Buyer Led Growth | Go-to-Market Acceleration for companies with $5mm - $50mm in revenue

The Internet is flooded with advice on how to scale from $0 to $100MM, which is a dangerous trap.

The "hyperscale" advice may be entertaining and aspirational, but it is not very applicable to companies that need to drive growth with capital efficiency.

I help B2B companies with $5MM - $50MM in revenue create value by demystifying Go-to-Market with a simple framework called #BuyerLedGrowth.

In the last 15 years, I've created 3 companies, sold two of them and advised nearly 50. The common theme?

Companies get "stuck" at $10MM / $20MM / $30MM in revenue. They are likely still growing, but that growth is HARD and getting harder. 

The leadership roles in marketing, sales and even customer success have become revolving doors. Two steps forward, 1.5 steps back.

These headwinds have become even more challenging as the shift in B2B buyer expectations accelerate, requiring a comprehensive, integrated revenue engine.

I help companies break through these growth barriers in a variety of roles;
- Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Yield Group
- Operating Partner at Boathouse Capital
- Limited Partner in and advisor to Stage 2 Capital

gtmPRO.co is the place that my team and I "open source" our frameworks, templates and learnings (coming soon!)

We are driven to help take the friction out of growth and help functional revenue leaders expand into well-rounded business leaders.

Most importantly, I am blessed to be a husband to my wife and a father to our 4 children. 🙏

Gary Schwake

Stage 2 Capital

Backed by 800+ GTM Executives from the Cloud 100 and Fortune 500, Stage 2 Capital is the first VC firm to help founders build best-in-class revenue engines. I’ve been brought on to further grow, involve, and connect our incredible Investor/LP Community focused on fundraising, portfolio/founder support, executive connections, talent placement, and more. If you are a GTM executive ready to take your career to the next level, or a founder looking for a VC partner to help you grow scalable revenue, we’d love to hear from you!

Operating Partner, LP Relations 

Cantos Ventures

Cantos is a first-round venture capital firm investing with a frontier technology thesis. Portfolio includes high-growth companies like Astranis, Public, Humane, Knowde, SkyRyse, Dusty, Alice, Solugen, and more -- visit the complete portfolio at Cantos.VC

LP & Talent Advisor

VP TALENT

Vanetta Partners operated from 2014 - 2022 as a highly specialized boutique search firm focused on building GTM (Sales/Marketing/CS/RevOps), Technical (Product) and People (CoS/Talent) teams for VC and PE backed organizations.  Each one of our client partners was a passion project where we customized a bespoke recruiting strategy to fit their unique organizational needs. With a focus on specialty outbound sourcing, our clients were paired with talent recruited solely for their key positions. We built early teams and worked with Founders / C-Suite at notable companies like Zoom, Algolia, Xamarin (MSFT), Zendesk, Applitools, Evinced, to name a few.

Founder & CEO - Vanetta Partners

Zight

Zight (formerly CloudApp) Advised and drove talent acquisition, as well as growth strategy. If you aren't already one of CloudApp's 2 Million happy users, join us here: www.getcloudapp.com/  
Share anything, anywhere -- you'll wonder how you ever worked without it.

Investor & Advisor

Archipelo

Learn about Developer Security at Archipelo.com

Investor

Premier Talent Partners

Built sales teams with top caliber talent for SV’s most innovative venture-backed companies.

Director, Sales Recruiting 

Before joining Stage 2 Capital, I spent a decade recruiting best-in-class GTM professionals. My career began in 2012 at Premier, followed by founding Vanetta Partners (2014-2022), a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Partnerships, RevOps, and People Operations roles for stealth-to-scale startups. I had the privilege of working with notable startups like Zoom, Xamarin (acq: Microsoft), Zendesk, Plaid, Algolia, Evinced, Dialpad, Legion Technologies, and SendBird, to name a few.

