenAI, and similar are. 

But AI is creating a lot of value. 
But it needs to be harnessed.

Growing MRR of B2B SaaS companies via affiliate marketing | Growth Manager @ Reditus | T500 | Reforge '24 🤘

Hi there, welcome to my profile!

Currently building Signalbase, a real-time intent data provider helping GTM and RevOps teams be the first to reach out when a signal occurs.

Because let’s face it, creating firmographic-first lists and hoping for intent later simply doesn’t work anymore. Prospecting isn’t a filtering exercise as 95% of your market is not ready to buy, but signals can help you see who is about to be.

We help teams spot real intent signals before anyone else does and plug those signals straight into your existing GTM stack, so your workflows trigger when the market’s ready, not when it’s too late.

You will want to use Signalbase if: 

1. You want a healthy pipeline with active companies
2. You seek verified signals to feed your GTM workflows
3. You don't have time to learn Clay or the money to hire someone to do it for you

Ready to discover some accounts with real-time intent? 

Let's chat https://cal.com/georgi-furnadzhiev

Talking about signal-first GTM and data which you will use to feed your workflows with

Georgi Furnadzhiev

Month one of bootstrapping Signalbase to 1M ARR is now in the books ✅ 

Honestly, what a ride!!!

Four weeks ago, this was just a small idea between a few people who mostly knew each other from the internet.

And today, we work as a well-running machine that saves the lives of many GTM teams and their revenue targets.

In just 30 days while currently sitting at $1.2K MRR👇 

🟧 Rebuilt the whole API for the future (which also includes more signals) and completely rebranded the company

🟧 Generated €300k in pipeline (SEO + outbound + trials + thought leadership + WOM)

🟧 Manually onboarded all beta testers so we can gather feedback and improve the tool with the speed of light (already made a few changes)

🟧 Introduced 3 layers of verification for our funding and M&A signals while also launching the beta version of the job changes signal (track internal promotions, key decision makers leaving and new hires)

🟧 Formed 11 integration partnerships, booked 70 demo calls, shared my actionable frameworks in 3 podcasts and also started recording the first episodes of our show "My First Signal" featuring a few guests like Sara Storm, Ilija Cosic, John Ozuysal and many more legends

The wildest part?

Exactly a month ago, I decided to bet on myself and quit my comfortable job as in-house growth leader which was easily one of the scariest moves I’ve ever made.

But the amount of love, proactive feedback, and demand from the market made everything sooo worth it 👇 

🧡 "Why do I feel like Signalbase is the next big tooling for every GTM team?"

🧡 "Most vendors are focusing on collecting our own signals, but in reality it only works for companies like Salesforce. What you offer is exactly what we need!" 

🧡 "Signalbase can help us to save a couple of thousand dollars and days of work per client."

So If this is just month one…

I can’t wait for next year's retreat where hopefully we will be celebrating our €1M in revenue with a full team, a bigger community of GTM practitioners, and an industry that finally stops “buying leads” and starts activating signals.

Forever grateful for the journey and the people whom I am building it with Adriaan Iron Tadas

Chat back in Amsterdam 🇳🇱 

Let's crush it!

CEO @ Signalbase | Be the first to reach out when the time is right

Kicking off month 2 of bootstrapping Signalbase to $1M ARR  

Life does look different after coming back to Europe

- No more all nighters
- No more warm weather & hikes
- No other 8 founders to be surrounded with and hustle on a Sunday

and sadly no more pha thai 🍛 

However, that did not stop us from setting some ambitious goals for the month:

🧡 60 new demos & feedback calls
🧡 $5K MRR -> Currently at $1.5K 
🧡 Significant improvement towards code quality and interface

I already know that it's going to be a slower month and probably by far the worst it could ever be seeing the trajectory our bootstrapped company.

Next week we will also send out "migration messages" to the 3k people who registered and used the old version of Signalbase, so I am extremely curious to see how will that impact us

Of course, the grass is not always green as a founder...but here is a sneak peek into my mindset

"Whatever you do...don't stop filling up the pipeline. It's totally fine for the majority of people to not convert as long as we get the valuable feedback so the product can get better with every single day."

For the rest? At least start "planting the seeds" for Q1 while wrapping up some conversations from last month.

In essence, go out there > attract people who think like yourself & trust the vision > get better together.

--

This week we also lost a few deals but yet again we received critically important feedback which at the end of the day ties back nicely to the goal of the month.

