CEO @GTM Partners | WSJ best selling Author of MOVE | Co-founder @Terminus @Peak Community

10 years ago, found my true passion: Teaching.

1️⃣ Teaching business – How to build and scale companies.
2️⃣ Teaching leadership – How to align teams for success.
3️⃣ Teaching life – Because business without purpose is empty.

That’s why I combine them all to teach the business of Go-To-Market, leadership, and life.

Built and exited two well known companies (Pardot → Salesforce $2.7B, Terminus → acquired twice).
Written 3 books, including WSJ bestseller MOVE: The 4-Question Go-To-Market Framework.
Created the GTM Operating System, now used by thousands.
Hosted 1,000+ podcast episodes on GTM Made Simple.
Taught 70,000+ students through my LinkedIn courses.

I write daily on LinkedIn around the five core truths about Go-To-Market:

🚀 Trust in NRR.
🚀 CEO owns GTM.
🚀 Systems > Goals.
🚀 GTM is a transformation process.
🚀 Business transformation happens in teams.

175K+ people read my weekly research note on GTM: https://gtmonday.substack.com/
11K+ subscribers follow my personal insights: https://becomingintentional.substack.com/
To Book me for speaking, keynotes: https://sangramhere.com/

I’m on a mission to make Go-To-Market simple—for CEOs, founders, and teams. If you want to bring clarity, alignment, and trust to grow your business, let's talk.

Join my MOVE book companion course for CEOs, founders and GTM leaders 
and GTM Operating System Course (Used in two $100M+ exits, rated 4.5/5 stars

DM me. Let’s build something great—intentionally. Join the MOVEment!

Sangram Vajre

10 years. 3 companies. 1 designer behind all of it.

meet Shannel Wheeler, PMP.

she has designed every brand element of three of my most successful businesses:

→ Terminus (by DemandScience) and thru 5 acquisitions — from zero to $100M+ business
→ FlipMyFunnel — 100K+ community that created the ABM category (as stated by Forrester when Terminus was named as a leader back in the day)
→ GTM Partners — helping 100 GTM execs become financially independent by building $300K+ businesses

every deck. every website. every visual that brought these ideas to life.

that work helped create 1000s of jobs and new markets.

as i came across this photo today, it made me smile and appreciate lifelong friendships that make life epic.

she didn't tell me to do this.

but if you need a branding genius or fractional designer — reach out to her. you'll thank me later.

love,
sangram

Built two $100M+ companies | WSJ Best Selling Author of MOVE on go-to-market | GTMonday Editor with 175K+ subscribers teaching the GTM Operating System

*** Fractional CMOs and aspiring Fractional GTM Leaders:

as a 2 time CMO turned Fractional GTM Leader building a $7M advisory business in last 4 years, i finally have something put together.

my step-by-step process of how Bryan Brown and I - 2 people team built a profitable fractional business and how we are scaling it in 2026.

plus as of this morning, 70+ GTM OS Certified Partners who joined in 2025 are already averaging $250K+ based on the recent survey.

after 4 long years and helping 70+ GTM OS certified partners achieve their personal and financial dreams, i am finally sharing my learnings in a keynote to PE firms and Marketing Summit:

Title: How to Build Your Fractional GTM Business in 2026

i also went ahead and did a recording of this so i can run thru key ideas in a bit more depth than the keynote.

as of this morning, i packaged it up in a nice little course with slides, videos, and examples of real fractional success stories from people like Tim Hillison Sarah Allen-Short Sue Foley and a few other leaders on how they went from "should i" to "i make more than a traditional CMO and get my life back"

so... who is it for? 

NOT for everyone. it's for serious GTM leaders who want to build a fractional  business of $250K+/year and know that the old playbooks are not working anymore and are looking to find better ways to build your business and transform your life, not just career.

how to get it:
like and comment "Access" and my EA will dm you the link 

timing: 
after my keynote tomorrow at 11 am EST.

love,
sangram
p.s. follow Sangram Vajre on all things go-to-market and if you are in ATL come say hi!

#CMO #fractional #GTM

$13M CEO: "our ICP is broken."

me: "who built it?"

CEO: "marketing."

me: "that's the problem."

CEO: "what do you mean? ICP is a marketing thing."

me: "no. ICP is a business thing. when marketing builds ICP alone, sales ignores it. product doesn't know it exists. CS is left cleaning up bad-fit customers."

CEO: "but... our marketing team should know our customers."

me: "do they sit on sales calls? do they see the CS tickets? do they know which deals close fast and which ones drag for 6 months?"

CEO: "that's not their job."

me: "exactly. that's why ICP can't be their job either."

CEO: "so what are you saying?"

me: "i'm saying you need to be in the room. you, your CRO, your CMO, your CS leader. ICP is a GTM decision. not a marketing exercise."

CEO: "i don't have time for that."

me: "you don't have time to define who you're building the entire company around?"

