Eric Lay

founder & ceo | b2b gtm for vertical saas

Building virio.ai

A done-for-you content service and AI coworker for B2B companies to turn LinkedIn into their #1 GTM channel.

Founding Partner

Hosting private dinners, socials & events for Toronto's top VC backed founders. Partnerships with companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Collision, Elevate, Inovia VC, Forum VC & many more!

ElevenLabs hit $330M ARR by doing something 99% of AI companies still don't understand:

They turned voice AI into human connection at scale.

2022: Two Polish founders started building in a London flat
2025: $330M ARR, millions of creators, Fortune 500 adoption

From day one, ElevenLabs built for multiple languages, while competitors went all in on English markets.

Here is the team behind the mission:

Mati Staniszewski (Co-Founder, 71K followers): Shares what it's really like to be behind the scenes of scaling a tech company and how voice is becoming the new interface. Posts on how voice is the new interface and champions the teams, partners, and customers behind the mission.

Carles Reina (VP Revenue & First Investor, 31K followers): One of the first on the Uber Europe team, then helped scale Tractable AI (a unicorn) globally. Then moved over to ElevenLabs when they had less than 10 people. Now he is running everything GTM and shares everything from hiring to launching in new markets and calling out "Founder-led sales". 

Rohit Sharma (GTM, 23K followers): Travels the world demoing the product to hundreds of people. Shares what it's like to be in a pool of world-class talent 🤝 ambitious mission. 

Luke Harries (Growth, 18K): Previous YC founder now heads up the growth team and shares successful campaigns for ElevenLabs. Works with Alec to share the breakdown of the strategy behind hitting 100k subscribers on Youtube and growing the Instagram company page to 24k in one month. Believes that all mobile design will move towards liquid glass. 😮‍💨

Alec Wilcock (Social Media, 6.4K followers): The guy behind their 100k follower growth on Instagram, and proves the ROI of content. He and the team made a video in English that led to 350k views, then dubbed it in 7 languages using ElevenLabs and hit 150k+ impressions (🚀30%). Proves that doubling down on what's working is a thing.

Other people behind the mission:
Ludovit Nastisin (AI Creative Producer, 16.6K): AI content creator who also partner with other beasts in the tech world: Figma Weave, Runway, Freepik, Higgsfield, Mago.

Chibuzor Oluo (GTM, 6K followers): Driver of the GTM motion.

Ben Budde (GTM, 6.6K followers): Shares team milestones and shares product updates.

Dustin Blank (Partnerships, 7.4K followers): Heading up partnerships as part of their insane growth.

Together, they have:

→ Team posting the latest product insights
→ Millions of creators using the product daily
→ Fortune 500 companies: Deliveroo, Epic, Meta, Square

This is why ElevenLabs dominates.

CEO @ Virio | Content that drives pipeline

🚨 Excited to announce we added $1M ARR in 30 days by turning LinkedIn content into the #1 revenue driver for Fortune 500 companies and the fastest growing AI startups in the world.

The crazy part is this almost never happened…

My gaming startup fell apart a few years ago. I moved back to Toronto thinking a break would help me reset. Instead, I spent months feeling more lost than ever. Just this gnawing sense that I'd wasted years building the wrong thing.

Fast forward to the last 30 days:
- Added $1M ARR
- Onboarded 5 full-time employees in SF
- Sponsored 3 international visa’s
- Spent $14,736 on Doordash

Here's what matters more than the numbers:

We found ways to turn content from just a brand investment to something that's directly tied to revenue. 

To my co-founder Emmett Chen-Ran - After years of failed co-founder attempts, I'd almost given up on finding the right partner. I needed someone who could see what I couldn't, communicate ideas that made mine better, and think in ways that challenged me. Honestly, I couldn't have done this without you.

To our team - I'm so proud of every single person that is part of Virio. No one wants to win more than us. I feel very grateful to have a group of people who are so personally aligned on challenging themselves everyday to be the best at their craft. When you are around people that are willing to dedicate so much to their work, it compounds and is inspiring for everyone.

We're hiring top 1% LinkedIn creators who want to build the number one company in the world.

People share big milestones, and they make it look easier than it is. It may look like overnight success, but this was years of trial and error to get to this point.

Back to building ⚒️

If you're a B2B founder wanting the secret sauce to driving revenue through LinkedIn, this workshop is for you. Here are 5 VIRAL posts from the speakers 👇

Combined: 330K+ followers, and proven systems that turn content into revenue.

1. Me (Virio, 38K followers) - "The most effective GTM playbook ever"

146 meetings with decision makers in 60 days. Multiple six-figure contracts signed. 400K impressions in 2 months. Built a repeatable content + community system.

https://lnkd.in/esY4rsqe

2. Max Rascher (120K followers) - "The 🐐 ChatGPT Cheat Sheet"

Became one of the fastest-growing AI voices by solving real problems with tactical content.

https://lnkd.in/eCvVhmpZ?