On the brighter side, we got the first line of events coming up for 2026: 

🟧 Jan 6th - virtual roundtable showcasing some sick Signalbase related workflows Ruadhán Ó Cúláin

🟧 Jan 20th - an exclusive breakfast for GTM leaders in collab with Jack Cane & Dominykas Rūkas

🟧 Jan 30th - Signalbase's invite-only launch party in Amsterdam 🎉 Pizza, DJ and a ton of great minds talking about signal-based GTM engines

Yet again...here for the journey, let's make the most out of it!

Let's build your signal-based GTM engine from scratch👇 

1️⃣ Identify your ICP and the rules of your own GTM motion

Most companies pivot not because their product is bad, but because they can’t nail down who they’re built for and build a proper distribution engine.

If your ICP is unclear, your pipeline stays ice-cold. Simple as that.

2️⃣ Find live verified signals at scale.

Buyers today are too educated to respond to the common “spray and pray” approach. If your sales team lacks their current context by the time the message hits them, it already feels spammy.

A simple {first name} or {industry} won't cut it anymore and all of the AI SDR agents will just make you look bad as they just source their copy structure from a universal ChatGPT prompt made for spaying and praying

3️⃣ Improve your workflows with intent-first lists

Once you’ve got the basics down, you can plug and play that data however you want to fit your needs

Top GTM teams pull intent-ready lists from Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees), then enrich and refine them in Clay with custom variables to achieve even sharper targeting. 

Because let's be real 👉  signals are your starting point, not the means to the end.

It's time to have a fundamentally different approach to building your next list!

Week 2 of bootstrapping Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees) to $1M ARR

Currently sitting at 1K MRR and things are starting to get real QUICKLY:

✅ Added a second and third layer of verification for the signals (helping us form a health score per signal)
 
✅ You can now build an ABM list with intent-first accounts

✅ Complete company profile showcasing previous rounds, investors, key decision makers and so much more!

✅ Hubspot integration to push our verified intent signals into your CRM

Let's keep on pushing! 

Somewhere next week we expect to push the new version for testing before the big launch in December! 

Drop me a message if you want to be one of the first 60 GTM practitioners with exclusive access 🤠 

Chat next week!

Week 3 of bootstrapping Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees) to $1M ARR

Here are a few highlights from this week includes: 

🟧 Close to 90 GTM teams are helping us validate our upcoming PLS motion 

Although the team experienced a slight delay with launching the trial experience, at least we generated some good momentum and WOM.

This week I also found a few new angles and still manual workflows which improved significantly our outbound efforts.

Side note: Everything that I do to improve our GTM motion, will later be translated within the tool so you can drive even more pipeline for your team. 

Because you can only train an AI agent PROPERLY if you know what's working and ignoring all of the LinkedIn noise. 

🟧 Narrowed down our ICP even more this week 

A few deals broke down / moved to nurturing mode as a few teams wanted the 2028 version of the product. However "negative" experience actually helped me get a grip on who needs us most right here, right now 

🟧 Solid company culture in the making (work hard = party hard) 

Example of working hard 👇 

Adriaan van Rossum was working the other day until 4:30 am just to make sure we going to reach the internal deadlines. 

Also can we just give some flowers to Tadas Gedgaudas who recorded this masterpiece without me even knowing! 

Example of parting hard 👇 

Every weekend we try to do also something fun such as going to the club, hiking, having a team dinner and now the boys are recharging their batters by going on a bike trip.

🟧 95% done with the whole rebrand 

The product is ready, but we still need to make some changes to the website including the integration partners page featuring Jack, Dominykas, Adam, John, Mitchell Keller, Naufal Nugroho 🌲, Ericson Dalusong, Wouter Dieleman and a few other killers!

and ofc add a few new testimonials 🧡 

"Why do I feel like Signalbase is going to be the next big thing?" 

"You guys are sitting on a golden mine, this is what the GTM space really needs"

"Where were you guys when all of the industry scrapers went down? Just give me the Stripe link already"

🟧 2 new enterprise level usage "testing" accounts

As mention we also have an invisible layer to our GTM strategy where we feed other platforms with our API to help them produce even bigger value for their customers.

---

Overall great week 3rd week of building & as always super proud of the team

Also huge thanks to Keti Grigalashvili and Kristine Zubtsova for inviting me to their pod, it's going to be a lot of fun 💪 

Let's make some history! 

Chat next week,
G

Could you imagine sending out 81,000 cold emails in a month???

