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.

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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

Digikore Studios

We specialize in storytelling, infusing cinematic finesse into the creation of India's first show highlighting the country's top 10 'HERO' Brands, who are dedicated to socio-economic development and are champions of the 'Make in India' initiative.

Producer for the Original Branded Content on JioCinema -

OpenSymmetry

Regional Sales Manager - Asia Pacific

Circe Organic Skincare

•	Turned my hobby of Soap Making and handmade skin care products into a small-scale business.
•	Effective social media marketing to reach out to the target customers
•	Training and workshops for women entrepreneur for soap making and how to start a business from home
•	Influencer collaboration and live sessions to educate about sustainable and clean skincare
•	Distribution through various reseller models in Pune and other cities
•	Managing existing clients and 60% of the revenue from the existing customers

Enterpreneur 

Sales Consultant- Freelance 

Unscrambl, Inc

Generating New Channel partners in APAC region 
•	Generating new source of revenue and logos by working closely with the account managers at Snowflake and Microsoft Teams.
•	Helped in Sales team set up by training the new business development executives.
•	Working Closely with the Presales team to help in Client Transition.
•	Liaised with cross functional team across Legal contracts, Pre sales team (Technical team) and Marketing to work on complex transaction.

Senior Account Manager

Azuga, Inc.

•	Transactional Sales – Worked with the C level suite in North America Territory specific to SMB business. Responsible for overseeing new sales, team management, account management, closures, client retention and renewal.
•	Responsible for managing the Pune Unit- Generating new business, successfully trained 10 new business development executives.
•	Account Management -My role also involved bringing in Add-Ons from the existing Clients. Which covered 10 to 15 % of my monthly target.
•	Recognized as the top 10 sales managers in the company with the highest ARPU and the rate of conversion of lead to closure.
•	Initiated new sales campaigns to bring in new clients and logos.

Fleet Solution Specialist | Sales Manager

MarketsandMarkets

M&M is a full service market research company and consulting firm that produces 1200 high-level, strategically analyzed, full-length reports a year, tracking more than 10 industries.We, at M&M, aspire to assist our clients achieve sustainable growth by providing incisive business insight into their respective markets.

We are strategic advisory to fortune 500 companies globally and we provide them the services to help them with their strategic planning and market insights.

Client Engagement Manager

Qualitia Software

Qualitia is a 'Scriptless' test automation platform that enables you to make the best of both Selenium and QTP’s capabilities.

As a sales and business development manager , my key responsibilities were as follows-
- Client Engagement- Engage with the 40 present clients in US, EMEA and APAC and understand their support requirement, update them on Qualitia’s product roadmap, map out the up-selling and cross-selling opportunities in the client’s company.
- Channel Partners-Add partners from different territories for the company to reach out to more end users in different territories. 
- Web Leads- Qualifying and verifying the inquiries we receive on our websites.
- New Business Opportunities-  Uncover new business opportunities for Qualtia especially in US, UK and Germany.
- Sales through Channel Partners- Working closely with the present partners and mapping out the client partnership program to bring more business together.
- Setting up the business development process for the company that includes lead generation and prospecting from the North America, EMEA and APAC region.

Business Development Manager (Product Selling)

Optymyze

As a Business Developer for Optymyze, I was responsible for creating awareness of the benefits of Sales Performance Management (SPM) for manufacturing and consumer goods industry across the globe and help companies maximize their sales investment.
With expertise in the full breadth of possible solutions ranging from SaaS and PaaS tools to Sales Compensation and Sales Operations services, I worked with the prospects to help them identify the best solutions for their very specific business challenges. 

As a team leader for the vertical, I managed a team of 3 people across APAC , EMEA and North America geography.

Team Leader- Manufacturing, Retail and Consumer Services

I represented the Brand Synygy and I was responsible for business development for the APAC and EMEA territory and promoting management consulting services to the prospective clients in the territory.

At Synygy we offer high value professional services to improve the sales operation and drive the sales, channel and service performance.

As a front line face of the company, we acted as the strategic partners to the sales leaders around the world and help them perfect their sales strategy, operation and execution. Our main focus was to create new opportunity, promoting the Synygy brand to these prospects, engaging with the prospects in building strategic initiatives around sales operation by setting up executive level appointments with the leadership team of the company.

Cross Selling across the territory- I managed to generate interest and enhance business relationship amongst the prospects in Europe and Asia, whose parent companies in North America were our Clients.

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Venkatesh M.

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