Tom Hunt

$3.6m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Jan 2014.

I'm walking home from a depressing New Year's trip to Oslo with an ex. girlfriend.

It's raining in East London.

I made a decision:

I would replace my management consulting salary (£42,000) by the end of the year.

I had no idea from where, but that was the goal...

I just about hit it and left the corporate world.

And I haven't been back since.

Fast forward a decade and I've:

- Tried and failed with 17 businesses
- Invested in 11
- Learnt a LOT

The one that is finally working is called Fame:

- We have a weird culture (in a good way)
- We start and grow podcasts for B2B businesses
- We are fully remote and have 75 full-time team members

I live for our awesome team at Fame, building businesses and great marketing.

I post about them here 🤗

Founder & CEO

We start and grow the world's most profitable B2B podcasts.

Clients include:

👉 IDEO
👉 Workday
👉 HighRadius
👉 People.ai
👉 Zendesk
👉 Bevy
👉 Circle
👉 Suzy
👉 Mazars
👉 LeanData
👉 CXL
👉 Ramp
👉 Alibaba
👉 Signify
👉 eToro

We don't review CVs.

We don't use an ATS.

We don't ask for cover letters.

And we barely spend money on job ads.


Here's our hiring process:

1. Candidates come inbound
2. We review their LinkedIn profile
3. They do a short test task
4. First interview: competency-based
5. Final interview: values-based

That's it.


No six-round marathons
No "upload your resume then retype it"
No AI scanning for keywords


Just people looking at real work and having conversations.

HR SaaS businesses told everyone that hiring needs to be complex.

It doesn't.


You don't need expensive software to find good people.

Agree?

$4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

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I cancelled a 1-1 with someone on my team.


Why?

- They were thriving
- Their OKRs were progressing well
- I had nothing meaningful to contribute

So why have the meeting?

Why waste their time because I'm insecure about doing my job?


It's called macro-management.

HINT: the opposite of micro-management.


Here’s how it works:

- They work where they want
- You provide the insight, tools and resources
- You remove barriers, blockers and distractions
- They decide the "how"
- You trust them

Put simply:

You enable.
You assist.

Then you stay in your lane...

Not theirs.

Agree?

We hired a project manager for $7 per hour in 2022.

Now he's earning $40K a year.

That's higher than 98% of earners in the Philippines.


We made him a deal:

"Where you are right now limits what we can pay you because you don't generate enough value. But the more problems you can solve for us, the more we can pay you."

E.g. we hired him for what he could become, not what he was.


He got a payrise in year 2, then in year 3, he takes on another role.

Now he's:

- Project manager
- Video editor

Maybe more in the future.


The best hires have the right attitude toward growth.

Skill gaps close with time and effort.

Character gaps rarely close.

No one is clapping when you get the second resignation email of the day.

No one is clapping at 6:37am on a Saturday as you’re combing through the P&L.

No one is clapping when it’s your 17th decision of the day.

No one is clapping when you're the only person around to reply to the angry customer.

No one is clapping when payroll looms and the bank balance isn’t where it should be.

No one is clapping when you can’t think of anything else on a Sunday afternoon.



There’s a lot of hype around starting a business these days…

I’m not sure it’s for everyone.

Most people chase salaries and titles.
Smart people choose who they work with.

Specifically: their manager.

Here's why:

A bad manager...
- Drains your energy
- Protects their position
- Watches your every move

A great manager...
- Explains why things work
- Protects you from politics
- Supports your development


The truth?

You may spend more time with your manager than your spouse.

Choose wisely.

Fame bootstrapped to $4.5M ARR by charging LESS.

Plus we:

- Spend less than 2% of revenue on ads
- Have a 1 person sales team
- Raised $0

How?

By focusing on the one metric everyone ignores...

Retention.


1️⃣ Strong inbound engine

Outbound and ads cost more, both to book a sales call, but also in the skill (and therefore cost) of the person who needs to run the call.

Instead:

- SEO
- Personal brand
- Bottom of the funnel Google Ads


2️⃣ Charge less

E.g. the Amazon model.

The more you charge, the more likely you will be cut when the CFO and CEO review the monthly P&L.


3️⃣ Objective performance metrics

We used to track client happiness, now we track client objectives.

Happy clients churn, successful clients don't.


4️⃣ Build a retention culture

The team laugh everytime I say "retention is the foundation of growth" because I say it so much.

Hire, fire and promote based on retention.



The formula:

1️⃣ Strong inbound engine
2️⃣ Charge less
3️⃣ Track objective performance metrics
4️⃣ Build a culture of retention

And please, say it after me:

Retention is the foundation of growth.

