I have been lucky to be part of an amazing journey at Criteo, from 2015 to 2020. 

When I joined the EMEA commercial HQ in Barcelona in 2015, we were 50 people, generating 10M€ ARR. When I left in 2020, we grew the team to 1500+ people, generating +1B€ ARR. 

As the Founder of Atscale, I take pride in seeing for the past 6 years the impact we've had on the development and optimization of the revenue departments of 100+ best-in-class Scale-ups. Our team of operating partners and former Revenue Leaders brings IPO expertise to help these companies thrive.

I aim to build businesses that are profitable from Day-1. 

I invest in cutting-edge technology and Real Estate. 

Strategy, new business development and marketing communications are at the heart of my skills, enabling me to effectively support Companies in their expansion.

If you are interested in any of these topics, feel free to follow me or contact me directly.

Pierre Trannoy

In 2025, I directly generated €1.5M in revenue for my companies through warm introductions and referrals.

Just people introducing me to other people.
For years, I underestimated how powerful this truly is.

Here is what I’ve learned about why introductions drive so much business:

1️⃣ 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆
When someone you respect introduces you, you borrow their credibility.
You don’t start at zero, you start at 50%.
The conversation is different from the first minute.

2️⃣ 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲
Cold outreach fights for attention, while introductions arrive with context.
“Pierre can help you structure your Revenue engine.”
That sentence changes everything.

3️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝘂𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿
Warm intros often happen when:
There is a real project
A pain has already been identified
Budget exists 
Urgency is real
You’re not creating awareness.
You’re entering an active discussion, so sales cycles are shorter. 

4️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿
Referrals tend to:
- Have clearer expectations
- Be better aligned with your ICP
- Close faster
- Lead to stronger long-term relationships
It’s not just about more deals.
It’s about better deals.

But here’s the important part:
Your network is not fixed. It’s not something you “have", and something you build constantly.

And it requires deliberate effort:
Reaching out without asking for anything, making introductions yourself, sharing opportunities, showing up consistently, staying in touch even when there is no immediate upside. 

Too many people think networking is opportunistic, but in reality, it’s long-term compounding.

The €1.5M didn’t come from one big contact.
It came from years of conversations, value exchanges, and trust built slowly.

Founder @Atscale Group | Sales Excellence, Value Creation & Operating Partner | Training | Exec Search | Scaling Tech, IT & Services companies

Everyone talks about AI for top-of-funnel. Linkedin feeds are full of this lately...

Pipeline generation.
Outbound automation.
Personalized cold emails at scale.

Yes — that matters.

But if you only use AI to create more opportunities... you’re missing 80% of the upside.

AI agents are not just SDR enhancers.
They can transform the entire Go-To-Market machine — Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success.

Here are 7 high-impact use cases beyond pipeline generation:

1️⃣ Deal Qualification & Inspection
AI agents reviewing calls, emails and CRM fields to score MEDDIC compliance, identify missing decision criteria, detect weak champions, and flag deal risks early. Instead of “pipeline reviews,” you get real-time deal health diagnostics.

2️⃣ Sales Coaching at Scale
AI analyzing call recordings to provide structured feedback: talk/listen ratio, objection handling quality, pricing conversations, next-step clarity. Every rep gets a personal coach. Not once a quarter. Every day.

3️⃣ Proposal & Deal Shaping
AI agents generating tailored business cases, ROI models, executive summaries and recap emails based on industry, persona and deal context. Faster turnaround. Higher relevance. Better close rates.

4️⃣ Pricing & Discount Governance
AI monitoring discount patterns, deal margins and approval flows to flag abnormal concessions and protect profitability. Not just revenue growth — profitable revenue growth.

5️⃣ Forecasting & Pipeline Accuracy
AI cross-checking CRM data, activity levels, deal progression and historical patterns to challenge over-optimistic commits. A second brain for the CRO.