CEO: "we're already selling. we just need marketing to fix the targeting."

me: "you're not going to like this… but i don't think we're a good fit."

CEO: "what?"

me: "you want us to fix your GTM. but you're not willing to be part of the fix. that never works."

we walked away from that deal.

and i'd do it again.

because here's the truth:

ICP is not a marketing job.

CEO has to part of this process and it's the foundation of all your GTM.

and when the CEO won't sit in that room, nothing we do will matter anyway.

did i make a mistake by declining to do advisory for this company?

love,
sangram
p.s. if you are CEO and wants a GTM OS Certified Partner to do planning that is expert in your industry, just dm me and i will connect you!

$11M CEO: "i need to hire a CMO, right now."

me: "why?"

CEO: "we need to scale."

me: "you can't afford it."

CEO: "what do you mean?"

me: "hire a seasoned fractional who's been there, done that. 10-20 hours a week. pair them with an implementer to get things moving. scale to $20M+, then think about full-time."

CEO: "i don't believe in fractional."

6 months later, the same CEO calls me back.

they'd fired two full-time CMOs.

now they wanted a referral for a fractional (since we have a GTMarketplace for match making for founder to fractional)

look — i get it. hiring full-time works when you have everything in place.

but sometimes you don't need a full-time exec.

you need a smart, experienced person who's been there and done that.

someone who can move fast, set the foundation, and not burn through your runway while you figure it out.

fractional isn't a backup plan.

for a lot of companies, it's the smarter first move.

your take?

love,
sangram

my 15-year-old son just made 100 sales calls.

got cursed at. hung up on. told to never call again.

then he asked me the question every founder eventually asks: "papa, why is nobody buying?"

here's what broke my heart — and taught us both everything:

he built this beautiful AI website builder. automated booking. slick interface. the simply works.

his pitch was perfect: "i'll build you an AI-assisted website that handles everything automatically!"

business owners' response? 

click.

not because he's 15. not because the product was bad.

because he was in problem-market fit, not product-market fit.

huge difference.

𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺-𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘁 = selling painkillers to people with migraines
𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁-𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘁 = selling vitamins to people who feel fine

my son was selling vitamins.

"AI-assisted website" sounds cool to us tech folks.

to a plumber who gets clients from word-of-mouth? 

it's like offering to upgrade the engine on a car that runs perfectly fine.

the brutal truth i had to tell him:

most business owners don't wake up thinking "i need an AI website."

they wake up thinking "i need more customers" or "i'm losing jobs to competitors."

if your first 100 calls feel like pulling teeth...

you're not bad at sales.

you're solving the wrong problem.

find the migraine first.

then build the painkiller.

my son pivoted his pitch last week. instead of "AI website," he now leads with "what if you never missed another customer call?"

3 actually calls in 5 days.

same product. different problem.

that's the entire game.

love,
sangram

p.s. watching your kid learn GTM lessons at 15 that most founders don't get until series B? priceless. he's now teaching me snapchat... we are even.

undefined undefined

about to keynote at my fist RKO at Ignitium: ABX Orchestration 

amazing energy and excitement for the future.

sharing our research why and how  some teams succeed and others don’t, based on:

1,000+ B2B companies…
1,000+ CEO and leader interviews…

it’s magical when a group of people come together and what they can do.

wish me all the best! 

love,
sangram

for 4 years straight, this is my travel hack.

of course when you travel, a lot falls on your spouse and kids.

it seems infinitely challenging since it’s not normal and everything seems a bit off at home.

so i have been doing this for about 4 years… and it simply works! 

i leave handwritten cards for my wife, son and my daughter.

for my wife: a scripture verse and that she got this!

for my son: i am counting on you and you can rise up to the responsibilities at home and proud of him. 

for my daughter: i am proud of her and she needs to take care of mom while i am gone and hug her a little tighter. 

they typically read it th night i am out at dinner table.

my prayer is that they have fun and my words might replace some of my presence and being normalcy to their day…

what’s your family hack when you travel?

love,
sangram

*** big news for fractional GTM leaders. 

we just unlocked two tools — free for 1 year as our certified partners are making $250K+/year on average. 

if you want to run a real fractional business — not a chaotic side hustle — you need two things from day one:

1️⃣ a simple purpose-built CRM for fractionals to manage deals and delivery

2️⃣ a prospecting tool to start real conversations

GTM OS Certified Partners now get both at no cost for one full year:

Insightly CRM by Unbounce  — manage deals, clients, and landing pages without the enterprise bloat.

SalesIntel.io — verified contacts, clean lists by ICP, and a repeatable way to fill your pipeline.

why these matter together:

prospecting without a CRM = chaos.
CRM without prospecting = empty pipeline.

