CEO & Co-founder @Hyperly | Helping founders acquire clients through LinkedIn funnels | Building Hyperly — Social Selling platform | Learn about my 4-week Linkedin Sales Cohort

Most early-stage founders don’t need a sales team.
They need a system — one they can run themselves till $1M.

I’ve built and sold two companies. The first one taught me how hard sales is without a plan. The second one taught me how to fix it.

Now, I help AI, SaaS, and IT Services founders build Founder-Led Sales Engines that work in the US — without hiring too early or burning leads.

What I build with founders:

- Clarity on ICP & messaging

- Lean outbound & LinkedIn systems

- Email + DM + Cold call playbooks

- AI-powered sales tools

- Founder-to-closer mindset shifts

It’s not about closing more — it’s about knowing what not to do before $1M.

If you’re in the 0–$1M zone, let’s talk systems.

Want to see how I build founder-led sales systems?

Download the exact 0–$1M Sales Playbook I use with AI-SaaS & IT founders selling into the US:

👉 https://www.elephantedge.academy/playbooks

Just the real frameworks that work before you hire a sales team.

Venkatesh M.

I’ve officially partnered with GTM Partners to enable founders build $1M US GTM engine.

In 2025, I worked hands-in-hand with 5 different companies, as a Fractional VP Sales, to help them move from ad-hoc selling to a repeatable B2B pipeline in the US.

All of them and many founders I've been having conversation with, had the same question..
- How to sell AI products to SMBs in the US
- How to sell Agentic AI services to mid-market clients
- How to crack enterprise sales with deal sizes >$250K for the first time

The reality in 2026:

Without sales + distribution and the know-how to achieve the first $1M in revenue, there is no next stage, nor a serious funding conversation.

Partnering with GTM Partners gives me deeper leverage to help founders crack the US market in the right way at the right speed. 

If you’re building for the US, this is the work I’m focused on.

Thanks to Sangram Vajre and Bryan Brown for the partnership and trust. Thanks to my team at Elephant Edge | Fractional VP Sales Leadership for making this happen.

-----------------
I’m Venkatesh M., Fractional VP Sales. I build and run US sales teams for 50–200 employee companies, from first hire to first $1M, until it works. DM me if cracking the US market is your #1 priority in 2026.

#founder #GTM #USSales

Fractional VP for AI-SaaS & Tech Startups Scaling to $1M+ | US Market GTM & Sales | Certified GTM OS Partner

Hi, I’m Olga - founder of ModumUp – innovative GTM agency, community builder, and podcast host.

My experience at Microsoft in social media marketing, social selling, employee advocacy, and digital marketing campaigns led me to launch ModumUp in 2018. 

Our agency focuses on innovative B2B GTM and social selling. Our projects deliver ROI of 200–400%.

At ModumUp, we work with a range of clients, including Microsoft partners, AWS partners, NetApp, Logitech, and Georgia State University, managing LinkedIn profiles, communities, and outreach mechanics that drive measurable business growth.

Beyond the agency, I:

- Run the B2B Marketing Leaders community and host its namesake podcast, where I invite community members as guests

- Organize AROUND, a community of tech professionals in Austin

- Study at Stanford LEAD, with a focus on leadership, innovation, and marketing disruption

I value freedom, responsibility, and innovation, enjoy public speaking and exploring how AI can be applied to marketing and business.

Let's connect!

Olga Bondareva

I left corporate career at Microsoft to start my own business

From the very beginning of my career, I dreamed about my own business. 
What influenced me? My future husband worked at a tech startup and opened up the world of startups and business for me.

I made attempts, had some successes, but I didn't have enough experience to turn it into a working business.

At some point, I gave up and decided to gain that experience as an employee - I started working at small companies, and then came to Microsoft.

There, I worked on exciting projects, and grew in my career. But the desire to start something of my own never left me. I just thought I'd do it later.

My husband and I decided to have a child. I was terrified that my career might end. But we decided to go for it.

Maternity leave triggered reflection in me. And then a startup offered me to work for them for more money than at Microsoft. I liked this idea because I felt a provider instinct - needing more money and resources for the family and child. But I hesitated because Microsoft meant more stability, and career perspectives.

I went to my first manager at Microsoft, who was no longer working at the company. She asked me a very important question: what do you really want? Without thinking, I answered that I want to start my own business.

I offerred the startup a deal where I work for them and at the same time try to launch something on my own. And if nothing worked out, I could still return to Microsoft. For me, as an anxious person, this was perfect - a calculated risk with a backup plan.

I started working at the startup and announced on social media that I was launching my agency.
I understood how agencies work - I had experience interacting with them from the client side. I knew how to do it better, what clients really want, and how to apply a product approach to services.

From the first social media post,the first clients came, and everything started rolling.

It was hard to work at the startup and develop the agency in parallel, but then everything resolved itself - the startup closed, and I had a choice: continue doing my business full-time or return to Microsoft. I chose to try my own thing. And for 7 years now, I keep choosing to continue working in my business, developing it and transforming it in different market situations.

Founder @ ModumUp, Organizer of B2B Marketing Leaders Community and Podcast, Speaker, Microsoft Alum, Stanford LEAD

No alternative text description for this image

New episode of our podcast - yay! 😃 
Huge thanks to our amazing speakers for sharing their valuable experiences!
Rahul Agarwal, Ralff Tozatti, Hitendar S.

ModumUp - Innovative B2B Marketing Agency

View company: ModumUp - Innovative B2B Marketing Agency

In the new episode of B2B Marketing Leaders, Olga Bondareva, founder of ModumUp Agency, talks leads in B2B marketing with experts from enterprise companies:

Ralff Tozatti, Sr Director of Marketing Strategy - Analytics and Opps Americas at Thomson Reuters
Rahul Agarwal, Strategic Marketing Manager at Trystar
Hitendar S., Principal Product Marketing Manager - AI Cybersecurity at Palo Alto Networks

Key themes discussed:

🔸 Why “lead” remains the default metric: familiar, simple, and easy to count
🔸 Quality vs. volume tension: sales targets rise, forcing both at once
🔸 Moving from MQL counts to pipeline value and conversion through stages
🔸 The need for shared definitions across teams, tools, and acquired business units
🔸 Buying groups and account-level intent signals for complex B2B decisions
🔸 Data hygiene as the prerequisite for AI: enrichment, validation, normalization
🔸 AI in practice: faster content production and scalable cohort personalization

A big thanks to Ralff, Rahul, and Hitendar for sharing their valuable insights on why B2B teams still disagree on “good leads,” and how the path forward looks: align on one language and funnel, prioritize pipeline outcomes, adopt buying-group signals where it fits, and use AI only after fixing data foundations.

Watch on YouTube:  https://lnkd.in/gHaHyjdr 
Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gnD6ni3i 
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gS56NMDe

taplio

The Battle

Venkatesh M.

Olga Bondareva

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreVenkatesh M.'s LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreOlga Bondareva's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Venkatesh M.

Olga Bondareva

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);}Venkatesh M.'s LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreOlga Bondareva's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreVenkatesh M.'s LinkedIn Performance