As soon as I met Cristian and Alexandru in person, I knew I had to go.

They are the first reason I'm hosting a panel at Tekpon AI Summit 2025 in Bucharest.


The second reason is that I've spent the last 5 years working in my bedroom (pretty much).

$4.5m ARR from behind a screen.

It's working.

But now it's time to crawl out of the cave, and into real life.


So if you're in Bucharest on November 25th, come say hi.

Let's talk AI.
Let's talk marketing.
Let's talk LinkedIn.

Just let's actually talk.

Be like Taylor Swift...


At least that's what I told the awesome people at the Turing x SYSTM Growth Summit yesterday.


Why?

She nailed The Fame Formula:

1. Make really good content in a specific niche
2. Be seen around other famous people in the niche

First she did it with country, and now she does it with pop music.


It's also what we need to do in B2B.

B2B buyers are only in the market 3% of the time. We need to get them to know, like and trust us during the other 97% of the time.

How?

Two steps:

1. Content Format
2. Content Positioning


1. Content Format

You've got three options:

Social: Easiest to grow, lowest influence. Great for reach, but people scroll past quickly.

Email/Written: Middle ground. More intimate than social, easier to produce than podcasts.

Podcast: Hardest to grow, highest influence, best for repurposing. One episode can become 20 pieces of content.

If I was to start again, I would pick the social platform that I liked best, and start there.


2. Content Positioning

Two parts:

- The Niche

Be as narrow as possible.

If you sell email marketing software, don't start a marketing podcast, don't event start a email marketing podcast, start the open-rate podcast.

- The Edge

The thing a customer would tell their friends. What makes you different? What's your unique opinion?


That's The Fame Formula:

Pick your format.
Nail your positioning...

And be like Taylor.

If you can’t share an agenda for the meeting, we shouldn’t be meeting.

When Taplio was acquired by lemlist, they got:

- $2m upfront
- Another $6m for hitting growth targets


I asked him if it was time for beach and cocktails...

"Absolutely not."

Tibo starting sourcing young, hungry founders to build more products.

He now runs 5 products, each with difference technical founders, whilst he focuses on their growth and building his personal brand.

Now $6m ARR.


The next exit will be much bigger.

Find out how in this episode of Confessions of a B2B Entrepreneur below 👇

One of our team members' machines was compromised.

And a client found out about it.

Somehow their Slack log in was posted in a data dump, which was flagged to a client's security team.

We immediately took the compromised machine offline for deep cleaning and changed a load of other passwords.

In the end, no breach occurred, but it was a scare.

This would likely not have happened if we were using Keeper Security, Inc. 

It’s the highest-rated password manager in the world for a reason. 

It solves both the security and the productivity problem:

- Zero-Trust Security: Keeper built its entire platform on a zero-trust, zero-knowledge architecture so your business data is encrypted on your device before it ever reaches their servers

- Instant Access: The KeeperFill feature automatically enters usernames and complex passwords for you

Keeper is built to scale with your business (securely) from day one.

Check out their Cyber Week offer linked in the first comment 👇

#ad #keepersecurity #cyberweek

Brand partnership • $4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Luke Shalom

CEO @ Grow Solo I help the C-suite turn industry expertise into predictable pipeline

Most founders are stuck in what I call "The Activity Trap".

They’re on LinkedIn every day:

DMing.
Posting.
Commenting.

Trying to be everywhere, still not getting consistent clients.

They’ve been told “show up and it’ll work.” But they’re doing everything and nothing’s compounding.

Instead of building leverage, they’re trapped in a cycle of rented results, ghostwritten content, and cold DMs that never convert.

Eventually they burn out:

- No time to sell
- No energy to market
- No leverage to scale unless they outsource again and hope it works

When you stop feeding the machine, the pipeline dies.

There’s a better way.

We install your Leverage Engine — a Trust-Led Outbound system powered by AI that turns LinkedIn into a client acquisition channel you own.

Everything runs in under 30 minutes a day.

With Atticus, we’ve helped 75+ B2B founders, consultants and experts:

→ Escape the Activity Trap
→ Scale without headcount
→ Drive 5–10 new deals per month from LinkedIn

Over $120M in pipeline booked without ghostwriters, appointment setters, or agency retainers.

Here’s how it works:

1. Attract

We install an AI content agent trained on your voice and expertise, built from 70+ top performers.
No ghostwriters. You own the engine.

2. Convert

A behind-the-scenes system moves prospects from cold to calendar.
By the time they book, they already trust you.