75+ GTM OS certified partners are already building their businesses on this foundation.

no duct-taped systems. no "i'll set this up later."

fractional freedom doesn't come from hustle.

it comes from leverage.

who: if you're serious about building a $250K+ fractional business in 2026 or have an existing fractional business that you want to scale. 

how to get it: like and comment "freedom" 

timing: my EA will DM you the details in 24 hrs.

love,
sangram
p.s. i wish i had these tools as we built our little $7M advisory business with just Bryan Brown and i doing it. now 75+ other amazing fractional GTM leaders are building their little business and you can too.

most GTM plans fail by Q2.

ours don't. here's the 6-step process we use every quarter.

step 1: identify your GTM valley of death

every company is stuck in one of three valleys — awareness, conversion, or retention. you can't fix all three at once. pick the one that's bleeding.

step 2: know your stage

are you in problem stage, product stage, or platform stage? each requires a completely different GTM motion. most companies run a platform playbook when they're still in problem stage which is killing the momentum.

step 3: name your top 3 GTM problems

we've identified 15 common GTM problems. pick your top 3. not 7. not 10. three for next 90 days and fix it. focus wins.

step 4: run the MOVE framework with your exec team

this exposes the gaps in how your leadership team thinks about GTM. marketing sees one thing. sales sees another. this gets everyone on the same page.

step 5: answer the 8 GTM OS questions

this puts your entire go-to-market on a single slide. who you serve. how you win. what you measure. one page. total clarity.

step 6: build your 90-day project list

not a 12-month roadmap nobody follows. a focused list of projects that move the needle this quarter.

that's it. 6 steps. every quarter.

give it a shot!

love,
sangram

p.s. we have 70+ GTM OS Certified Partners who can run this process for you who have collectively experience of running this a 1000 times. if you're a CEO or GTM exec who wants a facilitator to help — at least once, if not every quarter — comment below.

i'll match you with a GTM OS Certified Partner who specializes in your industry and segment.

love,
sangram

fractional CMO: "i work with B2B SaaS companies."

me: "which ones?"

CMO: "all of them."

me: "that's the problem."

CMO: "what do you mean? i have broad experience."

me: "broad experience doesn't win deals. specificity does. when you say 'all of them,' buyers hear 'none of them deeply.'"

CMO: "but if i niche down, i'll lose opportunities."

me: "you'll lose the wrong ones. and win the right ones faster."

CMO: "how do you know this works?"

me: "because i've watched it work. 5 times. 5 different niches. 5 fractionals building $250K+ businesses."

here's the proof:

→ Alan Gonsenhauser — PE-Backed Companies Over $100M + CMO Coaching

Alan focuses on "PE companies."
he picked $100M+ companies with CMO turnover, board pressure, and scale challenges.
he's a CMO coach specifically for portfolio companies that need strategic maturity, not more tactics. that's a niche inside a niche.

→ Shelli Ryan, APR, Fellow PRSA — Cross-Border GTM + BPO Services

while others stay broad, Shelli went ultra-specific:
helping implement BPO with cross-border companies.
that niche is exploding.
and she owns it.

→ Tim Hillison — Engineering-Led Founders

Tim isn't "GTM for all founders."
he's the go-to partner for engineering-led CEOs who need clarity, confidence, and commercial muscle.
his niche? technical founders who don't speak GTM.
his value? he translates complexity into revenue.

→ Lydia Flocchini — The Queen of Legal Tech (20 Years Deep)

Lydia isn't trying to be a horizontal fractional.
she leaned into who she already is: the most experienced GTM leader in legal tech.
founders listen. buyers trust her instantly.
she doesn't chase business — business comes to her.

→ Sarah Allen-Short — The "Work Doula" for Visionary CEOs

Sarah isn't chasing founders.
she chose to serve a completely different niche:
helping CEOs through growth, change, and chaos — with the frameworks and experience to back it up.
the more she helps, the more people show up.
she created her own category — and it works.

5 people. 5 completely different niches. all winning.

the lesson?

you don't need to serve everyone.

you need to serve someone so well that they can't imagine working with anyone else.

if you are a fractional CMO, CRO or GTM leader, comment your niche below and i will amplify it.

so... what's your niche?

love,
sangram
p.s. give these amazing GTM fractionals a follow!

1st time when we launched ABM at a $35M company, we thought we had it all figured out.

we didn't.

here's what actually happened:

we picked 100 "dream accounts."
we built personalized ads.
we sent direct mail.
we tracked engagement.

6 months later?

→ 3 meetings booked
→ 0 closed deals
→ $50K+ spent

the board asked: "what went wrong?"

the honest answer? we fell in love with the tactic, not the strategy.

here's what we missed:

1. we picked accounts we wanted, not accounts that wanted us.
no intent signals. no timing data. just logos we thought would look good on our website.

2. we personalized everything except the message.
custom ads with their logo. personalized landing pages. but the value prop? generic. they didn't care.

3. sales wasn't bought in.
marketing ran the show. sales saw it as "marketing's project." when leads came in, follow-up was slow. alignment was broken from day one.

