flux+flow

An agile revenue marketing agency that designs scalable demand generation strategies for B2B SaaS (Series B-D) companies. 

•	Develop scalable growth marketing strategies using sales and marketing automation software to measure, optimize, and improve overall performance. Generate qualified leads, increase revenue, and maximize ROI. Worked with over 25+ startups and SMBs in North America, Europe, and Australia. 
•	Develop and execute a clearly defined marketing strategy to drive rapid growth, focusing on creating scalable growth marketing strategies. 
•	Drove paid traffic via Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and twitter ads which led to increased website traffic YoY by: Users: +1,050%; Session: +1,089%; Bounce Rate: -54%; Session Duration: +154%.
•	Created a comprehensive inbound marketing content strategy (e.g., 25+ blogs, 30+ downloadable long-form assets, and 6 pillar pages).
•	Worked with a variety of clients using various sales and marketing automation tools ranging from basic email automation (e.g., MailChimp) to enterprise marketing automation platforms (e.g., HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot).

Co-founder / Revenue Marketing Lead

Transfix

Named to Forbes’ “Next Billion-Dollar Startups” list, Transfix is the leading transportation solutions provider whose marketplace and technology offerings are helping transform the $800 billion trucking industry.

Recruited by Transfix in Q2 2022 as the 1st Demand Generation hire Series D funding/pre-IPO to help build a revenue marketing team while managing two direct reports, Senior Demand Generation Manager and Senior Marketing Operations Manager. 

💰  Revenue Marketing Impact: 
🔼 275% QoQ MQL volume increase
🔼 225% QoQ Opp volume increase
🔼 129% QoQ Pipeline increase
🔼  9.32% QoQ Revenue increase (lagging)

🎯  Developed a demand generation strategy to support 2 GTM motions: SaaS and B2B Marketplace, and 3 ICP segments with an estimated TAM of $800bn. 

📕  Adapted a proven Revenue Marketing Playbook to support the Enterprise ABM sales motion, leading to 54.66% LinkedIn engagement of Enterprise TAM accounts and 40.08% visiting the Transfix.io website.

💰. Oversaw six-figure digital annual ad spend to — ensure efficient capital deployment — support paid social and paid search while continually testing and optimizing targeting, messaging, and creative to increase CTRs, and decrease CPC and CPL. 

🤝  Part of a 17-person marketing team consisting of demand generation, marketing operations, product marketing, content, creative, and event marketing.  

⚙️. Operational Efficiency 

🏭.  Insights Factory 

💡. Ensured sales and marketing alignment by frequently collaborating with three sales teams and over two dozen AEs — providing valuable market insights to accelerate deal flow. 

🔎  Collaborated with product marketing and internal SMEs to uncover what messaging resonated with our ICP segments and buyer personas — helped jumpstart the VoC research process by leveraging the Wynter B2B message testing platform. 

🧭. Provided market and paid social/search experiment insights to the content marketing team to help guide the organic content strategy.

Director of Demand Generation & Marketing Operations

Refine Labs

Recruited by Refine Labs in Q2 2021 — the first cohort of Director of Demand Generation before scaling headcount to 125.  

Developed Demand Gen strategies for (4) high-growth B2B SaaS companies and managed $2.2M in total ad spend. 

Managed Sr. Performance Marketing Manager and collaborated with (4) Creative Directors, (5) Direct Response Copywriters, (6) Graphic Designers, and the marketing analytics manager. 

Developed frameworks to increase operational efficiency by 25% and reduced QBR reporting time by 75% — adopted by the broader Demand Generation teams. 

Series C SaaS Platform — $100M Funding Round

Designed a 9-month pilot revenue marketing program for the U.K. market — ran 18 experiments testing 54/18 message/creative variations to inform global demand strategy for 15 countries  

Advised in developing MarTech roadmap to efficiently scale Demand Gen spend by 185% after closing a $100M Series C

Increased website-generated leads by 120% and inbound demo requests by 166% in the first five months of the U.K. pilot resulting in a 148% increase in qualified inbound meetings booked 

Series B SaaS Platform — $40M Funding Round

Implemented a proven B2B SaaS Demand Gen playbook to jumpstart their revenue marketing engine
Scaled ad spend by 700% over three quarters, resulting in a 100% increase in marketing-generated ARR 

Series B SaaS Platform — $37M Funding Round

Scaled spend by 300% in Q3 2021 by implementing Demand Gen playbook and exceeded target marketing-generated SQO volume by 12%, resulting in a $2.7M total qualified pipeline

Accelerated marketing-generated deal velocity by 15% and increased the marketing-generated average ARR per deal by 44% resulting in 110% QoQ pipeline growth

Series A SaaS Platform — $9M Growth Round

Advised C-suite on Demand Gen strategy supporting a split GTM motion (sales-led and PLG) 

Increased marketing-generated pipeline by 93% QoQ resulting in a 67% increase in closed won deals

Increased PLG signups by 17% QoQ

Director of Demand Generation

Concentric

Prescriptive analytics for strategic decisions. What-if software to manage uncertainty and make informed decisions. Prescriptive analytics provides the most value to businesses hoping to optimize their actions. Each prior capability builds upon the other to provide businesses with the decision support they need the most: The ability to make forecasts come true.

