Bootstrapping Business Architect | Building revenue-first companies to $5M/yr profits by leveraging technology (HubSpot + AI) to stay lean!

Serial entrepreneur. RevOps architect. Founder @ Peddle 🚴‍♂️

I help B2B SaaS & service companies (with $2M–$50M ARR) scale their revenue using lean startup principles, HubSpot, and AI. My agency, Peddle, is a Platinum HubSpot Partner built to turn messy go-to-market strategies into repeatable, scalable machines.

From launching a college startup and winning funding, to building healthcare businesses during a pandemic, to helping founders automate their revenue engines — I’ve lived the startup rollercoaster and now help others ride it with a map.

💥 Specialties:
→ Revenue Operations (RevOps)
→ CRM Strategy & HubSpot Implementation
→ Lifecycle Mapping & Sales Pipeline Design
→ Onboarding, Training, and SOP Systems
→ Building GTM Systems That Actually Scale

Let’s connect if you’re tired of winging growth and ready to build something that runs while you sleep.

I’m always on the lookout for ways to give back. Some of the community organizations I've worked with:

A Plus Family Care - provided OB/Gyn & primary care services to underserved (medicaid) patients.

The Urban Ministries - helped provide free/pro bono healthcare to communities in need.

Making Magic Alliance - sat on the board and helped raise funds to send kids to summer enrichment programs. Statistics show children involved in summer enrichment programs have higher tests scores, higher acceptance rates for college, and greater overall success!

Venture Cafe - an MIT & IBM joint venture in the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) on MIT's campus in Cambridge, MA, one of the largest entrepreneurship incubators worldwide with +800 startups in the CIC office. 

In the Raleigh area, we created a program to help the men & women's Oak City Care's homeless shelter by partnering with food trucks to support the Oak City Cares mission of feeding our community members in need.

News Coverage:

ABC11
https://abc11.com/volunteers-provide-free-meals-clothing-on-christmas-eve-/5783635/

CBS
https://www.cbs17.com/my-carolina/help-feed-your-neighbor-with-oak-city-fish-and-chips/


Personal Awards & Accolades:

Entrepreneurship
2010 NC State eGames 
-Best Business Plan - Gold Medal
-Best Product Development - Gold Medal
-Best Marketing Plan - Gold Medal
-Best in Competition (overall) - Gold Medal

2011 MassChallenge
-Finalist

2011 NC State “Accolades” Alumni Magazine
-Centerfold Article “Strumming Up Business”

2012 NC State eGames 
-Best Arts Feasibility Study - 1st Place

2013 NC State Entrepreneurship Initiative
-23rd Annual Innovation Award

2014 White House Invitation
-The Champions of Change guest

Italo Leiva

Most sales teams don’t have a sales process problem.
They have a **Process Enforcement** problem.

You can write the cleanest SOPs in the world…
If reps don’t follow them *daily*, they’re useless.

In my new video, I show how I standardize an entire @HubSpot sales process in 1 hour using @Supered Process Boards — and why this replaces traditional SOPs altogether.

Here’s the framework 👇

Supered creates "Process Boards" = One board per process.
Let’s start with the most important one: Deal Management.

I break it into three rule categories:

Data
Rules that protect deal quality.
Contacts and companies always attached. Required fields always filled. No garbage data.

Momentum
Rules that keep deals moving.
Close dates never in the past. Recent activity required. No stalled pipeline.

Execution
Rules that enforce action.
No overdue tasks. No missed follow-ups. Every deal has a next step.

Each rule creates a **count on the board**
The goal is simple: **get to zero every day** 

Think Inbox Zero — but for your sales process.

When the board hits zero, you *know* the process was followed.
No audits. No micromanagement. No guessing. Just a birds-eye view of your entire team, following the process, everyday, 100% of the time.

Pro tip I share in the video:
Watch what your *#1 sales rep* does differently. Document it. Turn it into process rules. Add it to the board.

That’s how B players start performing like A players — by running the same system every single day.

SOPs are dead.
Process rules are how modern sales teams win.

👇 Watch the video and steal the framework.

Bootstrapped Business Architect | Building revenue-first companies to $5M in annual profits by leveraging tech to automate income. #HubSpot #Synapsa.AI #Clay #Chatgpt #Supered #AskElefant

Most B2B SaaS and service companies hit a wall.

It happens around $1M to $2M in revenue.

Growth slows. Sales cycles get longer. The playbook that got you here stops working. 

You’re missing the 6 Key Processes needed to hit $5M ARR. It’s not about more leads, it’s about better processes.

Trust me, I’ve been there. A few times now.