4. we measured activity, not outcomes.
engagement scores looked great. but engagement doesn't pay the bills. pipeline does.

the fix?

we rebuilt ABM from scratch:

→ started with sales and CS input on account selection
→ used intent and signal data to find accounts already in-market
→ aligned on a shared revenue segment, not just MQLs
→ measured ICP-fit pipeline and closed revenue, nothing else

that's when ABM started working.

my lesson: 

ABM isn't broken.
GTM isn't broken.
Marketing or sales isn't broken.

but the way most teams run it? absolutely is.

your take?

love,
sangram

2026 prediction: small, focused events will outperform big conferences.

here's proof it's already happening.

3 GTM OS Certified Partners — Maria Scheifler, Caitlin Clark-Zigmond, and Newell Falkinburg — are hosting a 90-minute workshop in Denver.

no keynotes. no expo halls. no swag bags.

just 20 GTM leaders working through the 15 most common GTM problems together.

you'll walk away with:
→ your top 3 GTM problems prioritized
→ peer perspectives from leaders in different industries
→ frameworks you can use immediately

small. focused. in-person. high signal.

the pendulum is swinging back from massive virtual events to intimate rooms where real work gets done.

if you're a CEO, CRO, or CMO in Denver — check it out.

link in comments for event and if you think it's a trend, share other events like this.

love,
sangram

i bring work home every. single. day.

but not the way you think.

i don't bring emails, slack, or stress.

i bring the skills.

the same frameworks that helped my two companies scale to over $100M, i've found they work at home too.

so my wife and i built a family operating system.

here's what the Vajre household runs on:

→ "Vajre's always make it thru with God's love, grace and truth" — our family mission statement (every company has mission and core values, why don't my family?)

→ no pay for chores — you live here, you contribute (ownership without entitlement)

→ want to earn real money to buy something?  Read books, serve the community, sell or build something (leaders are readers, does, dreamers and drivers)

→ eat only when mom sits and takes the first bite (mom does a lot, the least we can do is wait for her and honor her)

→ dinner table is tech-free and sacred — memories are made with eye contact (focused convo, no phones)

→ yearly goals + monthly 1:1s date with each kid, weekly 1:1 with spouse — 5 years straight (performance reviews works when done regularly, not once a year)

→ on vacation, only mom has the phone (connection needs disconnection)

we've been doing this for years.

not because we're perfect. we're far from it.

but because the same principles that made my companies great, i wanted to see if that will make my family better and stronger.

we all need an operating system and in absence of it, i have found myself just surviving BUT one day we decided to live like that no more.

mission. ownership. respect. focus. growth. boundaries.

it works in the boardroom.

it works at the dinner table.

so... what's one "work skill" you've brought home?

love,
sangram

i got rid of all my crazy expensive tech for videos and here’s what i use now:

- iphone for crisper quality video (no lag or worries about quality)
- yeti mic 
- direct light from the sun by facing the window

that’s it!!

what’s your setup? 

love,
sangram

No alternative text description for this image

i want to help 100 solopreneurs make $300k+ in 2026.

one catch - you have to have 10+ years of GTM leadership experience.

not a typo. not a flex. a mission.

here's my why.

i became financially free at 41.

and it broke my brain in the best way.

for 15 years, i chased revenue. exits. titles.

built two companies past $100M. got the outcomes everyone says they want.

but when the money stopped being the goal... everything shifted.

work became projects, not obligations.
family became legacy, not "balance."
money became leverage, not the scoreboard.
partnerships became lifelong relationships, not transactions.

i stopped asking "how do i make more?"

started asking "how do i help more?"

that question led me here.

sangram here...

if you're new — i came to America 25 years ago with less than $500.

no network. no playbook. just hunger.

built Terminus to a $100M+ exit. 
wrote a WSJ bestselling book on go-to-market. 
editor of FractionalFreedomFriday with 7K+ subscribers.
editor of GTMonday with 175K+ subscribers teaching the GTM O.S.

but my next chapter isn't about building another company for myself.

it's about helping 100 new solopreneurs build $300K+ businesses.

we're building GTMarketplace — the largest network of certified fractional GTM leaders.

not a job board. not an agency.

a place where PE and recruiting firms  as well as CEOs and founders find proven fractional and interim CMOs, CROs, and GTM operators who've already solved their exact problem.

bcos the smartest execs aren't climbing corporate ladders anymore.

they're building freedom on their own terms.

if you're a fractional leader ready to stop explaining your value...

or a founder who needs GTM expertise without the full-time overhead...

this is what i'm building for you.

welcome to the fractional GTM movement.

love,
sangram

CEO of $13M business: "i don't believe in fractional and agencies."

me: "78% of fast growing business CEOs disagree with you."

we just ran this survey at GTM Partners. 

78% plan to increase fractional and agencies GTM investment in 2026. 
only 7% plan to reduce it.

