Scalability

CEO & Growth expert

Data Invest

Chief Operating Officer

Reveal (formerly Sharework)

o Implement and optimize acquisition campaigns (Facebook Ads, Linkedin & Emailing)
o Advise on positioning, communications and other marketing issues
o Monitor marketing projects and analyze results
o Create a database (Anyleads, Dropcontact & Neverbounce)
o Develop cold email strategy (Woodpecker & Apollo)

Marketing consultant - Freelance

o In-depth analysis of the sector and commercial opportunities 
o Launch the POC, analyse user’s feedback
o Create UX and design of the web application (Mockups on Sketch; Working in collaboration with developers and web designer)
o Develop the Knowledge base on best practices in commercial maters (SDR, commercial Strategy, hiring process…)
o Help founders for Seed Fundraising end of 2018

CEO Right-Hand

LeGraal

Co-founder

Red Bull

o Create tailor-made campus marketing plans 
o Integrate Red Bull into the student lifestyle 
o Establish and maintain partnerships with key stakeholders
o Organize the regional qualification for Red Bull Mind Gamers

Student Brand Manager

Benjamin Donteville

Cold outreach hurts when your targeting is blind.
It becomes predictable when your data is sharp.

This screenshot is what happens when outreach relies on guessing.
Wrong person.
Wrong timing.
Wrong angle.

The problem is not volume.
The problem is signal quality.

This is why we built AI agents that read accounts, surface intent, and show you exactly who is worth contacting.
Not based on templates.
Based on real data.

When your targeting is right, conversations stop feeling random.
They start feeling inevitable.

Every skill that matters starts with one thing
Learning how to make people care.

Not convince.
Not push.
Care.

That’s why the best founders think like top salespeople.
They know attention is earned.
Trust is built.
And value has to be shown, not shouted.

You’re not selling a product.
You’re selling clarity, direction, and confidence in the next step.

If you master that, the channel doesn’t matter anymore.

Most sales reps don’t fail because they lack skill.

They fail because they can’t stay consistent long enough for the skill to form.

Everyone can have a good day.
Very few can have a good month.

Here’s the pattern:

→ Inconsistent reps restart their momentum every week.
→ Consistent reps build momentum every day.

One keeps losing confidence.
The other keeps gaining it.

Consistency does what intensity never will:

→ It sharpens your timing
→ It improves your message
→ It compounds your pipeline
→ It builds a rhythm buyers can feel

If you want predictable meetings, you need predictable behavior.

The reps who win aren’t waiting for the “perfect moment.”

Touch the accounts.
Send the message.
Make the call.
Do it again tomorrow.

We recently made a big shift at Scalability.

We created a dedicated AI team that now works across the entire company.

Product.

Internal processes.

Sales operations.

Everything.

We are 25 people.

And 3 of us, more than 10 percent of the company, focus only on AI.

Their impact is immediate because they ship fast.

Very fast.

The first thing they delivered was an internal library of AI agents.

Agents that use all our internal data and scrape external sources to help us find insights, spot opportunities, and make better decisions.

This shift changed how we build.

It changed how we sell.

It changed how we operate.

AI is no longer a layer on top of our product.

It is part of our company.

Don’t start a company for the title.

Start it only if the problem won’t leave you alone.

That’s exactly how Scalability started.
The problems in outbound were too real and too persistent to ignore.

Nothing scales if the core issues stay untouched.

Outbound doesn’t fall apart because people aren’t trying.
It falls apart because the challenges underneath are real.

Blind targeting
Messy data
Weak signals
Wrong accounts
Low-quality meetings

These aren’t solved with louder outreach or new templates.

This is why we built Scalability.
To fix the actual problems SDRs deal with every day.

AI agents that sharpen ICPs.
Agents that enrich, clean, and update data.
Agents that read accounts, spot intent, and improve timing.
Agents that warm prospects so conversations feel natural again.