6️⃣ Customer Onboarding Acceleration
AI copilots guiding implementation steps, generating custom onboarding plans, anticipating friction points based on similar customers. Faster time-to-value. Lower early churn.

7️⃣ Expansion & Churn Prevention
AI agents scanning product usage, support tickets, NPS trends and engagement signals to detect upsell triggers or churn risks before humans see them. Proactive CS instead of reactive firefighting.

The real question is not:
“How do we use AI to generate more leads?”

The real question is:
“Where in our GTM machine are humans spending time on repetitive analysis, low-leverage tasks, or inconsistent decision-making?”

That’s where AI agents belong.

AI is not a growth hack.
It’s an operational leverage layer.

And the companies that will win are not the ones sending better automated emails —
but the ones redesigning their entire revenue engine around intelligent systems.

GTM Execution is the key element for success. GTM planning is the easy part.I partner with software CEOs and leadership teams to align sales, marketing, and product around a unified Go-to-Market strategy that drives pipeline growth. Whether you’re entering new markets (DACH or North America) or refining your existing motion, I work as an interim manager or advisor — on retainer, project, or hourly basis — to help build scalable revenue engines and unlock sustainable growth.

Ralf Paschen

I’m proud to share that I am now an official, certified GTM OS Partner with GTM Partners.

This certification is more than a badge. It represents a structured, execution-driven framework for leading the Go-To-Market strategy effectively: clear ownership, measurable outcomes, operational rigor, and alignment across product, sales, marketing, and customer success.

Too many GTM strategies fail because they stay conceptual. GTM OS forces clarity:
– Defined ICP and value narrative
– Clear revenue architecture
– Operationalized pipeline model
– Measurable execution cadence
– CEO-level ownership

It bridges the gap between strategy decks and revenue reality.

For me, this is a natural next step in my journey as a Fractional CMO and GTM Advisor. My focus remains unchanged: helping software companies entering the US or European markets design and execute a scalable, predictable GTM engine.

Looking forward to applying this framework with ambitious founders and executive teams ready to scale.

undefined undefined

Founder & Managing Director

GTM Advisor CEO

Certified Partner - GTM Partner OS

Executive Member

Chief Marketing Officer

GTM Strategist for Early-Stage IT & AI Infrastructure Startups | Turning Founder-Led GTM into Repeatable Revenue → Book an appointment. Get the GTM Maturity Assessment

English

German

GTM Partners

GTM Advisor | Helping Software CEOs Enter the US & DACH Markets |Turning Founder-Led GTM into Repeatable Revenue → Book an appointment. Get the GTM Maturity Assessment

I just launched something I should have built 2 years ago.

The GTM Fix — my new bi-weekly LinkedIn newsletter.

One issue. One broken GTM problem. One fix.

No theory. No fluff. Just the exact plays that scaling B2B SaaS companies in the US, EMEA, and DACH need to stop stalling and start growing predictably.

Issue #01 is live: "You're the Last to Enter the Deal. Here's the Exact Play to Change That."

If your pipeline is inconsistent, your sales and marketing teams are out of sync, or you can't forecast next quarter, this is for you.

Two emails. Two a month. That's it.

👇 Subscribe below and follow so you never miss an issue.

#GTM #B2BSaaS #GoToMarket #SalesLeadership #Revenue #CMO #CRO

Here’s the Exact Play to Change That. If your sales team is consistently the last vendor invited into a deal cycle, you don’t have a sales problem. Yo

Open article: GTM Fix - You’re the Last to Enter the Deal. by Ralf Paschen • 4 min read

GTM Fix - You’re the Last to Enter the Deal.

Most early-stage tech teams think they're aligned.

Reality check, they're not.

Sales brings in deals nobody can deliver on. Marketing shouts into the void. Product churns out features nobody asked for. Customer success is left to clean up the mess.

All are claiming to work toward the same goal. But nobody's talking to each other.