71% said their experience was positive—56% called it a major impact, another 15% said fractionals and agencies fill an important gap.

this isn't a fringe experiment anymore. 
it's an operating model shift.

why it's accelerating:

→ GTM complexity is rising faster than headcount tolerance. companies need alignment across marketing, sales, CS, rev ops, and product—but not all of it full time.

→ experience gaps are widening. many CEOs are scaling in markets they've never been in before. hiring a full-time CRO or CMO is expensive, slow, and risky when the GTM motion isn't clear yet.

→ speed matters more than stability. fractional leaders are hired to diagnose, design, and execute—not to play politics or optimize for tenure.

but here's what CEOs still get wrong:

→ hiring a fractional to "help" without giving them real authority
→ treating the role as advisory when the problem is operational
→ expecting full-time outcomes from part-time access
→ using fractionals to avoid hard decisions about strategy, people, or focus

when fractional fails, it's usually because the CEO wanted optionality instead of accountability.

what good fractional leadership looks like:

→ they diagnose fast. ICP quality, pipeline velocity, messaging clarity, ownership gaps—they know where to look first.

→ they design systems, not heroics. the goal is repeatable motions the team can run.

→ they create leverage. a good fractional leaves the org stronger than they found it.

if you're a CEO exploring this model, start by finding someone who's done the work you're trying to do next.

your take?

love,
sangram
p.s. look out for the full research coming out on GTMonday next week

#fractional #GTM #CEO

it’s windy.
it’s cold.
it isn’t fair.

that’s what my son told me this morning at his national tennis tournament in Rome, Georgia. 

so i told him what i know best from experience:

there is no perfect day… 
u have to make your day, perfect. 

in life, sports and business… we don’t practice for perfect conditions. 

you just do your best… 

no regrets!

what would you have said?

love,
sangram

"who owns GTM?"

on every podcast. every stage. every exec session — i get asked this one question over and over again.

so i'm here to settle this debate.

this is based on all the research we've done on GTM — the WSJ best-selling book MOVE, and over 1,000 live GTM assessments with exec teams from startups to publicly traded companies.

hint: it's not who you think.

answer in the video 👇

your take...

love,
sangram

why would you turn down $25K newsletter sponsorship, again?

we did. last week. here's why.

a CEO reached out wanting to sponsor GTMonday. good company. real budget. easy yes for most publishers.

we said no. again.

we don't even call GTMonday a newsletter. 
we call it GTMonday, a research note, on purpose.

because the moment you take sponsorship money, you owe someone something. your research gets filtered. your recommendations get influenced. your voice gets quieter.

we wanted none of that.

3 years into writing this weekly research note, every framework we share is original. every insight comes from working with real companies. no sponsor approved it. no brand paid for ad placement.

that decision cost us short-term revenue.

but it built something bigger.

so what's the ROI of the research we publish freely for 3 years straight on a weekly basis? 

it led to a $7M+ advisory business.

175,000 people read is each Monday and share it all over the world.

70+ GTM OS certified fractionals have built their own businesses around our frameworks and the GTM OS.

every week we learn about companies that are now running the GTM Operating System, literally!

turns out, giving away your best thinking attracts the people who actually want to work with you.

not clicks. not impressions. no banner ad. real relationships that turn into real business.

so no — we're not looking for sponsors. 

now.. if you have a unique pov, then let's hear it and may be we will feature you for free.

that's the trade-off we made. and we'd make it again.

what do you think? 

love,
sangram
p.s. if you have haven't checked out GTMonday on Substack - just look it up!

Strategy & GTM Advisor | Follow me for strategy, growth, and leadership tips.

I lead Growth at Pricing I/O, the leading hands-on SaaS pricing consultancy.

Our track record:
→ 400+ software companies
→ 98% client satisfaction
→ 15x average Year 1 ROI

Before joining Pricing I/O, I was their client. I spent 11 years at Mercatus, a private equity software company:

→ Started as employee #5
→ Navigated multiple promotions
→ Eventually became Global Head of Product & Marketing
→ Built global teams and owned pricing and GTM strategy
→ Hired Pricing I/O in 2019, a key inflection point
→ Delivered Avg 85% YoY ACV growth 
→ Led to a 9-figure exit to State Street (Fortune 250)
→ Company now manages $1.8+ trillion in private equity assets for the world's largest investors

I lived the pricing struggle every leader fears:
→ Sleepless nights: Are we leaving millions on the table?
→ Boardroom wars: Everyone has an opinion on price
→ Investor pressure: Triple revenue AND keep customers happy

If your feel the same way at your software company, let's talk.

Connect:
→ Book a FREE pricing strategy call at pricingio dot com
→ Join The Moat, my free newsletter for B2B leaders for an inside look at our growth playbook.

Ali Mamujee

In 2012, Best Buy should’ve died:

Wall Street called it “dead walking.”
The stock hit a 10-year low.
They lost $1.7B in a single quarter.

The industry even named the problem: “showrooming.”