• Responsible for managing and generating demand through content marketing and advertising
• Collaborate with the sales team to ensure that marketing is supporting the sales process by creating new content and digital experiences
• Manage and optimize the web experience (e.g., site performance, web enhancements, technical SEO, copywriting)
• Manage external resources (e.g., content agency, copywriters, freelancers, advertising partners) to help scale our marketing efforts 
• Manage the marketing automation platform (i.e., HubSpot) and ensure that the digital experience supports the customer journey

Demand Generation Manager

Codiscope (A Part of Synopsys)

An early-stage CyberSecurity SaaS startup, providing a suite of accessible security training and tools, streamlined tools for a broad population of developers. 

***Codiscope was acquired by Synopsys on 11/30/2016***

Smart, Secure Everything—From Silicon to Software. Synopsys technology is at the heart of innovations that are changing the way we live and work. 

•	Developed and executed a comprehensive B2B marketing strategy which increased traffic by 542% YoY. Focused on content marketing strategy, marketing technology (e.g., Marketo and HubSpot), SEO/SEM strategy, and analytics/reporting.
•	Managed the entire implementation process of Marketo marketing automation platform. 
•	Built an email database of 15,000 contacts through various customer acquisition strategies (e.g., SEM, SEO, paid social, targeted email campaigns via newsletters, guest blogging). Execute campaigns for acquisition, product marketing and customer marketing.
•	Built and scaled demand-gen and sales enablement capabilities across web, email, social media, advertising, and content marketing. 


✔ HubSpot Marketing Software Certified
✔ HubSpot Inbound Certified

Marketo Marketing Automation:

• Designed custom responsive Marketo email templates (HTML/CSS/Marketo Variables)
• Designed custom responsive Marketo landing page templates (HTML/CSS/Marketo Variables)
• Planned and developed persona specific lead nurturing campaigns
• Configured custom "Smart Campaigns"
• Lead scoring
• Salesforce.com data sync with Marketo
• Build and manage custom reports for lead attribution

Salesforce.com

• Campaign creation for tracking in Marketo
• Marketo sales insights and lead scoring
• Customized fields in SFDC to improve the accuracy of reporting metrics

• Paid Advertising: Google AdWords
• Google Analytics
• WordPress CMS Management
• Wista (Video Marketing & Analytics Platform)
• SEO/SEM intelligence reports (Moz.com & SEMRush)
• Technical SEO
• Website Optimization

Digital Marketing Manager

Universal Medical Inc

Provides medical and laboratory supplies for hospitals and private practices throughout the United States

• Increased web traffic by 1500% by creating compelling blog content educating potential buyers on the firm’s various products. 
• Developed an inbound marketing strategy to reduce UM’s dependency on paid advertising for customer acquisition — average monthly paid spend of $80,000 — reduced ad spend by 20%. 
• Researched and created unique buyer personas to drive the content marketing strategy. 
• Managed the entire creative process for over 350 product videos used to drive SEO/SEM.
• Oversaw Pardot marketing automation implementation and developed responsive email marketing templates, responsive landing and thank you pages, and forms. 
• Developed a program of repeatable lead generation activities that met revenue targets, achieving a 17% increase in sales. Designed a comprehensive email database segmentation strategy (e.g., 25,000+ contacts) to create 12 product category campaign.
 
Marketing Metrics/KPIs

✓ eCommerce Traffic ↑
✓ Blog Traffic ↑
✓ Social Media ↑
✓ Email List ↑
✓ Video Engagement↑
✓ Landing Page Conversions ↑

Marketing Skills Summary

✓ Copywriting
✓ Social Media
✓ Google Analytics
✓ Marketing Automation
✓ Adobe Creative Cloud
✓ HTML & CSS
✓ SEO/SEM 

Business Skills Summary

✓ Communication
✓ Relationship Building
✓ Project Management
✓ Goal Setting
✓ Adaptability

Inbound Marketing Specialist

Startup Institute

Selected by Startup Institute in a highly competitive process to attend intensive training program focused on developing the core skills in Digital Marketing. Startup Institute's digital marketing track provides relevant training to help students become a comprehensive digital marketer: performance and content marketing, plus a focus on generating actionable insights from data analytics. Modern digital marketers are tasked with designing campaigns that speak to multiple audience segments, inspiring them into action, and measuring the results to make data-fueled business decisions. 

Marketers in the innovation industry are scrappy, creative, and agile - able to drive big growth on a small budget and with limited resources. SIBs digital marketing track provides students with the experience and training necessary to become a self-sufficient marketer, whose aim is to help a company increase their customer base by a factor of 10. 