When the fundamentals are right, outreach stops feeling like guesswork.
It becomes steady, predictable, and scalable.

Most people aren’t productive.

They’re just busy.

You can work all day and still feel stuck if your time goes into inbox checks, CRM tweaks, and tasks that don’t move a single deal forward.

The difference is simple:
Busy is reactive.
Productive is deliberate.

If you want real progress, track the work that actually matters:

– How much time actually went into outreach
– How many touches were targeted, not generic
– How much focus time you protect for real work
– How many actions led to a clear next step

Measure what moves you forward.

Everything else is admin disguised as “work.”

Most SDRs don’t have a performance problem.

They have a work allocation problem.

Here’s the data:

• 60 percent of an SDR’s day disappears into admin, CRM fixes, and manual research.
• Only 20–25 percent becomes actual outreach.
• Less than 10 percent happens at the right moment.
• And timing alone drives 40 percent of reply rate variance.

Traditional SDR workflows are built for waste.
AI-driven workflows are built for alignment.

What changes when AI handles the heavy work:

• Research is pulled instantly instead of done manually.
• Data stays clean and enriched without constant human checks.
• Outreach finally happens at warm moments, not random ones.
• SDRs spend 3–4x more time actually talking to buyers.

This is why “working smart” compounds.
The calendar tells the story.

Most Outbound Teams Don’t Have A Volume Problem.

They Have A Waste Problem.

When you look at a full target list, it feels like every account should be contacted.
But when you study the data, only a small slice is actually in a buying window.

That’s where the 12–30–58 Rule comes in.

It’s the simplest way to remove waste and focus your team on accounts that can really move.

Here’s how it plays out:

12% = Active Buyers
These accounts show real movement: funding, hiring, tech shifts, new teams, expansion.
This is where the short decision windows live.
Touch these weekly.
→ Short decision windows
→ High reply likelihood

30% = Good Fits, Wrong Timing
Nothing is happening right now, but they match who you sell to.
These become valuable the moment a signal appears.
Review these monthly.
→ Good strategic fit
→ Converts when timing flips

58% = No Movement, No Signal
No reason to reach out.
No momentum.
No timing trigger.
Touching this group drains reply rates, SDR energy, and reporting quality.
Keep them silent until they show life.
→ Creates operational drag
→ Wastes outbound capacity

The rule works because it organises your outbound around movement, not message volume.

Small shifts in timing create big shifts in pipeline.

If you want predictable outbound, start here:
Work the 12%. Monitor the 30%. Ignore the 58% until they wake up.

Let movement lead. Everything else gets easier.

How to Cut Outbound Waste Fast

Sales teams using AI make more money.

The gap between early adopters and everyone else is widening.

The new Gong study analysed 7.1 million opportunities across 3,600 companies.
The pattern is impossible to ignore:

1. Reps aren’t losing because win rates dropped.
2. They’re losing because they’re working fewer opportunities.
3. And they’re working fewer opportunities because their time leaks into admin, prep, and manual research.

AI resets the balance of work.

→ Less time searching
→ Less time guessing
→ Less time rewriting
→ Less time forecasting from sentiment

Teams using AI in their workflow are:

→ 65 percent more likely to increase win rates
→ Generating 77 percent more revenue per rep
→ Achieving 10-15 percent better forecasting accuracy
→ Moving from automation to actual intelligence like timing, risk, signals, deal patterns

And the most interesting point:
Reps aren’t becoming redundant.
They’re becoming more focused.

When AI removes the 60-70 percent of work that isn’t selling, reps finally spend their time on conversations.

CEO at Surfe 🏄‍♂️ | Connect your CRM with LinkedIn in 60s

Out here challenging the status quo in sales with real-world sales strategies and data-driven insights 🤙🏼

I’ve spent the past years building a strong sales team motion, and a tool that empowers sales, not replace or overwhelms them. I believe in blending people-first approaches with cutting-edge tools. 