Everyone blames "miscommunication." Or worse, they blame each other. 

Here's the thing nobody admits, but everyone feels: You can't fix this with another meeting or a new Slack channel.

Real alignment starts with brutal honesty about what each team actually cares about. What they really measure. What they secretly ignore.

I've watched founders bank on hope and hire "alignment consultants." Waste of money.

Instead, put every leader in one room and force one conversation: 
What's the ONE outcome that matters for the next quarter? 

If you can't agree, you're not aligned.

Skip the fluffy advice. Get real. This is where the work starts.

Unlock GTM Success with 8 Pillars

Everyone who wants to become a CMO or is already in that position early enough in a PE backed company should learn from this article and Alan Gonsenhauser

You just got the call. A PE-backed company wants you as their new CMO.
Maybe you've been a CMO before. 
Maybe this is your first time in the seat. Either way, I can tell you from experience; having done this 11 times myself and coached over 150 CMOs and marketing leaders through it, many in PE-backed companies, the first 100 days in a PE-backed environment are fundamentally different from anything you've experienced in a public or founder-led company.
The clock is already running. Your PE sponsors are measuring time in months, not quarters. The board expects a marketing-driven value creation plan before you've even learned where the coffee machine is.
So let me save you from the mistakes I see CMOs make over and over again.

View newsletter: The Private Equity CMO Advisor

You just got the call. A PE-backed company wants you as their new CMO. Maybe you've been a CMO before. Maybe this is your first time in the seat. Eith

Open article: The PE CMO's First 100 Days: A Playbook for Value Creation, Not Just Survival by Alan Gonsenhauser • 5 min read

The PE CMO's First 100 Days: A Playbook for Value Creation, Not Just Survival

If you're pre-revenue, you don't need a GTM consultant.

You need three hours and brutal honesty.

Most early-stage founders are technology-led. No sales function. No marketing. No partners. Their GTM strategy is showing up everywhere and hoping someone buys. Events, accelerators, LinkedIn, cold outreach to anyone with a budget title — all of it generating motion, none of it generating pipeline.

Here's the reality: you can't afford a GTM consultant at this stage. And even if you could, you're not ready for one. You don't have enough closed-won data to build a real ICP. You don't have a sales motion to optimise. You have a hypothesis and a burn rate.

But here's what you can do right now: Spend three focused hours on one question — who specifically has this problem, what are they doing about it today, and why would they pay to fix it now?

Three hours of structured thinking beats six months of irrelevant meetings.
If you skip this step, you will fill your calendar with unqualified introductions, conferences that generate connections instead of pipeline, and a growing list of "promising" leads that never convert.

The math is brutal. Irrelevant meetings cost you time you don't have and signal you never get back.

I run this session directly with early-stage founders. Three hours. Structured ICP conversation. You leave knowing exactly who to hunt and why.

Book a call at gtm-consult.com — or send me a DM. Happy to answer.

#GTM #ICP #FounderGTM

Three founders. One product. Three completely different answers to the question: "Who is your ideal customer?"

I was working with a technology-led founding team. No sales function. No marketing. No channel partners. A product they genuinely believed in — and a GTM motion that amounted to showing up everywhere and hoping someone bought.

I asked who their ideal enterprise buyer was. The CEO said mid-market IT directors. The CTO said large financial services. The third co-founder said "anyone running legacy infrastructure." All described it as "enterprise." None described the same company.

They were attending every accelerator demo day, every relevant sector event, every startup pitch session. Constant motion. Zero qualified pipeline. The burn clock was running.

I stopped the ICP workshop. It wasn't going to produce anything useful yet.

Instead, I ran a different exercise. I asked them to identify the three prospects closest to a decision, the two inbound leads that had asked the sharpest questions, and the one reference customer they could actually name. We built the ICP backward from those seven data points.

One vertical emerged. One buyer role emerged. One trigger event — a failed audit — that had sent all three of the closest prospects to them in the first place.