Curriculum: SEO, Google Analytics, paid media, inbound marketing, landing page creation, content marketing, email marketing, branding, social media audits, mapping customer segmentation, content management, and HTML/CSS.

Key Skills and Capabilities:

✓ Email marketing and landing page optimization
✓ Best practices for inbound and outbound marketing plans
✓ Working with analytics platforms and SQL
✓ Placing, testing, and optimizing paid advertising
✓ Improving website visibility through content development and targeted keyword usage

Digital Marketing Student

LidWorks - M&N Plastics, Inc.

The global foodservice industry’s premier lid manufacturer

• Oversaw the entire B2B marketing strategy, including advertisements in industry publications, Google AdWords and Yahoo/Bing PPC campaigns to drive search traffic. Worked with a 3rd party eCommerce platform (CyberStore for Syspro ERP software) to provide an additional sales channel.
• Helped grow the business through designing, developing, and pitching digital strategy for key clients and working on high level campaigns: Dunkin’ Donuts, Subway, Burger King, Wendy’s, KFC, and Panera Bread
• Evaluated and reported results of web initiatives, including SEO, email marketing, and E-commerce.
• Increased unique visitor website traffic by 540% within one year of hire. 
• Product development team member tasked with researching and validating new items to add to the new product pipeline.
• Managed brand image, created product literature and advertising that supported corporate identity.
• Conducted market research focused on competitive analysis, strategic growth initiatives, and data analysis.
• Acted as a project liaison between sales and engineering to ensure successful collaboration and engagement.
• Gained a greater understanding of finance, IT, and engineering by collaborating with cross-functional teams to improve process efficiencies in product development and data collection/analysis.

Digital Marketing and Sales Enablement Representative 

UFP Industries

A multibillion-dollar, publicly traded, sales-and-manufacturing powerhouse, with approximately 5,000 people and 70 facilities across North America.

• Selected for the new business transition team to assist in the newly acquired Home Depot contract.
• Developed a comprehensive lead generation strategy to increase organic sales for the plant.
• Utilized Microsoft Dynamics CRM to streamline and improve the selling process.
• Collaborated with various departments in the plant to increase efficiency and sales margins.

Account Manager

A multibillion-dollar, publicly traded, sales-and-manufacturing powerhouse, with approximately 5,000 people and 70 facilities across North America.

• Developed a sales process and strategy by interviewing successful Account/Sales Managers to understand effective selling techniques within the industry.  
• Learned company products, policies and procedures, and performs basic sales and customer service activities.
• Assisted in sales, customer service and production activities as assigned by the General Manager.
• Attended and successfully completed intensive one-week boot camp of comprehensive studies. 
• Positive, team player that took a "roll up your sleeves" approach towards any challenge or obstacle that came my way. 
• Shadowed successful Account Managers to learn selling techniques and strategies.
• Self-managed worked well under little supervision.

Sales Trainee

Sherwin Williams

Sherwin-Williams is proud to be one of Fortune® magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

• Oversaw operations of a $1.9M branch, generating new business and growing existing account sales.
• Increased accessory sales by 29% in 2009 over previous year by cross-promoting products.
• Converted 500+ retail customers into DIY accounts in 2009 increased 2010 DIY sales by 21%.
• Utilized store reports and lead generation database to target opportunity accounts.
•Analyzed market conditions: competition, trends, issues and opportunities
•Worked with the Store Manager developing the annual sales plan and identifying KPI's to assist in revenue and margin growth
•Ensured the satisfaction of both wholesale and do-it-yourself customers and building positive long-term relationships
•Communicate effectively with customers, employees and other business partners
•Trained, coached and managed store employees
•Made decisions regarding pricing, credit and other customer issues
•Managed employees time and resources effectively

Operations Manager

Our Management Training Program has been named one of Princeton Review's® "Best Entry Level Jobs." 

Sherwin-Williams looks for specific traits in management trainees. We seek individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit, energy, a strong work ethic, integrity and flexibility.

• Built customer loyalty through friendly, efficient service 
• Built positive working relationships with managers, co-workers and other business partners 
• Worked as a member of the team, helping the store achieve its performance goals 
• Tapped into people, resources and information to make good decisions 
• Demonstrated strong time-management skills 
• Continued to learn the business and improve on industry, marketing and product knowledge

Management/Sales Training Program

Hi there!  👋 

As an experienced revenue marketing leader, I’m committed to helping B2B marketing leaders running Hybrid and Sales-led GTM motions at Series B SaaS companies increase qualified opportunities, develop sustainable marketing-generated pipeline, and hit revenue targets while spending less and listening more to customers.


The formula for B2B SaaS success:

🤝 People ➕ 📱Product ➕  ⚙️ Process 🟰 Efficient Growth 📈

What are you going to do about revenue?