Me neither, but let's look at a few stats which were openly shared on LinkedIn

→ 2,835 replies
→ 1,500 out-of-office or “no”
→ 25+ new clients overall

Then they ask if their team should send more?????

Honest opinion, they just need to start optimising their lists with something beyond what they claim to be "high intent leads" as spamming won't help you win in the long term.

Doing GTM is so much more than blasting emails

Please stop the LinkedIn B.S, build a proper GTM motion beyond destroying the inboxes of your ICP

Week 3 of sharing the love around Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees)

Most people seeing this will probably ask:

“Why would you feed other sales tech tools with your data? Aren’t they competitors?” 🤯 

Nope.

I see tools like Smartlead,lemlist, Expandi, HeyReach.io, Salesforge 🔥 and any other agentic SDR platforms within this space like partners, not rivals.

In essence, they help teams execute outreach. And what we do is helping them improve the quality of their product & increase the value creation for their clients with live, verified intent signals.

That’s why we see Signalbase as the intent layer on top of all GTM workflows & platforms.

The goal? For any product that wants to push live data into their dashboards / core features→ we become the default input.

Extremely excited to see Seb Vissers's growth accelerating with the already available new API. 😎 

The future of GTM runs on live verified data.

And that’s Signalbase for you.

Halloween passed but GTM teams are still haunted by poor data hygine 💀

Just last week, A fractional CMO told me that one of her clients wasted millions on complex setups and tooling.

Surprised? Not really.

Everyone’s still searching for that magical growth hack or tool that will somehow save the quarter. But fundamentals still matter, especially if you want to reach the right people, at the right time.

As James Eisner once told me 👉 “95% of the outbound game is just building a well-prepared list of prospects with validated data.”

If you’re struggling to build lists of active, ready-to-move companies you don’t need more accounts identified as "opportunity" 

You need to approach outbound in a fundamentally different way 👇 

Find verifed intent signals at scale -> Apply firmographics -> Push that data to your CRM or the rest of your tech stack via the webhooks

Let's build these signal-based GTM engines!

Could you imagine spending 63 hours a week into validating lists with prospects… 🤯 

That’s exactly what one GTM engineer told me recently.

My next question 👉 “Why don’t you build your list around the signals first?”

Here’s the thing: buyers don’t buy like they used to. They’re smarter, more self-directed, and inundated with generic outreach. 

Yet most signal providers still sell massive databases with tens of thousands of accounts, but are many irrelevant. Basically throwing dust into the eyes of GTM teams.

But what if you could start with signals? Who’s hiring, expanding teams, adopting new tech, or showing real behavioral intent?

Then layer firmographics. Only keep the accounts that truly match your ICP.

Result: Less manual validation, higher relevance, better conversion, and your SDRs stop being list janitors trying to send mass emails.

It seems that majority of teams talk about "efficiency", but never take the step forward to it. Because outdated firmographic-first lists cost you time, money, and brand credibility. 

Honestly the goal should have never been more leads. 

It should be about having better leads within your pipeline who are going to close faster without burning your team out.

“The funding round article is dead.”

Sifted recently published a piece arguing exactly that and it’s hard to disagree once you see the logic.

For years, funding news worked like this:

 ➡️ Startup raises money
 ➡️ Sends a press release
 ➡️ Journalists publish “Startup X raises €Y”
 ➡️ The ecosystem learns about it the next day

But this model is collapsing not because people care less, but because the information is no longer exclusive.

Which is why the article hits the nail on the head: “Now throw AI into the mix,anyone can ask ChatGPT for information about companies.”

To cut it short, the article predicts a future where some tool automatically aggregates funding updates from startup websites and social feeds, but let’s be honest — that tool already exists.

And it’s called Signalbase.

Today, GTM teams don't need to manually check for next-day articles. They get all of this verified data in real time.

The new look of the information flow?

 ➡️ Operators move faster by acting on fresh funding, M&A and job changes signals within less than a minute 

 ➡️ Founders shift distribution to their own channels, where tools pick up the signal automatically.

So yes, the classic funding announcement article may be dying.
But the intelligence layer behind it?

That’s evolving and already in the hands of GTM teams using Signalbase.

A GTM leader told me recently that his head is booming from all the signals out there…So he turned everything off.

Let's get real for a second 👇 

If signals are making you more stressed instead of helping you gaining clarity, you’re not running a signal-based GTM engine. 

You’re just collecting noise by following LinkedIn playbooks blindly.