Customers walked into Best Buy, touched the TV, scanned the barcode, and bought it cheaper on Amazon - while standing in the aisle.

The advice to the incoming CEO Hubert Joly was obvious:
→ Close stores immediately
→ Fire thousands of employees
→ Accept that physical retail is dead

He did the opposite.

Joly launched "Renew Blue" with a simple insight:
"Showrooming proves customers want the store experience. They just don't want to overpay for it."

His counterintuitive solution:

1. Price Match Guarantee
↳ This didn’t win the sale.
↳ It removed the only reason customers had to leave.

2. Invested in employees
↳ While others treated staff as a cost center.
↳ Joly invested in expertise customers actually valued.

3. Turned stores into brand showcase partners
↳ He realized stores are media channels not just warehouses
↳ He got Samsung, Microsoft, Google, and later Amazon to pay for floor space to showcase their tech.

The result:
→ Stock rallied from $12 (2012) to $70+ (subsequent years)
→ Returned to profitability
→ "Showrooms" became an asset, not a liability
→ Became the go-to partner tech brands.

The lesson:
The leaders who win don’t eliminate their disadvantages. 
They reframe them and build a strategy around what others misinterpret.

♻️ Repost if this resonates.
🔔 Follow Ali Mamujee for more insights.

In 2013, Adobe made the most hated pricing decision in tech:

~ 50,000 customers signed a petition begging them not to do it.
They ignored every single one.

For years, Adobe sold its creative suite in a box:
Pay once. Use it forever.

It worked - until it didn’t.

Customers skipped upgrades (the old version still worked)
Revenue spiked at launches and sagged in between
The upfront price locked out millions of would-be users

So in May 2013, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced:

CS6 would be the last major perpetual release.
Future innovation would ship through Creative Cloud.

The response was intense. Forums were flooded.
Long-time customers were angry.

And the financial impact was real.
Net income fell from $832.8M to $290.0M - a ~65% drop.

But Adobe wasn’t just changing prices.
They were changing who could enter.

Narayen faced a choice: listen to 50,000 angry customers or risk short-term pain for long-term transformation. He chose the risk.

By moving to subscriptions, they:
- Lowered the barrier to start
- Created continuous value instead of one-time upgrades
- Built an always-on relationship with customers

Over time, that changed everything.

→ Stock: ~$37.68 (2012) → $444.68 (2024)
→ Revenue: $4.4B (2012) → $21.5B (2024)
→ Subscribers: 37M+ (2024)

The lesson isn’t that subscriptions magically create growth.

It’s that pricing power comes from removing friction for the right customers.

When you make it easier for people to start, stay, and succeed, revenue follows.

♻️ Repost for your network
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The advice I needed the most when I felt incredibly lost:

Pursue yourself.

Sometimes feeling lost is that pause before clarity.

Here are 3 truths that helped me:

1. Find What Lights You Up 
 ↳ Pay attention to what energizes, not just what pays.
 ↳ Trust the moments that make you feel alive.

2. Break Free From Others' Dreams 
 ↳ Stop chasing someone else's definition of success.
 ↳ Your path doesn't need to make sense to anyone else.

3. Start Small, Start Now 
 ↳ Take one tiny step toward what interests you.
 ↳ Let action clear the fog of uncertainty.

Your gut knows where you need to go. 

Trust that voice – it's been right all along.

♻️ Repost for others who need to hear this.
 
Quote credit: @elevated states

In 1962, Ford spotted a generation priced out of their dreams:

A wave of young buyers (baby boomers) wanted something sporty. Something that felt like freedom.

But the options were out of reach: 
Corvette: ~$4,000. 
European sports cars: even more.

Ford’s research showed these buyers would pay up to $2,500 for the right car: style + identity, without luxury-sports pricing.

Most automakers would've tried to build a cheaper Corvette: strip features, cut corners, compete on specs.

Ford took a different bet.

Lee Iacocca, Ford's VP and the internal champion for this vision, realized these buyers weren't buying horsepower.

They were buying identity. Style. Customization. A car that said something about who they were.

So the Mustang was designed around that insight:
→ Style over specs (emotion beats horsepower)
→ Customization over bundles (let buyers make it theirs)
→ 4 seats, not 2 (sporty and practical)
→ Built on the Falcon platform (so the economics worked)

They didn't build a cheap sports car. 
They created a new category: the pony car.

Result:
→ Launched April 1964 at $2,368
 → Forecast: 100,000 in year one
 → Actual: 418,000
 → 1M+ in 18 months

The lesson:

That's what value-based pricing really means:
Pick the market you want. Pick the buyer you're serving. 
Then design the offer that wins at that price point.

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Patrick's strategy for Colossus hit different. 

(Colossus is a premium print magazine + media company run by Patrick O'Shaughnessy - it’s one of my favorite things to get in the mail.)

He wrote: "I don't like to destroy competitors. 
I just feel bad that it's not unique enough."