Revenue Marketing's answer: 

1️⃣ Efficiently create and capture demand to deliver sales qualified leads to the sales team (low CAC Payback Period, LTV:CAC, etc.) 🎯

2️⃣ Accelerate qualified sales opportunities through the sales pipeline 📈

3️⃣ Design a resilient system to measure marketing based on repeatable, predictable, and scalable contribution to pipeline, revenue, and ROI ⚙️ (not MQLs) 

4️⃣ Transform marketing from a cost center to a PROFIT CENTER 💰

What motivates me? 

🟢 Help organizations transform their marketing department from a cost center to a revenue center by improving operational efficiency, identifying growth levers, and reducing customer acquisition costs.  

🟢 Help bring products and organizations to life by building meaningful connections and trust with humans — find out what they want/need by conducting VoC/market research and analyzing market feedback.

🟢 Help high-performing revenue-focused marketing teams get the respect they deserve as most companies view their marketing department as a cost center rather than a revenue center. 

What gets me up each day? 

As an Agile revenue marketing leader, I'm focused on building a repeatable, predictable, and scalable customer-first Revenue Marketing practice. 

Why it matters? 

B2B organizations need to stop thinking about the traditional and outdated (oversimplified, company-centric) sales funnel — it's time to rethink their entire GTM strategy and take a holistic approach to customer acquisition by adopting a new customer acquisition model that puts the customer and audience first. 

It's time to ditch the siloed thinking of the past and rally around one common organizational goal — 
increasing REVENUE. 

The Three Pillars:

1️⃣ Revenue Marketing (Strategy)

2️⃣ Operational Efficiency (Agile Marketing)

3️⃣ Insights Factory (Marketing Operations) 

Marketing's role has changed, and B2B SaaS companies now expect marketing teams to own a revenue number.  

Let's GO!

Kevin Jaquith (JAKE-with)

Vice President at Spiralyze | Optimization | CRO for B2B SaaS

Through GTMnow (the media brand of VC firm, GTMfund), I help share content to help companies grow revenue and individuals scale their careers. Subscribe to build, scale, and invest with the best minds in tech.

I host The GTMnow Podcast (top 1% global podcast) and write The GTMnow Newsletter (read by 50k+ operators, founders and investors). 

Tech moats are declining; distribution is the final remaining moat. Your go-to-market strategy and execution determine your outcome. 

--

Passionate people person. Passionate about global education. 
Life is short, and there are 1440 minutes in every day. Make the most of them, make a difference, and enjoy the ride.

Sophie Buonassisi

This is my new favorite line: “Yeses are great. No’s are great. Maybe will kill you.”

Most founders don’t realize how much damage “maybe” does to a business.

Yes, it feels polite and it feels like progress. It also feels safer than rejection. 

But in practice, maybe is just deferred learning.

A clean no gives you clarity, which lets you reallocate time, focus, and energy.

Or it tells you exactly what you need to fix.

What most people don’t realize is that the fastest way to stall GTM isn’t losing deals.

It’s lingering in uncertainty because you’re avoiding an answer.

One of the most practical lessons from my conversation with Jeanne DeWitt Grosser on GTMnow.

SVP Marketing at GTMfund | Host of The GTMnow Podcast

No alternative text description for this image

Key takeaways from my conversation with: Adam Carr, CRO at Apollo ($150M+ ARR, PLG-led). He previously scaled Miro into a $17.5B sales org. 

1️⃣ PLG is an acquisition channel (not a monetization strategy).
PLG pulls users in via value. But usage doesn’t equal revenue. Sales should activate when product signals show scale potential, then guide the buyer to value across the org (not just for one team). Treat PLG as the top of the funnel, and treat sales as the conversion layer.

2️⃣ The most dangerous PLG myth? That sales is optional.
Apollo crossed $100M ARR without a sales org, but Adam is clear: that was the exception, not the rule. If you're scaling GTM, don’t wait for $100M. The earlier you start layering in humans to systematize enterprise expansion, the faster you’ll compound.

3️⃣ To avoid PLG vs. Sales turf wars, build a one-team model.
At Apollo, growth (self-serve) and sales (human-led) run on shared data, shared account ownership, and one customer journey. When everyone sees the same signals and incentives, there’s no “us vs. them,” it’s just one GTM engine.

4️⃣ Slow hiring down to avoid performance debt.
Rushing to hit headcount targets can set you back 12 months. Adam missed hiring goals intentionally to align on what “great” looks like, then built a rigorous process around it. The opportunity cost of bad hires compounds more than you think.

5️⃣ Look for “architects.”
The best modern sellers are systems thinkers. They understand (or want to understand) how GTM workflows operate – how pipeline gets created, how enrichment works, how inbound gets routed. 