Here's what I learned...
You're running a collection of disconnected tools and random processes, not a system built for scale.

When you're small, you get away with duct tape. But reaching $5M means building a repeatable, revenue-first growth engine.

That's where HubSpot, automation, enablement, and AI step in.

Here are the 6 Key Processes:

You need...
- One source of truth for data -> HubSpot CRM +AI intent signal capture for top of funnel 

- Automated handoffs between marketing, sales, and success -> HubSpot Workflows and Lead Scoring

- Nurtures and alerts so leads never fall through the cracks -> HubSpot sales sequences + AI email nurtures to book meetings. **I use Synapsa for our nurtures. The HubSpot integration makes it easy for AI beginners to train your BDR Agent to nurture leads via email + SMS and book calls based on your brand voice, customer pain points, and offers. It’s GOLD.

- Scorecards and dashboards to spot friction, not just celebrate vanity metrics -> HubSpot Dashboards & Supered Process Boards

- Enablement. Document the process in a simple enough way that a new hire can join the team today & actually be effective. -> Supered⚡ Cards and Action Plans put your SOPs right INSIDE of HubSpot.

- ADOPTION! You can build the best system but if your team doesn’t adopt it to run the plays, you best believe you won't be putting points on the board this quarter! -> Supered⚡ Process Boards report on your teams ability to follow the processes you build inside of HubSpot (and SalesForce now too).

Tools like automation and AI don’t replace the fundamentals, but they unlock speed, scale, and insights you just can't get manually. 

Suddenly, you're forecasting revenue accurately. 

You're personalizing outreach at scale. 

You're freeing your team from busywork to focus on closing deals, and, most importantly, you’re building for scale by cloning yourself (2x) through enabling your team and improving velocity by sprinkling some automation and AI in there (10x).

But this isn't about shiny tools. It's about building a business that runs itself, so you can focus on growth instead of chaos.

Stop hacking together another workaround. Build the system that takes you to your next milestone.

Real Talk: If any of you Founders are stuck in the $1-2M range, raise your hand in the comments and I’ll DM you the book list that changed my life starting with this freebie: "Buy Back Your Time" by Dan Martell. If it's helpful, I can also hop on a call with you to show you some of the things we've built that enabled me to get more time back in my day using these systems.

Real talk: scaling nearly broke our client experience.

As Peddle grew and we hired more team members, something started to crack.
Onboarding quality depended on *who* you got and *which doc* they happened to open.

And those docs?
Everywhere.

Google Docs
ClickUp
Miro
Random links
Half-updated SOPs

Sound familiar?

Here’s the kicker: most of our clients are B2B SaaS and B2B Services companies… and they’re dealing with the exact same chaos as they scale.

So we decided to fix it for ourselves first.

We took everything we had built over years of onboarding clients and put it ALL in one place: Supered.

With help from:
• Lindsay John 🍊 (Lion & Elm) bringing HubSpot onboarding best practices
• Caleb Phillips (AmplifyOps) helping us formalize this into real account management documentation
• Matt Bolian ⚡ (Supered⚡) helping us operationalize it cleanly

We combined:
• HubSpot onboarding guides from HubSpot + some elbow grease from LJ at Lion & Elm
• Our internal Peddle onboarding processes
• AmplifyOps account management frameworks

The result?

We finally:
• Productized our offers
• Made onboarding repeatable
• Trained new hires faster
• Delivered the same high-quality experience to every client

No more guessing. No more doc-hunting. No more “wait, where is that again?”

Watch the full breakdown on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/ezbRC3Pv

If you’re struggling to create a consistent onboarding experience as you scale, book a quick 15-minute call with me and I’ll happily walk you through how we approached this and what to do first.

👉 https://lnkd.in/deZ8TiqT

Scaling shouldn’t mean chaos. It should mean systems.

Open video: The Mistake We Made Scaling Our Agency — And the System That Fixed It on youtu.be

The Mistake We Made Scaling Our Agency — And the System That Fixed It

Most companies don’t have a leadgen problem.

They have an inbound execution problem.

Leads come in… and then:
• emails sit unanswered for hours
• forms don’t get qualified
• no-shows never get rescheduled
• lead magnets get delivered but never convert
• high-intent website visitors disappear

That’s not a marketing issue.
That’s a response-time + follow-up issue.

So I recorded a new YouTube video showing exactly how I replaced our appointment setter and inbound SDR work with a no-code AI agent using Synapsa.ai - the #1 AI agent for HubSpot.
 
This isn’t theory. This is our live setup.