We cut their event calendar by seventy percent. Rewrote the outreach to that vertical and that trigger. Six weeks later, they were in diligence on their first enterprise pilot.

The ICP was always there. It was hidden inside the deals they nearly closed.

If you're in this situation right now, don't run another event or send another cold sequence before we talk.

Book a call at gtm-consult.com — or send me a DM. Happy to answer.

#ICP #GTM #StartupGTM

Startup Szene in Mainz?

Ja gibt es und das hätte ich auch nicht gedacht. Gute Gespräche mit vielen Gründern mit den gleichen Problemen wie jedes andere Software Unternehmen. 

GTM ist ein CEO Thema mit allen Ecken und Kanten. 

Schön dass es so einen Treff gibt. Komme gerne wieder.


Startup scene in Mainz?

Yes, it exists, and I wouldn’t have thought so either. Great conversations with many founders facing the same problems as any other software company.

GTM is a CEO topic with all its ups and downs.

It’s nice that there is such a meetup. I’ll gladly come again.


#mainz #startup

No alternative text description for this image

Have a great read as I just published Issue #2 of The GTM Fix — breaking down why Sales and Marketing never truly align (and why most leaders are solving the wrong problem).

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Sales and Marketing are not misaligned.  
Your GTM system is.

If both teams can hit their targets while revenue stalls, alignment was never possible in the first place.

That’s not a communication issue. It’s structural.

Real alignment only happens when:

• Both teams share one metric they can’t game  
• Feedback from Sales hits Marketing in days, not months  
• Attribution reflects how deals actually happen  

And one thing almost everyone avoids:

A joint revenue review where both teams stand behind the same number.

No separate scorecards. No excuses.

Fix the system. Behavior follows.

Follow for more GTM strategy and operator-level insights.

Of all the structural problems in B2B go-to-market, Sales and Marketing misalignment is the most studied, the most discussed, and the least solved. Th

Open article: Why Sales and Marketing Never Agree on Pipeline — and What the Architecture Actually Looks Like When They Do. by Ralf Paschen • 7 min read

Why Sales and Marketing Never Agree on Pipeline — and What the Architecture Actually Looks Like When They Do.

Your GTM technology stack is not an asset. Without clarity on your ICP, it just amplifies noise.

Most founders hear that and push back. They've invested in the CRM, the sequencing tool, and the intent data platform. They're not wrong to invest; they're wrong about the order of operations.

Technology executes a motion. It does not define one. If you don't know exactly which companies belong in your total relevant market, which buyers trigger purchases, and what problem you actually solve, your stack generates activity, not a pipeline. Volume without precision isn't progress.

Three reasons this matters more now than ever: AI-powered outreach has collapsed response rates because everyone is running volume. Buyers are harder to reach, not easier. The only way to cut through the noise is relevance, and relevance starts with ICP, not tooling.

Before your next stack investment, ask yourself this: Can you define your ICP in one data-backed sentence? If not, the tool won't fix that.

Find out where you are in your GTM maturity https://lnkd.in/dUDgNvdc

#GTM #PipelineGeneration #B2BSaaS

Struggling with stalled conversions? Your ICP might be the hidden culprit. Here's how to find out and fix it fast.

A SaaS company came to me with a classic problem. Their pipeline looked healthy on paper, but conversion was collapsing in the middle of the funnel. The CRO was convinced it was a sales execution issue.

It wasn't. It was an ICP issue, three years in the making.

They had defined their ICP at the seed stage and never revisited it. As the product matured, their best customers shifted to larger companies, different buyer personas, and a more complex buying committee. The ICP on paper still described their early adopters, but the market had moved on.

We ran a closed-won analysis across 18 months of data. The pattern was clear within two weeks. We rebuilt the ICP definition, realigned the messaging, and restructured qualification criteria. Pipeline quality improved in just 90 days, and conversion rates followed.