6️⃣ Value isn’t delivered at signature, it’s realized through usage.
Many orgs celebrate closed-won. Adam shifts the spotlight to customer milestones – usage, activation, success. Sales gets comped partly on credit consumption. The goal is revenue durability.

7️⃣ Apollo is reimagining the customer success function, replacing CSMs with GTM Engineers.
Apollo is reimagining the traditional CS model. Instead, post-sales is handled by technical operators who run intervention-based playbooks triggered by product signals. 

8️⃣ Product signals are the new GTM operating system.
Apollo maps the customer journey by day 7/14/28 and tracks behavioral signals to trigger human intervention. Whether it's expansion, rescue, or retention, GTM runs on product data. Signal clarity = execution speed.

-- 

🎧 Tune in and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen by searching "The GTMnow Podcast."

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

SVP Marketing at GTMfund & GTMnow | Host of The GTMnow Podcast

There’s a clear through line across everything we’ve built at GTMfund: democratized access as a lever for impact.

- Access to not only capital, but also world-class GTM support (portfolio companies)

- Access for operators - i.e. the builders of SaaS companies - to financial diversification through investing (LPs)

 - Access for the broader ecosystem to practical GTM insight from the best minds in tech (GTMnow media)

There are barriers for people innovating. 
We’re in the business of removing those barriers. 

If you equip people with the right information, resources, and support - they can fulfill their mission, and accordingly positively impact people and the greater world.

139 countries in 2025 🎙️🙏

From all of us at GTMfund - thank you.

This past year, the GTMnow Network of founders, operators, and investors tuned in to the podcast from 139 countries and 4,114 cities.

A quick shoutout to some of the countries leading the charge:
 🇺🇸 United States
 🇨🇦 Canada
 🇬🇧 United Kingdom

And cities:
 🌆 New York
 🌉 San Francisco
 🌏 Melbourne

We started the podcast from the ground up.
It grew. 
Along the way, we re-acquired Sales Hacker.  
It grew.

And we're just getting started.

We're grateful to everyone tuning in - the GTMnow Network - for helping to shape what the next decade of software looks like.

Claude Cowork is also fundamentally a GTM story. Here’s why.

When software creation compresses, distribution becomes the constraint.

Claude Cowork was shipped in a mere 10 days (wild!).
It started with a simple nudge from Boris Cherny, leading Claude Code: could what had been built internally be scoped down and shipped in just a few days? A small team formed, set an aggressive deadline (“how about Monday”).
Claude wrote Cowork itself. Take a minute to let that sink in 🤯 

Them shipping in 10 days shows how product advantage decays faster. 

In this world, the hardest problems shift upstream:
- Who is it for right now?
- How do you get it into real users’ hands fast enough to learn?

That is GTM. 

Agentic development raises the bar for GTM execution. 

When iteration is cheap(er), feedback speed is everything. Teams that can ship early, message clearly, onboard smoothly, and close the loop with users will outpace teams that are technically strong but less GTM-savvy.

Code is no longer the bottleneck, GTM is. 
That’s why distribution becomes the final moat.

Jordan Crawford has been expressing how we’ve entered a new era. Taking inspiration and learnings from him (full credit to him), these are the eras we’re seeing:

𝐄𝐫𝐚 𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐞𝐫𝐚
This is when AI became broadly accessible. It showed up as a conversational assistant that could answer questions, generate ideas, and help people think faster. The interaction was simple: prompt in, response out. The value was speed and cognitive leverage, but the limitation was execution. ChatGPT didn’t understand your real context or operate inside your tools. You still had to copy, paste, and act. AI helped you think, but it didn’t do the work.

𝐄𝐫𝐚 𝐈𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐫𝐚
This is when AI crossed into real execution, but only for power users. Developers and technical operators wired AI into scripts, terminals, and early agent workflows. These systems could automate tasks and chain actions, but they required deep technical knowledge. The power was undeniable, but the barrier was high. AI could do work, but only if you knew how to talk to machines.

𝐄𝐫𝐚 𝐈𝐈𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐫𝐚
This is where execution becomes accessible without the technical tax. Instead of prompts or commands, you give Claude an objective. It plans the work, executes inside real files, checks its output, and iterates when needed. Context persists across steps.

We've officially entered a new era. 

-- 

✍ More notes on Claude Cowork in the latest The GTMnow Newsletter.

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

✉️  GTMfund and Jordan Crawford are hosting a private event on Claude Code on Tuesday, February 17th in SF. If you're a founder or an operator owning outbound in vertical SaaS (post-PMF), DM me for access.

AI-led growth can look like rocket fuel…until it isn’t.

It’s never been easier to acquire customers fast, but that growth can mask a deeper problems.

That’s why the next phase of SaaS isn’t about how fast you GROW, but rather how well you ENDURE.

I sat down with Abbas Haider Ali (VP of Customer Success at GitHub) to break all this down for you and much, much more. 