In the video, I show how Synapsa:
• replies to every inbound email instantly
• qualifies leads and books meetings automatically
• rescues no-shows and turns them back into pipeline
• follows up on form submissions in real time
• delivers lead magnets AND converts them
• reaches out to high-intent website visitors
• acts as a chatbot that actually qualifies and schedules

And the best part?
Synapsa:
✅ never misses an email
✅ never rolls in to work late or hungover
✅ works 24/7, 365!

This replaces the repetitive inbound SDR and appointment-setting work so your humans can focus on closing, not copy-pasting replies.

I break down the full workflow step by step in the video:

👉 Replace Your Appointment Setter and SDR Team with Synapsa, The No-Code AI Agent for HubSpot

If you want the exact onboarding package + Supered⚡ playbook we use to deploy this in HubSpot, grab it here:
https://lnkd.in/eRkRWYGM

And if you want me to walk you through whether this makes sense for your business, comment or DM me SYNAPSA.

Stop hiring humans to do robot work.
Deploy the agent. Let your team focus on revenue.

Happy FriYay, ya'll 🥳

🚨 New video is live 🚨

The Ultimate Guide to HubSpot Sales Hub Onboarding — in DAYS, not months.

I’ve seen this way too many times 👇
Sales Hub onboarding drags on forever.
Reps are “trained” but still guessing.
Admins know where the docs are… everyone else doesn’t.

Months go by and leadership is asking:
“Why aren’t we seeing ROI yet?”

In this new video, I break down **exactly how we onboard Sales Hub fast** using **Supered** so teams are productive in *days*, not quarters.

Here’s what we cover:
• How to centralize all Sales Hub onboarding in ONE place
• How to train reps without endless meetings or shadowing
• How to turn Sales Hub into a repeatable, productized system
• How to stop relying on tribal knowledge to run your sales team

This is the same approach we use at Peddle to:
• Onboard new sales reps faster
• Deliver consistent Sales Hub implementations
• Reduce support tickets and “how do I do this?” pings
• Actually get value from HubSpot instead of just owning licenses

If you’re a B2B SaaS or B2B Services leader and Sales Hub onboarding feels slow, messy, or fragile — this one’s for you.

👇 Watch the video and steal the framework
(Your future sales team will thank you.)

#HubSpot #SalesHub #RevOps #B2BSaaS #SalesEnablement #CustomerExperience #Supered

I get asked a lot how I map lifecycle, lead, and deal stages in HubSpot.

So, I built a tool to help companies with both recurring and non-recurring revenue map their customer journey.

If you're struggling to align your buyer's journey and sales process with HubSpot, this can save you hours.

Download the guide and see how it works.

And if you want help customizing it for your business, book some time with me.

Link to get started: https://lnkd.in/dC7bMSsg

Calendar: https://lnkd.in/deZ8TiqT

Open article: RevOps Customer Lifecycle Stages by peddling.io

Challenge Accepted. ✅
2026 here we come!

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

The $10M Solopreneur | Helping 100,000+ experts turn their expertise into income.

Forget $100K.

Can you get ONE person to pay you $50?

That's basically the only question that matters when you're starting out.

Don't worry about funnels.
Or which tool to pick.
Or which platform.

Just go find one person who you can help and will pay you. 

I've seen far too many people waste far too much time doing anything other than that one simple thing. 

And twelve months later, they're burned out and haven't made one darn sale.

Because they skipped the only step that mattered:

Finding one person with a problem they'd pay to solve.

When I started seven years ago, I made the exact same mistake, too.

I had all of these big plans. 
Whiteboarded complex funnels. 
Had a multi-channel, holistic "strategy."

After that failed, I stripped it all back and asked one question:

"Who has a problem I can solve this week?"

I found one person. 
Charged them money.
And delivered the result.

Remember:

$100K (or any big number) is just one small sale, repeated and refined.

But you can't repeat it if you've never even done it once.

If you're stuck in planning mode, stop.

Find one person.
Solve their problem.
Charge them money.

I built a free 30-day system to help you get that very first sale.

It's called The Expert OS.

One short video per day. My templates, sequences, and prompts. Everything you need to get your first paying customer in 30 days.

Start day 1: https://lnkd.in/ezT6vcCv

There's never been a better day to get started.

Mapping sales stages in HubSpot isn't just about creating a pipeline. It's about designing a process that guides your team, speeds up deals, and increases conversions.

Start by defining each stage clearly. Know what qualifies a lead to move from one step to the next. Be specific. Vague stages waste time and cause confusion.

Align stages with your *Buyer's Journey* as stages and your sales process as tasks within each stage. Make sure everyone on your team has shared definitions and understanding. Consistency is key.

Use automation to move deals forward. Set entry requirements, rules that trigger updates, notifications, or tasks. Reduce manual work and keep everyone on the same page.