Truth is that you don't need more signals, but better ones

✅ Recent ones, not firmographic-driven
✅ Verified with something more than a simple Clay enrichment
✅ Build to live on top of your stack while helping you match all of the pieces together

Not thinking about it? You might be wasting the time out your sales team

It’s 9 PM on a Sunday. My phone vibrates. 🧐 

“Can I set up a real-time monitoring workflow for VC-backed orgs in Clay using Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees)?”

Short answer: Yes!!!! Absolutely.
Long answer: This is exactly what Signalbase was built for.

Huge shoutout to Ericson Dalusong (yet another cracked GTM operator who can help you build your signal-first GTM engine) for trusting the product so early and pushing the API to it's limits. 🙏 

Why teams layer Signalbase on top of their Clay workflows?

🟠 Verified, real-time signals helping you save 30+ hourse in data cleanups and reduce the room of errors within your setups (Funding, M&A and job changes)

🟠 Zero to none learning curve: Suitable for GTM teams looking to build their first signal-based engine from scratch in the fastest way possible 

🟠 Plug-and-play API: Making the dream of every advanced GTM user happen by snapping perfectly into your existing stack. Trust me some folks does not even look at the UX/UI 💀  

If you want your Clay / N8N workflows to run on real-time intent data instead of of firmographic-driven accounts or huge database leaks…

👉 trysignalbase(dot)com

An agentic SDR platform hyping themselves for sending 600 emails and getting 1% conversion rate.....

Am I going crazy for finding this fundamentally WRONG? 

🟧 Poor targeting + generic messages = lower conversion rates

And the worst part it that your TAM starts talking just like the screenshot below all across the web 🤷‍♂️ 

No hype can protect your brand from having poor data hygine within your GTM workflows or agents.

There is this whole concept of "outbound 3.0" or whatever you want to call it that actually preaches the other way around while also demanding teams to have access to unique sets of data. 

"Gone are the days of spray and pray. You need right timing, right messaging, and the right targets." Rejoice Onyenanu

🟧 Less accounts + better messages = increased $$$ 

Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees) 👉 Because you need verified signals at scale and only then put your firmographics to find ICP-like orgs.

Thank me later ✌

Looking to drive more revenue in 2026 with your Clay workflows? 

Here are a few plays that are currently crushing it as mentioned by Frank and Bill that you can run immediately via Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees)👇

🟧 1. Hunting deals around job changing signals 

Signalbase tracks internal promotions, new senior hires, and key departures inside your target accounts.

Meaning: you know exactly when a new owner of outbound shows up or when a gap opens.

Example message you can play around with:

“Instead of hiring 5 more SDRs, blend headcount with a leaner, intent-led outbound setup.” Perfectly timed to a leadership change.

🟧 2. Broad Outbound to intent-verified accounts

Outbound used to mean guessing who has budget or appetite. Now you can push intent-verified accounts straight into your CRM our webhooks or the native Hubspot integration, so reps only work the ones most likely to pick up.

Pro tip: layer Claygent enrichment or another custom variable to sharpen the list even further.

Example: Targeting someone who got a certification relevant to your market

🟧 3. Get a grip on freshly funded companies 

Let's get real...generic funding feeds can bring a lot of noise! Signalbase detects new raises across your ICP only and trigger outreach the moment momentum hits.

Ericson Dalusong built a killer real-time monitoring flow on top of Clay! It's worth asking him about it if you want to see what “instant” really looks like.

Once your list is set, just make a real-time alert so you can get lookalike accounts in your Slack or email.

🟧 4. ABM list monitoring 

Just find signals at scale → select accounts → create a list → make an alert 

Then monitor those same accounts for new rounds, intenal promotions, key leavers, and M&A.

---

Honestly, there were many more workflows covered in the webinar, but the real unlock is this 👇 

Every workflow becomes more effective when you layer verified, real-time signals on top. Your only limitation is creativity.

Kicking off month 2 of spreading the Signalbase love 🧡

This one personally hits different as I’ve been working with James Eisner the rest of The Growth Syndicate's team for a bit more than a year - helping them scale past their first million.

Just came to remember that a few months ago, James and I were still brainstorming how to identify PE-backed companies at scale. And today?

You can do all of that and so much more inside Signalbase in seconds:

🟧 Select the countries you want to target
🟧 Choose the investor type (angels, VCs, PEs, accelerators, etc.)
🟧 Filter investors by average ticket size

… and instantly unlock 6,000+ related signals on top of the 70K verified companies and the 200K key decision makers inside 

No more burning hours learning Clay.
No more money wasted in trying to duct-tape broken workflows.