3. Tanay Kothari ( Wispr Flow , 53K, growing 150% QoQ) - "Google sent me a cease and desist at 13"

Built 2.5M users while his parents thought he was watching Power Rangers. Now scaling Wispr Flow with the same constraints.

https://lnkd.in/e5sd2b5C

4. Conor Brennan-Burke ( Hyperspell (YC F25), 11K) - "After 7 applications to Y Combinator"

From sleeping in a closet to YC F25. Built paying customers before the acceptance.

https://lnkd.in/eqCUxwK2

5. Josh Sirota ( Eragon, 9K) - "Today I am introducing Eragon"

Turned product launch into pipeline by showing the problem, not just the solution.

https://lnkd.in/e7wa-P9P

This Sunday, we're breaking down the exact systems for you to replicate just this.

If you'd like to attend, like + comment and I will share the registration link 👊

🦄 → 🦄🦄🦄🦄 Synthesia just raised a $200M Series E at a $4B valuation. The team scaled from $42M to $150M ARR in under 2 years by doing something 99% of AI companies still can't understand:

2017: Four AI researchers started building in London
2025: $146M ARR, 60K+ customers, 90% of Fortune 100 clients

Competitors went all in on viral consumer features. Synthesia took a different approach… They built for Fortune 100 compliance teams in 140+ languages.

Here are some of the people behind the mission:

Victor Riparbelli (Co-Founder & CEO, 64K followers): uses LinkedIn to share the growth of Synthesians and shares glimpses of what’s next for video. Fun fact: led a World of Warcraft guild as a teenager, and used a voice changer so people would take him seriously. Genius 🤯

Steffen Tjerrild (COO & Co-founder, 22.6K followers): On stage constantly sharing what Synthesia is building... even presented to Jensen Huang (the AI Godfather). Someone buy this guy another pink unicorn.

Kevin Alster (Strategic Advisor, 15.2K followers): Founded Synthesia Academy to scale customer onboarding. Calls out why traditional LD doesn't work and how companies should tackle this instead.

Jakob Marovt (SVP of Marketing, 12.7K followers): Started as Head of Growth and scaled alongside the company, sharing growth and engineering principles the whole way. Scaling the team now - they're hiring engineers (throw him some intros if you know of anyone talented).

Evan Kelsay (Strategic Accounts, 8.1K followers): Posts about why video beats text 95% to 10% on retention and how Fortune 100 companies are converting boring PDFs to AI video. The guy behind Synthesia working with 70%+ of Fortune 100.

Other people behind the mission:

Cory Snyder (Principle Partnership Manager, 8.2K followers): Recently joined the team, but has a track record of making partner programs and partner orgs. 

Ash Turner (Influencer Marketing, 7.8K followers): Built Synthesia's influencer program from scratch in 10 months... 200+ creator activations, 10M+ impressions globally.

Conrad Riparbelli(Creator Partnerships Manager, 3.4K followers): Scouts out for the best creators to partner with and demo their latest features (Max being one of them 👀).

Together, they have:
→ Work with over 70% of the Fortune 100
→ 60,000+ businesses using the product
→ Amazon, SAP, Xerox, Bosch, Zoom, UiPath, Spotify

Huge congrats on the raise. Excited to see what they ship next!

Growing Tofu 🌱 • Fun B2B Marketing in the AI era

I moved from Toronto to SF, went from founder to sales to first marketing hire, and now lead growth at Tofu.
I think a lot about how to build things that actually matter ~ in work, in community, in life. 

Call it ikigai-seeking. 💛

I'm a marketing leader with a revenue-first founder mindset. A lot of my work lives at the intersection of community, experiences, and growth ~ building value-creating engines that actually drive pipeline, not just impressions!

Most of what I share here is how I actually use AI as a marketing lead. Real constraints, real tradeoffs, real learnings from an operator just trying to keep up with the pace of how fast technology is changing. 

Always learning. Sharing what I find along the way. ✨

—

I host events at least once a week, I'm obsessed with the art of communication (shoutout NVC), and mindfulness teachings changed my life.

Livia Han

Why I chose SF over NYC for my career

If you came for a NYC hate post, spoiler this is NOT IT! I love NY and hope to live there at some point :)

I get this question a lot so thought I would share here. 

If you were like me choosing between SF and NYC for your career, here's my experience

✨ Nature & lifestyle fit ~ I love nature, and being able to walk outside and run by the ocean still feels unreal! Driving 1-3 hours in any direction on the weekend = even more hiking & nature! 