Key takeaways from the conversation:

1️⃣ Expansion is the true test of PMF.
Renewals show customers can tolerate your product. Expansion shows they depend on it. If your early adopters aren’t growing usage or footprint, you’ve sold potential, not value. Look for usage growth, multi-team adoption, and adjacent use cases as your first real PMF signal.

2️⃣ AI-led growth can look like success, but mask fragility.
In the AI wave, explosive acquisition numbers can distract from weak core retention. Abbas calls this “value erosion.” When tech evolves quickly, your own releases can undercut existing usage. That’s why growth is no longer the bottleneck, endurance is.

3️⃣ Build a leading indicator stack for value endurance.
GRR and NRR are postmortems. Build instrumentation that flags value drift before it shows up in revenue. Abbas recommends tracking product usage quality, role-level adoption, and critical path workflows.

4️⃣ Customer Success is entering the 7% era.
AI’s automation of post-sales is shifting the benchmark. The “envelope” CFOs allocate to CS is tightening from 10% to 7% of revenue. 

5️⃣ Use a “waterfall” model to allocate CS budget.
Start with support (rather than outcomes): fund the reactive core first, then invest in onboarding, and finally outcomes. Leaders who skip this sequence often build bloated CS teams that can’t prevent churn.

6️⃣ Monetize your post-sales motion to stretch the 7%.
Want to do more with the same budget? Use premium support and professional services as cost-offsets. Done right, this lets customers subsidize your cost-to-serve.

7️⃣ In early-stage SaaS, aim for "founder-absent readiness".
CS at Seed is about proving customers can succeed without the founder in every meeting. That’s Series A readiness. Abbas frames this as the evolution from “founder-led” to “founder-absent” CS.

8️⃣ If you can’t tie your product to making money, saving money, or reducing risk...you're not delivering value.
Abbas' rule: every durable SaaS company should be able to draw a straight line from product to measurable business outcomes. That’s how you anchor retention, justify spend, and win expansion.

--

💚 Thank you to our incredible sponsor HockeyStack for supporting the podcast. HockeyStack is the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale.

🎧 Tune in and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen by searching "The GTMnow Podcast."

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

Go-to-market deserves the same rigor as product development.

We prototype products, we obsess over UX, we debate pixels…and then we run sales as a loose collection of decks, demos, and instincts.

What Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO of Vercel) articulated so clearly in this clip from our podcast conversation is that sales is an experience.

Being sold to is an experience. And if you don’t choreograph it, you’re still creating an experience (just accidentally).

If you treat GTM like a product, the experience is deliberately created.

NOW LIVE! Here are my biggest takeaways from Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO at Vercel) on how go-to-market actually scales:

1️⃣ Go-to-market should be treated like a product.

Product teams prototype, storyboard, and obsess over user experience. Most GTM teams do none of that. But being sold to is an experience. If you don’t design it intentionally, you’re still creating one, just accidentally.

2️⃣ Sales motions fail because they’re rarely choreographed.

The strongest GTM teams think in sequences. What experience tees up the next one? When should a whiteboard replace a deck? When does ROI come in? This is product thinking applied to human systems.

3️⃣ AI only helps after you decide what “good” looks like.

Agents are most effective in deterministic environments. If you can’t articulate your best practices, AI will only scale inconsistency. Clarity first, automation second.

4️⃣ Most “lost on price” deals aren’t actually about price.

When Jeanne dug into losses, the real issues were things like missing the economic buyer or failing to quantify ROI. Those are process bugs, not rep failures. Treating GTM like a product lets you debug those bugs systematically.

5️⃣ The forward deployed engineer exists because buyers are overwhelmed.

Customers often know something needs to change but don’t know what to solve first. The people who win bring structure, frameworks, and pattern recognition into ambiguity. That consulting-oriented motion is becoming core, not optional.

6️⃣ Great sales reps aren’t going away in the AI era.

If anything, trust and navigation matter more when decisions feel riskier. The best reps understand an organization’s decision-making better than the organization itself. AI may compress workflows, but judgment remains human.

7️⃣ “Early” is about trajectory (not headcount).

Jeanne joined Google, Stripe, and Vercel later than most people think. What mattered wasn’t what number she was joining the company, but rather about the company’s growth trajectory. If you’re worried you’re too late, is it ever too late if the ceiling for growth is high enough?

-

💚 Thank you to our incredible sponsor: HockeyStack for supporting the podcast. HockeyStack is the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale.

🎧 Tune in and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen by searching "The GTMnow Podcast."

💡GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

“YES is great, NO is great, MAYBE will kill you.” - Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO of Vercel)

Founders and early sales teams often avoid clarity because they are afraid of hearing no. But no is information!

As Payal Kadakia famously says: “Failure is an amazing data point that tells you which direction not to go.”

What kills momentum is false hope disguised as progress.

This is one of those lines that sticks because it is painfully true.