My journey from founder-led sales to building scalable, repeatable team motions has given me a deep understanding of what works – and what doesn’t – in the world of B2B sales.

I come from a Sales Family, and I grew up watching my dad doing cold calls since I was 12 years old, and my mom teaching me her negotiating tactics. 

My dad said: “Please, never end up in sales”. But here I am. 

As first-time founders at Surfe, Romain and I bootstrapped the company with €20k to €1m ARR in under 2 years. We also secured companies like Google and AWS and signed our first $1M deal.
This year 2024, I was proud to make it to the “Top 25 Founders” by Capchase, amongst Henry Schuck from ZoomInfo and Alina from Chili Piper. 

Here you’ll find me sharing no-nonsense, practical advice that helps sales pros cut through complexity and achieve real, measurable results. Brutal honesty, and all the things you may not hear in a classic podcast - that’s what you can expect! 

I like to keep it real, and often unconventional. Not afraid of sharing unpopular opinions, getting into constructive conversations, and challenging the traditional methods of sales and business growth.

I share things about:
→ Transitioning from founder-led sales to scalable teams
→ Growing your business sustainably and building a SaaS product
→ Leveraging data to optimize outreach and engagement
→ Building efficient sales processes based on accurate data
→ CRM workflows for better team performance and revenue growth


If you’re ready to rethink how sales can work for your team, or if you just want to exchange ideas on how to scale effectively, let’s connect!

David Chevalier

One of the best decisions I made

I chose the room where I had the least skills.

We hosted a group of German VC students today.
Ambitious, curious, full of questions about their future.

Most of them asked the same things I asked myself years ago:

“Should I start a company?”
“Should I join VC?”
“What’s the right first move after my studies?”

Here is what I told them.

Your career does not start with the perfect plan.
It starts with the environment you put yourself in.

Years ago, I left banking because I wanted to build something of my own.

When I moved to Paris, I picked a master’s program that mixed two worlds:
one technical (Polytechnique) and one business (HEC).
It was the only one that wasn’t purely business or purely theoretical.
It felt practical. Real. The right environment to start something.

Inside the program, I chose the deep tech track even though I had zero deep tech knowledge.
On purpose.

I knew that’s where the most technical people would be.
People with skills I didn’t have.
People I could learn from.
People I could build with.

My business perspective had value there.
And that mix is what created the setup to start prototyping and eventually find my co-founder.
It is also how the first version of Surfe began.

Learning to be comfortable in the uncomfortable changed everything for me.

Don’t optimise for the safest path.
Optimise for the room that stretches you.
Put yourself next to people who know what you don’t yet.

That single decision can change everything.

CEO at Surfe 🏄‍♂️ | Building the world’s most powerful prospecting engine

SDRs used to do everything except sell.

Data entry.

CRM updates.

Tool hopping.

That world is over.

Here’s what’s changed:

→ Data enriches itself. No more manual research. Modern tools pull in fresh, accurate contact info, so reps never waste time hunting for emails or phone numbers.

→ CRM updates automatically. Every call, email, and note logs itself. No more double work. No more missed details. The system keeps itself clean.

→ Buying signals are clear. Smart platforms surface the hottest leads. Reps know exactly who to call, when to call, and what to say.

→ Tools remove the manual work. No more jumping between tabs. No more copy-paste. Everything is in one place, ready to go.

→ SDRs spend their time in conversations, not admin. The busywork is gone. The focus is back on what matters.

This is the new SDR workflow:

1. Open your dashboard.
2. See your top prospects, already prioritized.
3. Start real conversations.
4. Book meetings.
5. Move pipeline.

The future of the SDR role is not about being busier.

Just about selling more.

Less admin.

More pipeline.

This is how SDRs win now.

And this is how sales teams grow faster than ever.

Everyone wants to automate outbound.
Almost nobody wants to master it.