That’s always been my philosophy.
If we’re being compared, we haven’t built something distinct enough yet.

I see too many B2B companies stuck in feature warfare - matching competitors point-by-point, racing to parity.

The problem isn't that they're losing.

It's that they're playing a game where "winning" still leaves them commoditized.

Most strategies sound like:
"We'll be faster."
"We'll be cheaper."
"We'll outwork them."

But the best strategies don't start with comparison.
They start with: What are we building that didn't exist before? 

When your offering is truly unique:
- Price objections disappear
- Competitors become irrelevant
- Customers can't find alternatives

The best strategy isn't about winning the race.
It's about running a different race entirely.

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If your B2B deals keep stalling, run these 3 checks:

These checks come straight from our sales-call reviews with trusted advisors.

This is for complex, multi-stakeholder B2B cycles.

1) Are all the right people in the room?
In complex B2B purchases, decisions rarely sit with one person.
Buying groups average ~5.4 stakeholders - each with different incentives and concerns (CEB).

That’s why stalled deals often sit with a single champion: someone who loves the idea but doesn’t own the budget.

Test: If your champion left tomorrow, would the deal survive?

Fix: Keep your champion empowered but earn access to the people who weigh in and sign off.

2) Can you make the future state concrete?
Deals drag when the customer keeps re-explaining themselves.
Calls spread out. People rotate in. Memory resets.

Test: On every call, can you say:
→ Here’s the problem you described
→ Here’s what “better” looks like (in your words)
→ Here’s the gap between now and there

Fix: Restate the before/after every call. Not once. Every time.

3) Have you put a number on their pain?
Most reps stop at “that sounds painful.”
But pain without numbers rarely creates urgency.

Test: When they say "discounting is out of control," do you know the actual cost?

Example: A $100M SaaS company with a 5% discounting gap leaks $5M/year.
Make it real:
→ ~$400K/month
→ ~$20K/day 

Suddenly a $200K engagement isn’t “expensive.” It’s a 10 working-day payback.

Fix: Don't build a fancy ROI calculator. Get one simple number they agree is real.

If a deal is stuck in “maybe,” it’s usually failing one of these checks.

Run the diagnostic. Fix the failure point. Watch it move.

♻️ Repost if your sales team needs this
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A $100M+ company wrote this in an RFP they sent us:

“We’ve created the appearance of modern pricing with none of the behavior.”

Most honest thing I've read.

They had done everything “right”:
→ Moved from seats to usage
→ Launched a self-serve tier
→ Built enterprise packaging

On paper, it looked modern. But underneath:

→ Sales still discounted like it was 2015
→ Customers still couldn’t explain what they were paying for
→ Finance still couldn’t forecast revenue with confidence

The model changed. The behavior didn’t.

At Pricing I/O, we're seeing this pattern everywhere:

Companies adopt the language of modern pricing - usage-based, PLG, value-aligned - without building the system to support it.

So what happens?

→ The new pricing sits on a page no one actually uses
→ Sales defaults to whatever closes the deal
→ Customers feel the disconnect and push back harder

The gap between “announced pricing” and “real pricing” quietly grows.

And leadership wonders why the transformation isn’t working.

Here’s the truth most teams miss:
Pricing transformation isn’t a launch. It’s a rewiring.

It touches:
→ How sales gets paid
→ How CS talks about value
→ How finance measures success
→ How product designs packaging

Change the model without changing those and the organization pulls it back to the old way.

If your pricing looks modern but still feels stuck, the problem probably isn’t the model. It’s everything around it.

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A higher price can literally make the same product feel better:
(according to brain scan)

Not “feel” as in marketing fluff.
Feel as in: your brain processes it differently.

In a 2017 experiment (INSEAD + University of Bonn), people tasted the same €12 red wine but saw three different price tags:

- Wine bottle #1: €3
- Wine bottle #2: €6
- Wine bottle #3: €18

The “€18” wine was rated as more pleasant.

And brain scans (MRI) showed price cues shifted activity in reward/valuation-related regions.

Same liquid. Different reality.

The point isn’t “charge more.” 
The point is: price is part of the experience.

The pricing lesson for SaaS:

If you underprice (or over-discount), you don’t just lose revenue.

You often create:
- more skepticism (“what’s the catch?”)
- more nitpicking (“why doesn’t it do X?”)
- less patience during onboarding (“not worth the time”)

Because the brain uses price as a shortcut for value.

So the real question isn’t:
“What’s the minimum I can charge?”

It’s:

“What price supports the value story customers need to believe - so they actually experience the value?”

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Source: Schmidt et al. (2017), Scientific Reports - INSEAD & University of Bonn

In 2008, Airbnb was failing.

They had almost no traffic. 

Co-founders (Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia) had racked up $20,000 in credit card debt each. 
 
And they’d made less than $5,000 from the actual Airbnb business.

So they did something that sounds like a joke…
They made election cereal.