NOW LIVE: new episode with Healey Cypher (Founder & CEO at BoomPop) - he’s a multi-time founder with multiple successful exits and helped Atomic scale to almost $800M AUM. 

Now, he’s at the forefront of one of the fastest growing channels for company growth: in-person events. 

My key takeaways from the conversation on what founders and teams underestimate early:

1️⃣ Distribution matters just as much (if not more) as product.
Founders spend years perfecting product, but if you can’t scalably and efficiently reach people, there’s a real chance they’ll never even know your product exists. Distribution is the final remaining moat.

2️⃣ Events are becoming the most effective GTM channel in the AI era.
As AI floods inboxes with perfectly personalized outbound, trust is getting harder to earn digitally. In a world where it’s hard to know what’s real online, in-person experiences are becoming a premium.

3️⃣ You can validate demand before you build.
At Atomic, Healey learned that you can test messaging, pricing, features, and competitive positioning before writing a single line of code. Early distribution signals dramatically reduce risk and shape better products.

4️⃣ Most founders don’t think like their investors.
A solid 20% growth business is not what venture-backed businesses are optimizing for. Founders need to honestly ask whether their market, ambition, and exit potential match venture, or if an alternative funding method is more suitable. 

5️⃣ Most startups fail from internal misalignment, not competition.
The biggest threats are usually unforced errors: lack of focus, poor communication, and misaligned priorities. Culture and communication are not soft topics. They are survival mechanisms.

6️⃣ Offsites are becoming the new HQ.
In a hybrid world, intentional in-person moments are how teams align, build trust, and remember why they’re doing the work. The best companies now plan these moments as part of their operating cadence.

7️⃣ Mental state is a real competitive advantage.
Healey shared a powerful story about elite athletes and micro-positivity. How you respond to small losses compounds faster than almost anything else.

I personally learned a TON, and I think you’ll really enjoy it too.

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💚 Thank you to our incredible sponsor: HockeyStack for supporting the podcast. HockeyStack is the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale.

🎧 Tune in and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen by searching "The GTMnow Podcast."

💡GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

What a list! Honored to be recognized on it alongside incredible women, including Lydia Flocchini and Maja Voje 💛 

Congrats to all and thank you Jonathan M Kvarfordt, MBA and Momentum.io for putting this together.

VP of GTM Strategy & Marketing - Momentum | Founder GTM AI Academy & Cofounder AI Business Network | Business impact ​> Learning Tools | Proud Dad of Twins

View Jonathan M Kvarfordt, MBA’s profile

Day 1 of 4: Sooo excited to announce winners for the Momentum.io 2025 GTM AI Awards/2026 Ones to watch!

I will be releasing names every day this week and will have the final list ready for you when I get done talking about how amazing everyone is.

We had so many submissions and we did not accept everyone, but these were all so good that I had to include them in this years winners.

These are people who were nominated (more than once) from peers in the space and who are admired for work, uplift their teams and community and are also people I think making waves in 2026!

This is an amazing list and I loved seeing both new faces and some of my favorite people on this list who I can for sure say deserve to be here.

Starting with ladies first today and tomorrow and then the dudes on Thursday and Friday!
Elle Segars
Lydia Flocchini
Agnese Jaunošāne
Anastasiia Ivannikov, MBA
Desiree-Jessica Pely, PhD
Renat Gersch
Sarah Sehgal
Andrea Scott
Sophie Buonassisi
Amelia Lerutte
Kate O'Keeffe
Maja Voje
Emilia Möller
Purnima Kumar
Praneet Gill
Galina Fendikevich
Corina Maior
Julia Kaplan
Suzanne Rabicoff
Stefanie Boyer, PhD💧
Marchelle Renee Mooney
Christina Brady
Michelle Curtis
Elaine Zelby
Joy Tang
Lauren Morgenstein Schiavone
Ashley Wilson 
Mandy Cole
Sheevaun Thatcher, CPC
Amanda Whiteside

Congrats to you all, so proud of you and well deserved. 

I am connected to all of you, so please reach out to me and I can get you more graphics and stuff!

Really enjoyed sitting on the other side of the podcast fence (screen) on the Private Equity Marketeer podcast! 

It’s no secret that for the best founders, capital is a commodity. 
So in order to support the best founders, you need to offer other value. 

GTMfund’s flywheel supports this: Fund <> Community <> Media. 

The community is the result of over a decade of relationship building. 

Media represents distribution. We started building a distribution arm at the same time that we launched the fund. Then, we bought back Sales Hacker and relaunched it as GTMnow at the end of 2023.

Then in 2025 we build xVal: our internal platform built to capture and compound the intelligence within our ecosystem and media assets. (“xVal” literally stands for exponential value!)

We break the flywheel down, along with how to create content with a lean team, brand ROI, and much more. 

Thanks for having me on, Matt Curtolo, CAIA and Jacob (Job) Sanderman! Big fan of what you're building.