Track progress and bottlenecks. Use HubSpot reports to see where deals get stuck. Fix issues before they become leaks.

Most importantly, review and refine regularly. Your sales process isn't static. Adapt as you learn what works best.

Want a detailed, step-by-step guide to mapping your sales stages in HubSpot? Download my free lead magnet and turn your pipeline into a growth engine.

Link:

Open article: The Perfect SaaS Sales Pipeline Builder by peddling.io

Experienced marketing director who focuses on people-first experiences throughout the marketing and sales lifecycle. 

When you put people first and focus on their specific needs and overwhelming pain points, your marketing efforts become more than a strategy or series of targeted, but distant, tactics. 

Whether you're showcasing the time saving and productivity boosting solution set of your SaaS offering or focusing on building a brand through laser-focused messaging and imagery, the goal of the marketing remains unchanged. People purchase from other people. People they've come to know, like, and trust. 

Marketing efforts that focus on creating community open the door to build the familiarity and trust necessary to make a purchase.

I have delivered people-first marketing experiences through social media and blog posts, email campaigns, focused webinars, and collective learning opportunities.

My content marketing experience extends beyond writing and editing skills. 

I'm a teller of stories, a proponent of pithy turns of phrase, and battler of blanket statements. I'm also an avid and ardent music lover always on the lookout for my next favorite listen. 

Specialties: Content marketing, visual marketing (graphic design), social media marketing, content curation and repurposing, managing marketing teams, systems, and schedules, and ensuring customers and prospects are treated as people first.

Mallie Hart

I called a friend a "weirdo" in a comment on LinkedIn this morning.

Now we wait to see if my reach gets throttled even more. Or I get shadow-banned. Or my account gets taken down.

Because, yes, LinkedIn asked me if I wanted to post that horrible word, "weirdo," before it published.

A little back story: This friend, Joe Hungerman, and I regularly snark back and forth, in real life AND here on LinkedIn, about music taste and, specifically, my taste being too "emo" for his liking. It's an ongoing bit.

And anyone with even a grain of common sense can suss out that it's a bit. A joke. Friendly jabs.

Ahhhhh, but there's the rub. There seems to be little common sense available when friendly interactions like these are called out to the powers that be, LinkedIn, by individuals having a bad day or simply not enamored with the OP's point of view.

It's getting ridiculous. Peers are getting their accounts shut down for friendly, fun conversations in the comments. At what point will we return to normalcy, where a bit is seen as a bit, where context and intent matter, rather than the use of a word someone finds offensive?

It’s time to Get Graphic! Be yourself. Embrace what makes you the go-to in your industry!

Gilmore Girls GIF where Luke hits his head on the stove and Lorelai thinks it's a bit. 

For the past several years, I've been compiling daily "random" listen playlists.

I love the genre and decade hops that occur when I set my large and eclectic "Liked Songs" playlist on shuffle. But that's not today's thought.

Some lists are uncannily timely and topical without any effort or input from me. I don't seed these lists by choosing the first song. It's straight algorithm anarchy. 

Yesterday's random playlist is a fine example. 

"Never Let Me Down Again," "Strange," "Where Do We Go From Here," "Thieving," and "Return To Sender" can all be, with some creativity and nuance, applied to the state of politics here in the US. 

Coincidence? Almost certainly. Interesting and thought-provoking? Absolutely. 

2026 looks like it's starting at the top of a roller coaster. Similar to 2025, but with unknown surprises, uncertainties, and, HOPEFULLY, changes for the better.

No matter what happens, I'll still be me and my playlists will still manage to make me pause and reflect.

Here's to a New Year. Here's to it being better than 2025.

My Ten Random listens playlist from January 4, 2026. Featuring artists from Depeche Mode to Elvis Presley.

Was it the GIF?

Yesterday's post landed in front of more eyes, and gained more comments and likes than anything I've posted in quite a while.

But it left me with a burning question about what made the "difference."

Was it that I included a GIF, something I've rarely done?

Was it the fact that it was a Gilmore Girl GIF?

Or maybe, it's just an algorithm update launched with the new year. 

Because I really doubt it had much to do with my silly story about calling a friend a weirdo in a LinkedIn comment and worrying about getting shadow banned or throttled for daring to do so.

So, you're getting another GIF today. It's cool. It's science. It's research. It's beta testing. For data. For truth. For insights.

And you can bet your sweet bippy that you'll see another GG GIF if this GIF share doesn't back up the data!

#ItItTheGIF #AlgorithmShenanigans

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The Battle

Italo Leiva

Mallie Hart

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Italo Leiva's LinkedIn Performance

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