3. Activate

We build and install the full system in 60 days, fully trained, operational, and ready to scale inside your business.

Real wins from the system:

V, agency owner → 5–8 qualified opportunities/month + Forbes feature + six figures closed

B, M&A founder → $750K in sales-qualified pipeline

J, executive coach → 62 calls + $144K pipeline + price increase from $33K to $44K

J, startup consultant → 20 qualified calls in 20 days + $150K pipeline

B, career coach → 12 qualified leads in 8 days post-activation

This is for founders ready to shift from activity-trapped operators to leveraged dealmakers — where every post and DM builds trust, not just traffic.

Want your own AI Demand Engine installed?

Send me a message with “AI” and I’ll walk you through how it works and exactly what it would look like inside your business.

Founder

We help executives to build and monetize their brand on linkedin by scaling your content and turning it into leads, authority and thought leadership.

How?

Engagement + DM flows = Qualified meetings. 

Done with you. Done for you.

A few crazy things breaking past $50k profit months as a leveraged operator allowed me to do:

- Drive my entire client acquisition funnel on LinkedIn in less than 30 mins a day

- Take afternoons slow again. I finish most days at 3pm because our offers are mostly async delivery (we get paid for our minds and not our time).

- Worked from Colombia for 2 years without the business collapsing every time I travelled.

- Take 4 weeks of holidays this year fully offline (with only a little guilt).

- Be more present with my girl and pup instead of scrolling LinkedIn on the sofa.

- Generate a living income from just my investments > firmly on route to financial freedom.

- Reinvest heavily back into my own skills — I spent $30,000 in my training across mindset + sales this year.

- Perhaps my favorite of all… I finally flew my girl from Colombia to London last year. And this year we will go again to enjoy Christmas with my family (peep the picture of her smile man!).

I built this thing with just my laptop, LinkedIn and AI.

Now it’s put me in a position where I can support myself and the lives of those I love.

That’s what being a leveraged operator is all about.

Get leverage in the places that matter less.

And get more time with the people who matter most.

If you’re still deep in the grind of trying to hit above the $20k profit plateau…
Keep going.

A few simple changes could get you everything you’ve ever wanted.

PS: If you want to add $50k–$100k profit months with 90%+ margins using just LinkedIn, I’m hosting a LinkedIn client acquisition masterclass on the 12th. Smash this link to join biz owners gaining an unfair advantage in 2026 with AI: https://lnkd.in/gGNvBEfB

CEO @ Atticus | AI sales systems for founders | 5–10 deals/month from LinkedIn in <​30 mins/day I $125M+ pipeline generated for 100+ founders

March 2022: I hit 600,000 impressions in 60 days. Guess how much that added to my revenue?...

Exactly $0.

I posted daily.
DM’d like crazy.
My calendar stayed empty.

Back in March 2022, when I went all-in on my business, I had the metrics… not the money:

• 60 posts in 60 days
• 600,000 impressions
• 40 cold DMs per week

And still? Maybe 1 call a week.

That’s when I stopped chasing activity and started building leverage.

Here’s the truth most founders stuck at $20k per month profit don’t want to admit:

Consistency without leverage does not scale growth. It scales exhaustion.

I was doing everything LinkedIn “experts” said to do.

But nothing was translating into predictable deal flow.

So I audited a week of work and realized about 70 percent of my time was non-revenue.

Every morning felt like Day 1.
Staring at LinkedIn.
Anxiety bubbling up.

 “Why is everyone else winning but me?”

 “Another competitor posts a $50k month. Must be nice.”

I didn’t have a content problem.
I had a leverage problem.

Over the next 3 years, I rebuilt my entire client acquisition system around infrastructure, not effort:

- Identified the Rainmaker client persona (the one person I knew who was willing and able to afford me).

- Built an indoctrination strategy for my content—I identified the key ideas my audience needed to believe to buy from me.

- Created an AI content agent in my voice and trained on my brain. I was no longer spending an hour a day writing posts. I could create a week of content in 30 minutes. No AI slop because it’s trained on my library of content.

- Built a team of AI outbound agents that allowed us to scale our outreach to people in our sphere of influence from content and profile views.

Before → After:

- 4 to 8 calls per month → 35 to 50 a month
- $10k profit → $20k to $50k per month
- $270k closed in last 4 months

Try this for 7 days:

 Run an Activity Audit and highlight your activity traps.

- Log everything in 15‑minute blocks
- Tag each block R (revenue‑producing) or NR (non‑revenue)
- Circle your top 3 NR time sinks
- Kill / Automate / Batch anything NR
- Block 1 hour in your calendar for December 12 to join 100 founders building their own AI Demand Engine with LinkedIn on my webinar.

