Alex Poulos

SaaS GTM leader and entrepreneur at heart | CMO with multiple exits

Engineer turned marketer with 20 years executive experience developing go-to-market strategies and leading integrated execution for top software brands. Exceptional record in building high-velocity, data-driven teams that innovate and differentiate in high-growth environments. Proven effectiveness in aligning marketing, product, sales, partnerships, and customer success execs and Boards to create outstanding outcomes across the entire customer lifecycle for sustainable and profitable growth. Multiple successful exits.

Leadership - I am a fair and decisive manager with experience leading international and matrix teams. I believe in building a strong culture of measurement, linking go-to-market objectives to customer value that drives revenue growth, and differentiating via unique points of view and sustainable moats. I build and develop teams that excel and have fun.

Skills - Superb analytical, organizational, communicational, and presentational skills. First-principles thinker and results-driven reflecting individual leadership and a strong team spirit. Ability to lead by example and innovate with an excellent grasp of both business and technology issues.

Chief Revenue Officer

Overseeing marketing, sales, customer success, and partnerships. Humbled & excited to be working with some of the most forward-thinking B2B marketing teams in the industry as our customers.

MadKudu is a no-code platform that allows marketers to use data and science to run all of their go-to-market motions with their current team and stack. We power PLG marketing at scale.

Obsessed with portfolio company success at GTMfund. Investing in the best B2B software companies and connecting them to our world-class network of GTM leaders.

I have always had a deep appreciation for entrepreneurs. 

In 2015, I co-founded and operated a laundry and grocery delivery service for university students in Vancouver. I gained more real-world business (and life!) experience than any university degree could offer, and despite the outcome, I was hooked. 

I decided to go back to school to study finance and work towards my CFA charter. I wanted to connect founders to the resources and capital they needed to take their business to the next level. 

After working in investment management at the Royal Bank of Canada, I joined the GTMfund team in 2021. It's been a rollercoaster ever since. 

At GTMfund, I am:
- Investing in the best and most ambitious early-stage B2B software companies. 
- Working on everything portfolio company success. Knowledge, hiring, resources, programs, etc. If it touches revenue, we're here to support.
- Building our community of world-class GTM operators.

Always humble and still learning.

Paul Irving

Honored to join TechCrunch’s Build Mode podcast as the season finale episode, talking through go-to-market in the AI era.

The most exciting thing for me? There’s never been more optionality in how you build your GTM engine.

The best early-stage companies we meet are getting more creative, doing more with data, and building their GTM engine with a hyperspecificity to their customers like we’ve never seen before.

For years, we weren’t constrained by our own creativity, but by the data and tools needed to execute. Those barriers are falling away. Start with your customer, ruthlessly focus on your ICP, where they show up, their signals to buy – and get creative.

You’ll need to! The old GTM playbooks are dying. We’re in the era of distribution, and the best companies are getting more creative than ever.

Appreciated the conversation with Isabelle Johannessen and the TechCrunch team!

It’s live on YouTube if you’re interested in checking it out.

Mark Goldberg is one of the best doing it. Mark helped build the Index Ventures US office from the ground up—one of the highest performing funds of the last decade. 

He’s now building Chemistry, one of the most sought-after emerging platforms in venture. 

Whether you’re an investor or founder, there are so many incredible takeaways from this convo. Two really stuck with me.

1️⃣  They ran 70+ (!) founder events last year. 

And not just happy hours. Creative events to get smart, ambitious people in the same room—and most importantly, build authentic relationships.
That last part is the most important part. This is a long-term business with deep, long-term relationships. 

The goal is to build those relationships with exceptional founders as early as you can. Maybe it’s events, maybe it’s a newsletter, maybe it’s community—whatever your strategy is, it should be tailored to your fund. But the end goal is the same: building real relationships.

2️⃣ When Mark, Ethan, and Kristina built the initial team, they hired for Network.

Talent, culture fit, hard work—those were all table stakes. They hired people who had built authentic networks that were outside of their own. What are the rooms they’d love to be in, and who has access to those networks?

Again, it comes back to the same principle: how are you building relationships with the most ambitious entrepreneurs, as early as you can?

Lots more gold from Mark and the Chemistry team in the full episode. Find it on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts!

Karam Khanna is a special founder. That was clear to me from our first conversation and even more clear to me as I spoke to the people in Karam's life. 

Experienced operators and CEO's (like Dennis Yang, ex-CEO of Udemy) - everyone I spoke to had the same reaction. This guy is N of 1. 

We're thrilled to back Karam and the Eightball AI team from the earliest days, leading their Pre-Seed round.

We talk a lot about Good Quests internally. The blog post from Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner at Founders Fund has stuck with me since it went live in 2022. Our smartest, most ambitious entrepreneurs should choose Good Quests. Hard problems and missions that make the world a better place. 

Eightball is a Good Quest. AI is changing education forever, and we believe Eightball will be at the forefront of that. Full cycle education, individualized to your learning patterns and your specific courses - for all 280M+ higher-ed students globally.

Big things ahead for this team.

(and I heard they were hiring a founding growth marketer soon 👀 )

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Alex Poulos

Paul Irving

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The Battle

Alex Poulos

Paul Irving

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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);}Paul Irving's LinkedIn Performance

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