2026 is here… and so are predictions for it 🔮 

Max Altschuler has a habit of calling the future with uncanny accuracy.
Yes his annual predictions, but truly across everything. 
Even when he sold Sales Hacker to Outreach, he said (without an idea of when or why) that one day he would buy it back. Sure enough, he did.

His 8 predictions from his perspective as GP of GTMfund are linked to in the comments!

This is one of the biggest pieces of advice that we’ve heard across GTMnow:

Go-to-market should be treated like a product. 

Talking with Jeanne DeWitt Grosser really crystallized why so many GTM motions break the moment a company starts to scale.

Most teams do this backwards:

They obsess over product UX, they prototype screens, they debate pixels, and they storyboard user journeys. And then they run sales without the same rigor.

Paul Williamson shared in our conversation how he created the GTM roadmap at Plaid, that took them to $300M ARR. 

What treating GTM like a product actually means in practice:

- You design the experience of being sold to.

Not just the pitch deck or demo, but the sequence. What happens first. What insight lands second. What moment earns trust. Sales is an experience, whether you design it or not.

- You storyboard the journey.

Just like product teams map onboarding flows, GTM teams should map how a buyer moves from curiosity to conviction. Whiteboard session vs demo. Executive conversation vs ROI proof. This should be intentional, not improvised.

- You define what “good” looks like.

If you want consistency, you need a clear point of view on excellence. Otherwise every rep is running their own version of GTM, and you cannot scale what you cannot describe.

- You iterate based on data.

Losses are not just rep problems. Often they are product problems in your GTM motion, missing the economic buyer, weak ROI framing, poor sequencing. Dig into the data. 

- AI only works once you’ve done the thinking.

Agents can replicate best practices, but only after you decide what best practice actually is. An unclear GTM doesn’t get magically fixed by tooling.

The companies that scale are building their go-to-market deliberately, just like a product.

Curious where others have seen this break down or work well in practice.

“Where I’ve really seen sales come to life is when a sales rep knows more about an organization than an organization does itself.” - Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO of Vercel)

When decisions feel riskier, buyers lean harder on people they trust.

If you’re hiring sales talent right now, pay extra attention to this perspective.

“Product really matters… but distribution matters just as much.”

As tech moats decline, it’s your go-to-market that determines your growth. And distribution has become the final remaining moat. 

It’s something we’ve been shouting from rooftops for years. And in my recent conversation with Healey Cypher (Founder & CEO of BoomPop) on the GTMnow podcast, he shared the same sentiment. 

He emphasized the importance of distribution and how founders can de-risk GTM by validating messaging, pricing, and demand before building.

Speaking our GTMfund language, Healey :)

Congratulations Karam Khanna and the Eightball AI team!  

Karam is a very special founder and we’re excited to help him shift the global narrative from "AI vs. Education" to "AI for Education."

Eightball AI is directly in the education space, an area I’m deeply passionate about. 
As Mandela famously says, “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Eightball AI is already proving to have tremendous impact for students, and I’m excited to see this impact continue to scale.

🎉 We just raised a $1.2M pre-seed round at Eightball 

GTMFund is leading the round alongside an incredible group of angel investors including James Beshara (Gusto, Mercury, Clubhouse), and advisors such as Dennis Yang (ex-CEO of Udemy, co-founder of Modal)

I couldn't be any prouder of this moment. The journey has been a rollercoaster from:
1) writing the first lines of code in my college dorm
2) winning AI SF and a few hundred grand
3) getting expelled by my university (because "ai is unethical")
4) lawyering up against the school in order to finish up my last few credits of my degree
5) being news famous for 24 hours (google "eightball ai emory")
6) launching eightball to the public and building out our incredible team
7) turning down a few multi-million dollar acquisition offers
8) raising $1.2M to take a shot at changing education forever

it's been an exciting first 6 months after graduation :)

thank you to GTMfund and all the others who are taking a bet on us and have supported us along the way!

Open article: Announcing GTMfund’s Investment in Eightball AI by gtmfund.com

Announcing GTMfund’s Investment in Eightball AI

We are seeing a real shift in what actually closes deals right now.

Jeanne DeWitt Grosser and I recently talked about the rise of the “forward deployed engineer” and why that role matters more in the AI era.

Buyers are showing up with ambiguity.

They know something needs to change, they are unsure what to solve first, and they are unsure how to decide.

So, the people who win aren’t just selling. They’re bringing structure, frameworks, and pattern recognition into the sales conversations. 

This feels like a permanent change in how complex software gets sold.

What do you think, are you seeing this trend as well?

This moment on the podcast made me smile last week: 

Jeanne(COO of Vercel ) shared one of the quotes she grew up with and why it stuck with her through decades of building:

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Sales guarantees adversity…missed quarters, lost deals, and setbacks you cannot fully control.

The leaders who last are not the ones who avoid that reality.

They’re the ones who frame it constructively and keep moving.

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