Over my ten years in search and placement, I partnered with numerous VC firms, which inspired me to become a Limited Partner, reinvesting in the next generation of founders through aligned VC funds. This journey led me to invest as an LP with our co-founders Mark Roberge (Founding CRO, HubSpot / HBS) and Jay Po (formerly Bessemer Capital) ultimately leading to my current role as Operating Partner focused on LP Relations—our spin on IR, which encompasses portfolio GTM support, formal advisory board development, executive hire placements, LP community engagement, and fundraising.

I’m thrilled to collaborate with some of the sharpest minds in technology and GTM, including my partner on the LP Relations team and fellow Operating Partner, John Boucher (GTM Advisor to Seismic and Gainsight, and former EVP at Oracle and ServiceNow).

A bit more about Stage 2 Capital: We’re the first VC firm run and backed by over 800+ GTM Operator LPs from industry leaders like Datadog, Atlassian, Snowflake, Salesforce, MongoDB, Databricks, Stripe, Klaviyo, Zoom, HubSpot, Asana, Toast, Webflow, Calendly, Canva, and many other Cloud 100 and S&P 500 companies.

If you’re an early-stage founder or GTM Operator curious about Stage 2 Capital, I’d love to connect and share more!

Andi Vanetta Smith

I’m stepping into a new chapter this week with immense gratitude, and excited to share what’s ahead for me professionally in 2026... ✨

Little did I know that a 2018 dinner invitation from my friend and mentor Mark Roberge, where I met and sat next to his co-founder, Jay Po, would begin one of the most formative friendships and chapters of my life. From that day forward, Jay and I met regularly to mind-meld on the vision for Stage 2— he brought an infectious level of ambition, vision, and verve, the likes of which I had never experienced before, earning him a nickname I coined that would stick: the ProdiJAY.

I’m grateful to Jay and Mark for recognizing a clear through-line between my ethos as a master connector and founder of a white-glove GTM recruiting firm, and their vision for the vast ecosystem that would become what Stage 2 Capital is today. 

After first joining as an LP, I transitioned to Operating Partner in 2021, alongside my incredible partner, John Boucher (JB) where together we built the LP Relations function from the ground up. At the time, there were 250 GTM LPs on the heels of Fund II, and today, as Fund IV comes to a close, we’re soon to cross 1000 GTM LPs combined with our Catalyst fund, and I couldn’t be more proud of the show-stopping community we’ve built.

Using my love for matchmaking world class founders to their best co-pilots, and identifying / placing needle moving startup talent, I played a big part in bringing to life LP and founder-centric platform initiatives like Functional Advisor LP placements, the Stage 2 Flash, Dear Stage 2, Community Modalities, and our global events calendar spotlighting both our portfolio and the GTM expertise of our LP base.

From this foundation, I’m excited to share what’s next— a new venture I’ve felt called to bring to life, one that returns me to my roots and passion for identifying extraordinary talent, grounded in 12+ years’ experience partnering closely with founders to build high-caliber teams...

APRÈS-VC — for building after the raise 🏔️ 

I’ll reserve a core focus for Stage 2 founders and their key executive hires in 2026 and beyond. At the same time, I’m opening the aperture to work with my broader network, bringing everything I’ve learned as an Operating Partner in VC, along with the focus, rigor, and standard of excellence shaped by the last 5 years inside Stage 2.

I’m deeply grateful for the lifelong friendships and exceptional humans I’ve had the privilege of building alongside: Mark, Jay, John, Sean, Mandy, Liz, Kevin, Sakib, and Erin. There truly aren’t enough words. You have stretched me, inspired me, and made me better in every category. 

And last but not least, to our incredible founders and LPs who I've had the great honor of building deep connective tissue with since day one— every interaction left a lasting impression and shaped my idea of what’s possible. I'll see you at the next LP Summit, or here in SF, anytime. 

See you on the Black Diamond 🎿  
 
Andi ✨

Andi Vanetta

//APRÈS-VC — Building After the Raise | Operating Partner-Led Executive, Advisor + Board Search

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