✨ SF is admittedly boring at night (sorry), everything closes early, it's more house hangs and wine bars than nightlife. But I'm a bit of a grandma on the inside who loves early mornings, and I'm in a season of life where I'm not drawn to drinking much anyway.

✨ Career & talent density ~ I knew I wanted to stay in B2B SaaS x AI, as it's been my background. If you've seen any billboard in SF, you know what I mean (lol).The density of founders and "cracked" talent here makes serendipitous encounters so much easier. The network effects here are unreal. Walk into any café and I'd bet you'll find at least a couple people talking about what they're building, their latest raise, or recruiting.

✨ Visa practicality: I needed a company to sponsor my visa. Because of how common it is here (literally 50% of the people I meet are Canadians/other nationalities on work visas 😂), I felt my chances were higher than anywhere else.

Why NYC could be the move

NYC has a bit of EVERYTHING, and that's what makes it one of the most incredible cities. The highs are so high, the lows are so low, across every spectrum. Every industry, career, and dream you can think of exists there.
If I wasn't in B2B SaaS and wanted health-tech, fintech, or consumer? I'd definitely choose NY.

Honestly, I thought I'd get too distracted there because it has so many things I also love and just general diversity of events & entertainment. I knew this was a "Career Era" for me, and SF felt like an easier place to lock in because of how the environment is structured.

I also feared I'd burn out quicker in NY bc of the lack of nature! 

The shadow side of SF

It can be lonely. Everyone here is working. (esp if you're in the tech bubble) Many of my friends are on 9-9-6 schedules, and we're potato's afterward. Sometimes you can't tell if a coffee chat is someone wanting to network or actually build a friendship, it can feel transactional because everyone's chasing the next hot thing and assessing if you're "worth their time."

It's also an AI bubble. Everyone's IN it, (including me). That can be an echo chamber, but it cuts both ways, it accelerates learning and can narrow your perspective.

It was a tradeoff I was willing to make.

NYC friends, I'd love to hear why you chose New York for anyone that is also trying to make this decision right now! 💛

Growth Lead @ Tofu | Optimistic shares about how I use AI in Marketing

GTM/Marketing Friends!! Who here has been using claude cowork and has some fun + impactful use cases to share? genuine question! 

I've been itching to use claude cowork and downloaded the desktop app on my laptop today: I'm curious for those who've tried, what are some use cases that you've liked using it for? 

So far I got it to consolidate a bunch of information, meeting notes & PPTs from our SKO last week for next steps and to start actioning on, but feel like I could do the same in the chat functionality as well! I would LOVE to use it to its full capabilities but am in need of some inspiration with use cases (and yes I did try asking claude for suggestions already, I don't necessarily need my files organizes rn) help a girl out 💛 

another use case have been looking to build an almost-automated content engine with blog posts for us that are both creative, value add and AEO optimized - hopefully connecting between meeting notes from granola, youtube videos, tofu, profound etc... has anybody done something similar?

would love to learn together 🫶

The same 4 themes came up in every convo with demand gen VPs this past month


ICP is changing faster than marketing can adapt

Annual ICP reviews aren't cutting it anymore! One leader told me they revisit ICP quarterly now. AI is shifting how buyers build solutions internally, org chargs are changing, competitors are shipping faster than product teams, by the time messaging is locked, the pain points have already moved

The shift from leads to pipeline is real

4-7 years ago, demand gen was about MQLs. Webinars, ads, volume. Now it's pipeline sourced, deal acceleration, revenue. One leader walked me through W-shaped attribution, a newer POV where you weight first touch, touch right before sales accepted, and last touch before close. It's not "did this generate a lead" anymore. It's "did this move the deal forward."

Pipeline requires the whole team now

Demand gen can't own pipeline alone, but in most marketing orgs, they're still the only revenue/quota carrying role. Creative has different KPIs. Product marketing owns messaging. Demand gen is left trying to get buy in and stitching campaigns toether. The leaders adapting are the ones building tighter cross-functional loops and shared accountability! 

There's always two buckets: always-on and experimental

Every leader I talked to has campaigns that need to be "always-on"~ nurture, re-engagement, lifecycle ~ and then new bets they want to test, in any given year. the problem? Historically, the always-on stuff eats up all the bandwidth, leaving little room to experiment. That's what we're helping demand gen teams solve at Tofu! 😇 Automate the always-on, so you can be at peace and focus on the new. 

Demand gen friends, we're in this together! 💛 Curious what else you've been seeing and how you're keeping up with all the changes?

taplio

The Battle

Eric Lay

Livia Han

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taplio

The Battle

Eric Lay

Livia Han

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);}Eric Lay's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreLivia Han's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreEric Lay's LinkedIn Performance