It's easier to launch a sequence than to build a message that actually earns a reply.
Easier to scale volume than to improve intent.
Easier to hide behind tools than to face the market directly.

But here’s the truth operators know:

Automation multiplies whatever you already are.
If your outreach is weak, automation makes it worse.
If your targeting is off, automation amplifies the noise.
If your message lacks clarity, automation accelerates irrelevance.

The real leverage comes from the work people avoid:

Understanding the buyer.
Testing angles manually.
Refining the offer until it hits.
Calling when others rely on templates.

Automation is not a strategy.
It’s a force multiplier.
And only disciplined outbound deserves to be multiplied.

Short calls create weak meetings.
Long calls create qualified meetings.

Here’s what the data tells us:

A meeting booked from a short call almost always leads to:
– shallow understanding of the product
– forced agreement
– high no show
– low qualification

A longer call where you asked real questions does the opposite:
– clearer context
– genuine interest
– stronger qualification
– lower no show

The logic is simple.
Great callers don’t try to finish fast.
They try to understand fast.

That’s why their meetings show up.
That’s why their pipeline stays clean.
That’s why they win.

If you want better results, stop chasing efficiency.
Start chasing intention.

Prospects feel it instantly.
And that’s how you keep your relationship with your AE healthy.

Outbound fails for one reason.

Reps cannot move fast.

Speed is everything.

When the workflow drags, the pipeline dies.
Not because reps lack skill.
Because the process blocks them.

Here is what actually kills outbound:

→ Too many steps
→ Too many tools
→ Too many choices
→ No clear timing signal
→ Weak or missing data enrichment

You cannot expect speed if the path is unclear.

Here is how to fix it:

→ One real signal per lead
A job change.
A new hire.
A new budget owner.
A funding round.
One clear reason to reach out. Nothing else.

→ One clear next action
Call. Email. Connect.
Pick one. Remove the noise.

→ A workflow reps can repeat 50 times a day
If the system slows them down, it is not a system.
It is just maintenance disguised as work.

This is why we built Surfe.

Clean contact data.
Real buying signals.
A single next action.
All inside the CRM.
No tab switching. No copy-paste. No friction.

Outbound wins on speed and timing.

Simple always wins.

Bootstrapping is a real choice.
Most people avoid it.

We built Surfe without a large fundraising round.

Not because we wanted a narrative.

Because it matched how we wanted to operate.

Here is what it actually looks like.

You grow from customer revenue.

You cannot outspend the market.

You move slower than funded competitors on hiring and marketing.

You make fewer bets, but you make them more carefully.

You stay close to customers because you have no other option.

You validate ideas before building.

You treat every euro as a resource.

You build a product that solves real problems because distractions cost money you do not have.

This is how Surfe evolved.

A simple LinkedIn to CRM shortcut that became a connected revenue workspace.

Built step by step.

Shaped by customers.

Paid by customers.

Bootstrapping is not easier.

It is simply a different constraint profile.

If you choose it, you trade speed for precision.

You trade visibility for discipline.

And you build a culture that learns to operate without outside fuel.

It is not better or worse.

It is a path.

And for us, it became the right one.

Sales used to be simple.
You called. You listened. You sold.

Then the internet arrived.
More data. More tools. More fields to update.
CRMs made storage easier but made the job heavier.

Reps stopped selling and started maintaining systems.

Now we are entering a different era.

AI, automations, and modern tooling can finally take the admin away.
All the logging, updating, checking, cleaning, searching.

Which means one thing:

Reps can go back to selling.
Not guessing. Not clicking. Selling.

The teams who win this decade will be the ones who remove the admin, not the ones who add more steps.

Less maintenance. More conversations. More revenue.

taplio

The Battle

Benjamin Donteville

David Chevalier

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreBenjamin Donteville's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDavid Chevalier's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Benjamin Donteville

David Chevalier

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);}Benjamin Donteville's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDavid Chevalier's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreBenjamin Donteville's LinkedIn Performance