Two boxes: Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s. 

They printed and hand-assembled 1,000 boxes, and sold them as limited edition collectibles for $40 each. 

The press ate it up.
Obama O’s sold out. 
Cap’n McCain’s didn’t. 

But the stunt did what the product couldn’t (yet):
It generated $20,000–$30,000 - more than the company had made from bookings. 

Then came the interview that changed everything.

Paul Graham - the founder of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator - didn't love the Airbnb idea.

Until he heard the cereal story.

His line: "If you can convince people to pay $40 for a $4 box of cereal, you can probably convince strangers to stay in other strangers' homes."

He called them "cockroaches."
They just wouldn't die.

Then → Now
Airbnb’s FY2024 revenue was $11.1B. 
And it generated $4.5B in trailing-twelve-month free cash flow. 

The lesson for founders:
Runway isn't only money in the bank. 
It's your ability to manufacture value when the core model isn't working yet.

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I spent 11 years at Mercatus that sold for 9 figures.
If I had to credit one framework, it’d be this one slide.

Back in 2015, Peter Cohan trained our team at Mercatus.
(He wrote Great Demo, Doing Discovery, & Suspending Belief)

He taught us the Situation Slide (see image 👇)
Real example + editable slide link in the comments 👇

If you run B2B sales calls, use this as the North Star for discovery.

It forces clarity before you pitch.
Who it’s for. What’s at risk. Why now. And what it’s worth.

It didn’t just improve sales. It became our storytelling framework for the entire company.

→ Sales used it to qualify pipeline 
→ Product used it to prioritize the roadmap 
→ Marketing pulled messaging directly from it
→ Customer Success referenced it during onboarding 

Fast forward to Pricing I/O: our pipeline nearly 2x'd - and win rates had to follow. So I brought it back.

It’s the fastest way I know to spot unqualified pipeline early.

Incomplete slide = incomplete qualification. 

♻️ Repost if your sales team needs this
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Mailchimp’s accidental move 5x’d growth in a year.

Here’s how it happened:

In 2009, Mailchimp had $0 in funding.
Their competitor, Constant Contact, had raised $100M+.

Mailchimp couldn’t outspend them.
So co-founder Ben Chestnut needed a different way to grow.

Ben’s plan: split Mailchimp into two products.
→ Free for building email lists
→ Paid for sending emails

But the lead engineer said the codebase was too complex to split.

The engineer’s workaround:
“Instead of two products, I’ll make it one but free up to a limit.”

Ben’s response: “We’re running out of time. Do it.”

Ben later said they didn’t want to give anything away for free:
 “We wanted to charge the hell out of people.

That’s it. No grand strategy.
An engineer’s shortcut became the freemium model.

The results: 

→ Users: 85k → 450k in 12 months (≈5x)
→ Profit increased by 650% 
→ CAC dropped to under $100

Here's what made it work:

Free wasn't charity. Free was the funnel.
Every email sent by a free user carried Mailchimp's badge. 
Customer usage became the marketing engine.

In 2021, Intuit acquired Mailchimp for $12B.

The lesson:
Freemium only works when "free" creates a loop: 

→ What action delivers value fast? 
→ What action spreads the product? 
→ What moment naturally triggers "now I'll pay"?

If your free tier doesn't answer all three - it's not freemium. It's just free.

♻️ Share this with a founder 
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AI was supposed to deliver massive value

Instead it’s delivering massive shelfware.

AI has become the easiest justification for a price increase.

But a lot of customers aren’t adopting it. They’re hesitating.

Because they don’t trust they’ll stay in budget.

Some numbers that explain why:
→ 68% of vendors restrict AI to premium tiers 
→ AI add-ons can add 30–110% to the base cost 
→ Orgs use only 47% of their SaaS licenses 

And the pattern looks like this:

Vendor: “We added AI. Price goes up.”
Buyer: “Fine. We need to stay current.”
Finance: “Why did spend jump?”
Users: “I’m not clicking that - what if it charges us?”

One pricing strategist put it perfectly:
“Usage stopped not because of price, but because admins didn’t trust they’d stay in budget.” 

If customers are afraid to use what they’re paying for, you didn’t create value. You created anxiety.

The best pricing doesn’t maximize what you can charge.
It maximizes what customers will actually use.

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How to sell your most expensive plan:

Change what it’s compared to.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely showed this in an experiment.
He tested The Economist’s subscription options with 100 MIT students:

→ Web Only: $59 
→ Print Only: $125 
→ Print + Web: $125

With all three options available:
→ 16% chose Web-only
→ 0% chose Print-only
→ 84% chose Print + Web

Then he removed the "useless" Print-only option.

The results flipped:
68% chose Web-only while 32% chose Print + Web

The high tier went from the clear favorite to the minority choice just by removing an option nobody wanted anyway.

People decide based on what something sits next to.

If your high tier plan feels expensive instead of worth it, look at the context you're giving it.

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