The lesson: ICP optimization shouldn't take more than six months from signal to execution. If you're sitting on stalled conversion data and still running the same targeting you had 18 months ago, you already know the problem.

The data shows you exactly who your best customers really are. Most companies never look.

So, what is your current ICP based on, product assumptions or closed-won evidence?

#ICP #RevenueOperations #SalesPerformance

You don't have an ICP.

You have a hypothesis. There's a difference.

I ask early-stage founders who their ideal customer is. The answers go blurry. Not because they lack intelligence. Because they haven't hunted enough to know yet.

ICP is a discovery output, not a planning input.

At pre-seed, you are not defining your customer. You are running experiments to find them. Treating ICP work as a boardroom exercise before you have pattern data is the wrong sequence. Three hours in a workshop won't give you ICP clarity. Thirty conversations with potential buyers will — but only if you know what you're listening for.

The framework I use with early-stage founders is four moves: Hunt. Qualify. Pattern. Lock.

Hunt: Get in front of anyone who plausibly has the problem your product solves. 

Qualify: Ask what they're currently doing about the problem and what they would pay to solve it permanently. 

Pattern: After ten to fifteen conversations, you'll see who leans in and who politely exits. 

Lock: That's your first real ICP hypothesis. Now test it against your next ten outreach decisions.

Founders who skip this sequence spend 12 months attending the wrong events, pitching to the wrong buyers, and wondering why the pipeline doesn't convert.

The ones who run it land their first enterprise pilot in a fraction of the time.

I run this session directly with the founders. Three hours. You leave with a hunting list that generates signal instead of noise.

Book a call at gtm-consult.com — or send me a DM, and I'll answer your first ICP question for free.

#GTM #ICP #SaaSFounders

Most revenue stalls are not a pipeline problem. They are an ICP problem disguised as a pipeline issue.

When leads dry up or conversion rates drop, the instinct is to increase activity, more outbound, more campaigns, more tools. But if your ICP definition is vague, you're not slowing down a funnel. 

You're feeding a broken one.

An unoptimized ICP causes four compounding failures: 
Sales chase the wrong accounts, marketing generates noise instead of signal, messaging doesn't resonate with economic buyers, and forecast accuracy suffers. Every quarter you delay fixing this costs more than the last.

The solution is simple. Map your closed-won data. 
Identify the firmographic, behavioral, and situational patterns in your best accounts.

Eliminate segments that drain resources without converting. Rebuild your targeting around the actual signals, not assumptions.

ICP isn't a one-time exercise. It's a living discipline. The companies that treat it that way grow predictably.

When was the last time you audited your ICP against actual closed-won data, not assumptions?

#ICP #B2BSaaS #GTMStrategy

The ICP and the TAM needs to become more precise. It should be tier-based and clearly aligned with target personas for marketing, sales, and SDRs.

It should be based on customers that are already satisfied customers. The ICP should be actively targeted for a maximum of 6–9 months and then optimized again, because of the buying process changes you see all the time

Most companies define ICP like this:

“Mid-market to enterprise companies in regulated industries.”

That’s not an ICP.

That’s avoidance of focus.

A real ICP answers:
	1.	Who feels the pain intensely?
	2.	Who has budget authority?
	3.	Who can say yes without 7 committees?
	4.	Where does our solution create measurable economic impact?
	5.	Where do we win disproportionately?

If your sales team can close “almost anyone,”
you don’t have product-market fit.

You have randomness.

Enterprise success comes from narrowing the field until:
• Win rates increase
• Sales cycles compress
• ACV increases
• Retention strengthens

Focus scales.
Broadness burns cash.

taplio

The Battle

Pierre Trannoy

Ralf Paschen

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScorePierre Trannoy's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRalf Paschen's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Pierre Trannoy

Ralf Paschen

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);}Pierre Trannoy's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRalf Paschen's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScorePierre Trannoy's LinkedIn Performance