Check it out 👉 trysignalbase(dot)com

Did you know that 40% of executives switch roles annually?

Yet most teams still rely on outdated data making their outreach keeps landing on empty desks.

Signalbase now can help you fix the accuracy gap that’s costing you pipeline in real time!

Simply reach for people that switched their companies in less than a minute ago to save yourself the embarrassment while gettting you the real, up-to-date picture.

🟧 Filter by department
🟧 Filter by job role / title
🟧 Filter by seniority

And the best part?

The job-change signals including internal promotions, key decision makers leaving and new hires are available for everyone in the free trial. 

See you inside 🫡

The future of GTM it’ll be about who owns fresher verified data.

Funny enough we’re already entering a new era where every GTM team will be fighting for one thing:

 ⚡ unique set of data that no one else has.

Because everyone already has the same firmographics.
- Same filters.
- Same ICP.
- Same 10,000 companies sitting in their CRM.

But the edge won’t come from who can buy more leads. It’ll come from who can detect movement before everyone else does.

→ Who spotted that VP of Sales job post first.
→ Who saw that quiet funding update 3 minutes after it went live.
→ Who can collect, clean, and act on unique signals the fastest

Because data is the "blood of every modern company" and that's also the reason why:

1. We see so many exits 
2. Vendors like Clay want to have access to better data 
3. ChatGPT is pushing it's marketplace 

and the list goes on

If you are working in GTM you probably hear these 3 things weekly 👇 

AI SDR agents, Clay, signals...

And although they have common grounds for the majority of the GTM practitioners, there is still so much fluff around it.

Historically vendors have preached selling “ready-to-buy” leads. But that’s the biggest lie you can ever tell to an experienced GTM exec or practitioner who can see what actually works outside of their own silo.

Because GTM should never be only about sending messages or posting on Linkedin.

In reality all you need is:

🟧 Understand what is a behaviour which makes one account interesting for you to go after

🟧 Get such fresh, verified data at scale 

🟧 Layer another custom variable / trigger / signal on top to get even better targeting

🟧 Build execution systems (proper targeting, highly targeted ads, narrow outreach campaings, small invite only dinners, etc)

The rest is noise! 

You don't need to comment for playbooks which you won't even get access to as these posts are pure engagement baiting.

and you definately don't need to use an AI SDR to send 81K emails just so you can book 25 calls this month 🫠 

Either way, super curious to hear your biggest 3 misconceptions below!

A company with $103M in funding asked me for help with their GTM engine 👇 

“We just pick 200 enterprise accounts.” 

Great, but that’s exactly where the real work starts. Having a firmographic-first list is not the strategy. But making a system around the timing of the unique behaviour-related actions is one.

Here is what I asked next:

“What actually makes one of those 200 accounts worth reaching out to this week? What changed inside the company that signals the moment is right?”

That question is the core of a Signalbase-powered GTM engine.

Because the highest-leverage outreach happens when something inside the account shifts such as a key person leaves, a new leader joins, they raise, they merge, they reorganize, they start hiring for a role you automate.

We capture such moments in real time, verify and feed them directly into your workflow, your CRM, or Clay tables. 

No duct-taping 20 news feeds together or feeling like you don't have a grip on your own data (if you have used Sculptor, you probably know the feeling)

GTM isn’t just about finding more accounts that fits your ICP criteria. It’s also about knowing exactly when to reach out and how to "plant the seeds" with the right context in the mind of your market.

That’s the unlock.

Another day, another chat with a fractional CMO 👇 

“My clients have 1,000 accounts sitting in HubSpot… but the sales team has no idea what to do with them.”

This is the silent killer inside most CRMs meaning teams don’t have a pipeline problem. They have a data hygiene problem.

When your CRM is packed with random accounts, stale lists, and dead records, two things happen:

 • Reps stop trusting the system
 • No one knows where the active demand actually is

Outbound dies. Momentum dies and you can see that in your bottom line.

Here’s the shift modern GTM teams need to make:

Stop obsessing over how many accounts you have in your CRM. Start obsessing over how many active, intent-driven accounts you have in your CRM.

🟧 Accounts that recently got their key decision maker leaving. 
🟧 Accounts that just raised.
🟧 Accounts that just acquired or got acquired

Just accounts that are showing signs of movement in real time.

High-quality data creates high-confidence reps.
High-confidence reps create pipeline.
Simple as that.

Give it a spin 👉 Signalbase

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