If you’re stuck in the trap, it might be time for a change.

Grab your FREE ticket to my LinkedIn masterclass here: leveragedoperators.com

I thought LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads were “just brand.” I was wrong. They’re a sales-meeting machine if you structure them right. I spent $3,000 on ads, $1,000 on consulting, and 100 hours of study so you don’t have to. Here are 3 things we did to get our ads delivering leads in 60 days:

BACKGROUND

I sat in a café in Medellín with my father.

Me: “My LinkedIn reach is down 80%, feels like the end of the party.”

Him: “You always knew it wouldn’t last forever.”

Me: “I’m going to need an ad budget to fill the gap.”

Up to that point, I’d only dabbled with LinkedIn TLAs. Decent brand lift, but no leads. So over the last 60 days, I worked with Tom Casoo and learned a killer approach.

5 things that helped me drive meetings from TLAs

1) Having a founder-led brand helps.

Our content already hits the right eyes 300k–500k monthly reach so any spend pours gasoline on what’s circulating. Higher like counts also improve CTR and trust.

2) Tight targeting = better results.

I used to target every startup in the U.S. But our offer is specific: service business owners under $5M with a tech or service arm. Focusing on this ~2M TAM finally brought the right people in.

3) Having the right strategy.

 I stopped boosting random posts and split ads into:
 • Top + middle of funnel
 • Bottom of funnel

Every 2 weeks, I added top-performing posts to TOF/MOF and ran until we hit 1,000+ accounts reached. That became our retargeting pool. CPM was ~$30.

Then I fed that audience into BOF ads... our highest-converting client wins and framework posts. I track which posts cause Calendly bookings and spend more on those.

Pro tip: Add a direct CTA with your Calendly link or tell people to comment “GROW.” It meaningfully increased attribution.

Fitting engagements into our Atticus AI sales system.

We scrape likes, comments, and profile views, score them, and have our AI agent DM high-fit prospects with personalized context.

Adding ads multiplies your organic footprint. It’s just another way to show up in front of buyers... paid or not.

Stuck at $20K/month? I’m hosting a FREE LinkedIn Client Aquisition Masterclass on the 12th of December (usually $1,000 in consulting fees). 

I’ll show you how to build your own AI sales system to add another $50k a month using LinkedIn.

👉 Smash your revenue ceiling: https://lnkd.in/gkishZ_v

(40% gone. Don’t sleep on it.)

POV: thanksgiving after starting a business 😭 


P.S - Stay delusional, my entrepreneurial friends, and keep your cool as you eat turkey today. Happy thanksgiving!
-

Repost from @jimpapi

Every B2B founder wants to generate qualified sales calls on LinkedIn. 

But 95% have no idea where to start. Here are 5 outbound strategies that helped me generate over $125,000,000 in pipeline across 100+ companies (steal them):

1) Content-led outbound

This is where 99% of your hottest leads hide. If someone engages with your content, they already know who you are. Your cover photo acts as a sales billboard when done right.

Start conversations with this flow: 

Open-ended question > What they have tried > Curiosity gap > Pull to Zoom.

Spend 30 minutes a day on this and you will book an extra 5 to 10 calls a week.

2) Profile views and followers

Check profile views and net new followers (your followers list is arranged by who followed last) daily. When your ICP shows up, reach out and start a conversation using the same framework.

3) Messaging with intent

Cold outbound fails because it is unexpected and unwanted. Use an AI SDR to build lists based on intent events like funding rounds, job changes, new hires or key announcements.

Not all intent works for every industry. Ask what your ICP cares most about. For example, funded companies care more about ramp time than unfunded ones. Context matters.

4) The 800 open InMail hack

Every LinkedIn account has 800 extra free InMails on Sales Navigator. Tools with “open InMail campaigns” help you find these accounts fast. You can also check manually inside Sales Navigator.

5) Scaling outbound with multiple LinkedIn accounts

Get your team on Sales Navigator and use sales automation to multiply outbound across multiple open InMail licences. This loop doubles our monthly LinkedIn meetings.

Only do this once you have message market fit with at least a 20 percent response rate. Otherwise you will burn your total addressable market.
I learned all of this from running outbound for 100+ founders. 

If you want the exact AI outbound flow that books us 30 to 50 sales qualified calls a month in less than 30 minutes a day, join my free LinkedIn masterclass here: https://lnkd.in/gGNvBEfB

taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Luke Shalom

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreLuke Shalom's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Luke Shalom

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);}Tom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreLuke Shalom's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance