flux+flow

An agile revenue marketing agency that designs scalable demand generation strategies for B2B SaaS (Series B-D) companies. 

•	Develop scalable growth marketing strategies using sales and marketing automation software to measure, optimize, and improve overall performance. Generate qualified leads, increase revenue, and maximize ROI. Worked with over 25+ startups and SMBs in North America, Europe, and Australia. 
•	Develop and execute a clearly defined marketing strategy to drive rapid growth, focusing on creating scalable growth marketing strategies. 
•	Drove paid traffic via Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and twitter ads which led to increased website traffic YoY by: Users: +1,050%; Session: +1,089%; Bounce Rate: -54%; Session Duration: +154%.
•	Created a comprehensive inbound marketing content strategy (e.g., 25+ blogs, 30+ downloadable long-form assets, and 6 pillar pages).
•	Worked with a variety of clients using various sales and marketing automation tools ranging from basic email automation (e.g., MailChimp) to enterprise marketing automation platforms (e.g., HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot).

Co-founder / Revenue Marketing Lead

Transfix

Named to Forbes’ “Next Billion-Dollar Startups” list, Transfix is the leading transportation solutions provider whose marketplace and technology offerings are helping transform the $800 billion trucking industry.

Recruited by Transfix in Q2 2022 as the 1st Demand Generation hire Series D funding/pre-IPO to help build a revenue marketing team while managing two direct reports, Senior Demand Generation Manager and Senior Marketing Operations Manager. 

💰  Revenue Marketing Impact: 
🔼 275% QoQ MQL volume increase
🔼 225% QoQ Opp volume increase
🔼 129% QoQ Pipeline increase
🔼  9.32% QoQ Revenue increase (lagging)

🎯  Developed a demand generation strategy to support 2 GTM motions: SaaS and B2B Marketplace, and 3 ICP segments with an estimated TAM of $800bn. 

📕  Adapted a proven Revenue Marketing Playbook to support the Enterprise ABM sales motion, leading to 54.66% LinkedIn engagement of Enterprise TAM accounts and 40.08% visiting the Transfix.io website.

💰. Oversaw six-figure digital annual ad spend to — ensure efficient capital deployment — support paid social and paid search while continually testing and optimizing targeting, messaging, and creative to increase CTRs, and decrease CPC and CPL. 

🤝  Part of a 17-person marketing team consisting of demand generation, marketing operations, product marketing, content, creative, and event marketing.  

⚙️. Operational Efficiency 

🏭.  Insights Factory 

💡. Ensured sales and marketing alignment by frequently collaborating with three sales teams and over two dozen AEs — providing valuable market insights to accelerate deal flow. 

🔎  Collaborated with product marketing and internal SMEs to uncover what messaging resonated with our ICP segments and buyer personas — helped jumpstart the VoC research process by leveraging the Wynter B2B message testing platform. 

🧭. Provided market and paid social/search experiment insights to the content marketing team to help guide the organic content strategy.

Director of Demand Generation & Marketing Operations

Refine Labs

Recruited by Refine Labs in Q2 2021 — the first cohort of Director of Demand Generation before scaling headcount to 125.  

Developed Demand Gen strategies for (4) high-growth B2B SaaS companies and managed $2.2M in total ad spend. 

Managed Sr. Performance Marketing Manager and collaborated with (4) Creative Directors, (5) Direct Response Copywriters, (6) Graphic Designers, and the marketing analytics manager. 

Developed frameworks to increase operational efficiency by 25% and reduced QBR reporting time by 75% — adopted by the broader Demand Generation teams. 

Series C SaaS Platform — $100M Funding Round

Designed a 9-month pilot revenue marketing program for the U.K. market — ran 18 experiments testing 54/18 message/creative variations to inform global demand strategy for 15 countries  

Advised in developing MarTech roadmap to efficiently scale Demand Gen spend by 185% after closing a $100M Series C

Increased website-generated leads by 120% and inbound demo requests by 166% in the first five months of the U.K. pilot resulting in a 148% increase in qualified inbound meetings booked 

Series B SaaS Platform — $40M Funding Round

Implemented a proven B2B SaaS Demand Gen playbook to jumpstart their revenue marketing engine
Scaled ad spend by 700% over three quarters, resulting in a 100% increase in marketing-generated ARR 

Series B SaaS Platform — $37M Funding Round

Scaled spend by 300% in Q3 2021 by implementing Demand Gen playbook and exceeded target marketing-generated SQO volume by 12%, resulting in a $2.7M total qualified pipeline

Accelerated marketing-generated deal velocity by 15% and increased the marketing-generated average ARR per deal by 44% resulting in 110% QoQ pipeline growth

Series A SaaS Platform — $9M Growth Round

Advised C-suite on Demand Gen strategy supporting a split GTM motion (sales-led and PLG) 

Increased marketing-generated pipeline by 93% QoQ resulting in a 67% increase in closed won deals

Increased PLG signups by 17% QoQ

Director of Demand Generation

Concentric

Prescriptive analytics for strategic decisions. What-if software to manage uncertainty and make informed decisions. Prescriptive analytics provides the most value to businesses hoping to optimize their actions. Each prior capability builds upon the other to provide businesses with the decision support they need the most: The ability to make forecasts come true.

• Responsible for managing and generating demand through content marketing and advertising
• Collaborate with the sales team to ensure that marketing is supporting the sales process by creating new content and digital experiences
• Manage and optimize the web experience (e.g., site performance, web enhancements, technical SEO, copywriting)
• Manage external resources (e.g., content agency, copywriters, freelancers, advertising partners) to help scale our marketing efforts 
• Manage the marketing automation platform (i.e., HubSpot) and ensure that the digital experience supports the customer journey

Demand Generation Manager

Codiscope (A Part of Synopsys)

An early-stage CyberSecurity SaaS startup, providing a suite of accessible security training and tools, streamlined tools for a broad population of developers. 

***Codiscope was acquired by Synopsys on 11/30/2016***

Smart, Secure Everything—From Silicon to Software. Synopsys technology is at the heart of innovations that are changing the way we live and work. 

•	Developed and executed a comprehensive B2B marketing strategy which increased traffic by 542% YoY. Focused on content marketing strategy, marketing technology (e.g., Marketo and HubSpot), SEO/SEM strategy, and analytics/reporting.
•	Managed the entire implementation process of Marketo marketing automation platform. 
•	Built an email database of 15,000 contacts through various customer acquisition strategies (e.g., SEM, SEO, paid social, targeted email campaigns via newsletters, guest blogging). Execute campaigns for acquisition, product marketing and customer marketing.
•	Built and scaled demand-gen and sales enablement capabilities across web, email, social media, advertising, and content marketing. 


✔ HubSpot Marketing Software Certified
✔ HubSpot Inbound Certified

Marketo Marketing Automation:

• Designed custom responsive Marketo email templates (HTML/CSS/Marketo Variables)
• Designed custom responsive Marketo landing page templates (HTML/CSS/Marketo Variables)
• Planned and developed persona specific lead nurturing campaigns
• Configured custom "Smart Campaigns"
• Lead scoring
• Salesforce.com data sync with Marketo
• Build and manage custom reports for lead attribution

Salesforce.com

• Campaign creation for tracking in Marketo
• Marketo sales insights and lead scoring
• Customized fields in SFDC to improve the accuracy of reporting metrics

• Paid Advertising: Google AdWords
• Google Analytics
• WordPress CMS Management
• Wista (Video Marketing & Analytics Platform)
• SEO/SEM intelligence reports (Moz.com & SEMRush)
• Technical SEO
• Website Optimization

Digital Marketing Manager

Universal Medical Inc

Provides medical and laboratory supplies for hospitals and private practices throughout the United States

• Increased web traffic by 1500% by creating compelling blog content educating potential buyers on the firm’s various products. 
• Developed an inbound marketing strategy to reduce UM’s dependency on paid advertising for customer acquisition — average monthly paid spend of $80,000 — reduced ad spend by 20%. 
• Researched and created unique buyer personas to drive the content marketing strategy. 
• Managed the entire creative process for over 350 product videos used to drive SEO/SEM.
• Oversaw Pardot marketing automation implementation and developed responsive email marketing templates, responsive landing and thank you pages, and forms. 
• Developed a program of repeatable lead generation activities that met revenue targets, achieving a 17% increase in sales. Designed a comprehensive email database segmentation strategy (e.g., 25,000+ contacts) to create 12 product category campaign.
 
Marketing Metrics/KPIs

✓ eCommerce Traffic ↑
✓ Blog Traffic ↑
✓ Social Media ↑
✓ Email List ↑
✓ Video Engagement↑
✓ Landing Page Conversions ↑

Marketing Skills Summary

✓ Copywriting
✓ Social Media
✓ Google Analytics
✓ Marketing Automation
✓ Adobe Creative Cloud
✓ HTML & CSS
✓ SEO/SEM 

Business Skills Summary

✓ Communication
✓ Relationship Building
✓ Project Management
✓ Goal Setting
✓ Adaptability

Inbound Marketing Specialist

Startup Institute

Selected by Startup Institute in a highly competitive process to attend intensive training program focused on developing the core skills in Digital Marketing. Startup Institute's digital marketing track provides relevant training to help students become a comprehensive digital marketer: performance and content marketing, plus a focus on generating actionable insights from data analytics. Modern digital marketers are tasked with designing campaigns that speak to multiple audience segments, inspiring them into action, and measuring the results to make data-fueled business decisions. 

Marketers in the innovation industry are scrappy, creative, and agile - able to drive big growth on a small budget and with limited resources. SIBs digital marketing track provides students with the experience and training necessary to become a self-sufficient marketer, whose aim is to help a company increase their customer base by a factor of 10. 

Curriculum: SEO, Google Analytics, paid media, inbound marketing, landing page creation, content marketing, email marketing, branding, social media audits, mapping customer segmentation, content management, and HTML/CSS.

Key Skills and Capabilities:

✓ Email marketing and landing page optimization
✓ Best practices for inbound and outbound marketing plans
✓ Working with analytics platforms and SQL
✓ Placing, testing, and optimizing paid advertising
✓ Improving website visibility through content development and targeted keyword usage

Digital Marketing Student

LidWorks - M&N Plastics, Inc.

The global foodservice industry’s premier lid manufacturer

• Oversaw the entire B2B marketing strategy, including advertisements in industry publications, Google AdWords and Yahoo/Bing PPC campaigns to drive search traffic. Worked with a 3rd party eCommerce platform (CyberStore for Syspro ERP software) to provide an additional sales channel.
• Helped grow the business through designing, developing, and pitching digital strategy for key clients and working on high level campaigns: Dunkin’ Donuts, Subway, Burger King, Wendy’s, KFC, and Panera Bread
• Evaluated and reported results of web initiatives, including SEO, email marketing, and E-commerce.
• Increased unique visitor website traffic by 540% within one year of hire. 
• Product development team member tasked with researching and validating new items to add to the new product pipeline.
• Managed brand image, created product literature and advertising that supported corporate identity.
• Conducted market research focused on competitive analysis, strategic growth initiatives, and data analysis.
• Acted as a project liaison between sales and engineering to ensure successful collaboration and engagement.
• Gained a greater understanding of finance, IT, and engineering by collaborating with cross-functional teams to improve process efficiencies in product development and data collection/analysis.

Digital Marketing and Sales Enablement Representative 

UFP Industries

A multibillion-dollar, publicly traded, sales-and-manufacturing powerhouse, with approximately 5,000 people and 70 facilities across North America.

• Selected for the new business transition team to assist in the newly acquired Home Depot contract.
• Developed a comprehensive lead generation strategy to increase organic sales for the plant.
• Utilized Microsoft Dynamics CRM to streamline and improve the selling process.
• Collaborated with various departments in the plant to increase efficiency and sales margins.

Account Manager

A multibillion-dollar, publicly traded, sales-and-manufacturing powerhouse, with approximately 5,000 people and 70 facilities across North America.

• Developed a sales process and strategy by interviewing successful Account/Sales Managers to understand effective selling techniques within the industry.  
• Learned company products, policies and procedures, and performs basic sales and customer service activities.
• Assisted in sales, customer service and production activities as assigned by the General Manager.
• Attended and successfully completed intensive one-week boot camp of comprehensive studies. 
• Positive, team player that took a "roll up your sleeves" approach towards any challenge or obstacle that came my way. 
• Shadowed successful Account Managers to learn selling techniques and strategies.
• Self-managed worked well under little supervision.

Sales Trainee

Sherwin Williams

Sherwin-Williams is proud to be one of Fortune® magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

• Oversaw operations of a $1.9M branch, generating new business and growing existing account sales.
• Increased accessory sales by 29% in 2009 over previous year by cross-promoting products.
• Converted 500+ retail customers into DIY accounts in 2009 increased 2010 DIY sales by 21%.
• Utilized store reports and lead generation database to target opportunity accounts.
•Analyzed market conditions: competition, trends, issues and opportunities
•Worked with the Store Manager developing the annual sales plan and identifying KPI's to assist in revenue and margin growth
•Ensured the satisfaction of both wholesale and do-it-yourself customers and building positive long-term relationships
•Communicate effectively with customers, employees and other business partners
•Trained, coached and managed store employees
•Made decisions regarding pricing, credit and other customer issues
•Managed employees time and resources effectively

Operations Manager

Our Management Training Program has been named one of Princeton Review's® "Best Entry Level Jobs." 

Sherwin-Williams looks for specific traits in management trainees. We seek individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit, energy, a strong work ethic, integrity and flexibility.

• Built customer loyalty through friendly, efficient service 
• Built positive working relationships with managers, co-workers and other business partners 
• Worked as a member of the team, helping the store achieve its performance goals 
• Tapped into people, resources and information to make good decisions 
• Demonstrated strong time-management skills 
• Continued to learn the business and improve on industry, marketing and product knowledge

Management/Sales Training Program

Hi there!  👋 

As an experienced revenue marketing leader, I’m committed to helping B2B marketing leaders running Hybrid and Sales-led GTM motions at Series B SaaS companies increase qualified opportunities, develop sustainable marketing-generated pipeline, and hit revenue targets while spending less and listening more to customers.


The formula for B2B SaaS success:

🤝 People ➕ 📱Product ➕  ⚙️ Process 🟰 Efficient Growth 📈

What are you going to do about revenue?

Revenue Marketing's answer: 

1️⃣ Efficiently create and capture demand to deliver sales qualified leads to the sales team (low CAC Payback Period, LTV:CAC, etc.) 🎯

2️⃣ Accelerate qualified sales opportunities through the sales pipeline 📈

3️⃣ Design a resilient system to measure marketing based on repeatable, predictable, and scalable contribution to pipeline, revenue, and ROI ⚙️ (not MQLs) 

4️⃣ Transform marketing from a cost center to a PROFIT CENTER 💰

What motivates me? 

🟢 Help organizations transform their marketing department from a cost center to a revenue center by improving operational efficiency, identifying growth levers, and reducing customer acquisition costs.  

🟢 Help bring products and organizations to life by building meaningful connections and trust with humans — find out what they want/need by conducting VoC/market research and analyzing market feedback.

🟢 Help high-performing revenue-focused marketing teams get the respect they deserve as most companies view their marketing department as a cost center rather than a revenue center. 

What gets me up each day? 

As an Agile revenue marketing leader, I'm focused on building a repeatable, predictable, and scalable customer-first Revenue Marketing practice. 

Why it matters? 

B2B organizations need to stop thinking about the traditional and outdated (oversimplified, company-centric) sales funnel — it's time to rethink their entire GTM strategy and take a holistic approach to customer acquisition by adopting a new customer acquisition model that puts the customer and audience first. 

It's time to ditch the siloed thinking of the past and rally around one common organizational goal — 
increasing REVENUE. 

The Three Pillars:

1️⃣ Revenue Marketing (Strategy)

2️⃣ Operational Efficiency (Agile Marketing)

3️⃣ Insights Factory (Marketing Operations) 

Marketing's role has changed, and B2B SaaS companies now expect marketing teams to own a revenue number.  

Let's GO!

Kevin Jaquith (JAKE-with)

Vice President at Spiralyze | Optimization | CRO for B2B SaaS

Through GTMnow (the media brand of VC firm, GTMfund), I help share content to help companies grow revenue and individuals scale their careers. Subscribe to build, scale, and invest with the best minds in tech.

I host The GTMnow Podcast (top 1% global podcast) and write The GTMnow Newsletter (read by 50k+ operators, founders and investors). 

Tech moats are declining; distribution is the final remaining moat. Your go-to-market strategy and execution determine your outcome. 

--

Passionate people person. Passionate about global education. 
Life is short, and there are 1440 minutes in every day. Make the most of them, make a difference, and enjoy the ride.

Sophie Buonassisi

He was the first sales hire and scaled Snowflake from 0 customers to $4B and an IPO 🤯 

The average tenure for a CRO is 18 months… and Chris Degnan led sales for 11 years through 4 different CEOs. 

Key takeaways from my conversation with Chris on The GTMnow Podcast:  

1️⃣ Build GTM before you have a product.

Chris joined before Snowflake had anything to sell. He started cold-emailing potential customers to test ideas and build trust. Those early conversations shaped the narrative and clarified positioning. Before product-market fit, find narrative-market fit.

2️⃣ Every great sales motion runs on rhythm.

Chris had one rule: eight customer meetings a week. That became his operating system. As Snowflake scaled, that cadence cascaded into the team, creating a culture of pipeline discipline.

3️⃣ Hire for grit, not polish.

Chris avoided “big-company” reps and hired scrappy sellers from resellers and startups—people who could prospect, build lists, and close. Early-stage sales is about resourcefulness, not pedigree. “If you need to tell someone what to do,” he said, “they’re not right for an early-stage company.”

4️⃣ Never stop acquiring new customers.

Every Snowflake rep had to land 4–8 new customers per quarter, even when expansion was easier. That discipline helped them outpace AWS and Google. When they got lazy on new logos, the numbers showed it.

5️⃣ Pay on the outcomes that matter.

Reps were compensated on consumption, not contract value. That kept sales engaged after the deal closed. They didn’t hand off accounts, they helped make customers successful.

6️⃣ Marketing’s job is sales-ready meetings.

When Denise Persson became CMO, she killed the MQL debate. She sat with SDRs, listened to reps, and rebuilt marketing around what sales needed: qualified meetings that drove revenue.

7️⃣ Leaders earn trust by doing the work.

Chris built the first lists. Denise worked alongside SDRs. The CEO rewrote contracts and interviewed engineers. It wasn’t micromanagement, it was credibility. When leaders stay close to the work, they move faster and inspire ownership.

8️⃣ Methodology equals consistency.

Chris used MEDDICC to give every rep the same language for deal reviews and coaching. A framework only works when it’s reinforced relentlessly.

9️⃣ Sales and marketing are one engine.

Chris and Denise operated as a single GTM unit. They attended board meetings together, shared KPIs, and solved problems side-by-side. They proved sales and marketing are just different levers in the same system.

🔟 Urgency beats perfection.

Snowflake made plenty of mistakes – outages, pricing debates, missed features. But the team moved fast, owned their gaps, and stayed customer-obsessed. Chris stayed 11 years because of that culture: low ego, high urgency, deep respect for the customer.

--

🎧 Tune in and subscribe by searching "The GTMnow Podcast."

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

SVP Marketing at GTMfund & GTMnow | Host of The GTMnow Podcast

3 of the many moments of gratitude from running the Philadelphia marathon this past weekend:

- For both the body and the mind. There’s a quote that goes: “a healthy person has a thousand wishes, but a sick person has only one.” To have a body that can be pushed to new uncharted limits is a blessing. And a mind that can guide the goal. The body follows the story you tell it. Shift the mindset → shift the limits.

- The constant reminder that the process is the point. A marathon takes an average of 3.5–5.5 hours, but you train for around 4-5 months. The race is a moment, the process is a season. The cliché is true: the joy isn’t in the finish line, it’s in who you become getting there. The mountain top matters, but the climb is where life actually happens. And that’s why one of my favorite guiding principles is: Life is short, and there are 1440 minutes in every day. Make the most of them, make a difference, and enjoy the ride. 

- Getting to do it with Paul Irving. We signed up together back in March…and didn't train together once. Our schedules were tight, we’ve been scaling tons. I spent 7 weeks on the road consecutively leading up to it. Paul even got married during the training period. When it came down to the week of the marathon (last week), we hit the road together. It was a big one, including traveling to four different cities, hosting three events, launching a new podcast series - among other launches and milestones. Then, we kicked off the run with a sunrise start on Sunday to cap off the week. Despite never having trained together, we ran 20 miles of it side-by-side. In life, the “what” matters a ton, but the “who” you do it with is everything. Anyone who gets to do anything with Paul is a lucky human. I sure am fortunate to get to build with him day in and day out, to run the bigger race of life with him. 

Grateful. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating!

The last GTMfund dinner of the year was a special one. 
The energy in NYC is simply unmatched! ⚡

As usual, the room was buzzing. When the restaurant has to (politely) kick everyone out, it's a sign of some great connections being made. 

A huge thank you to our partners for helping to make this evening possible: 
💚 Stifel Bank
💚 BackEngine
💚 ZoomInfo

Thank you to everyone who came out, and to the entire community for being part of this journey. We're incredibly grateful.

Toronto! What a fantastic GTMfund dinner and evening. 

There is nothing that beats gathering in person. 
Last night 54 floors in the air looking out over the CN Tower, we got to do just that. 

Constantly blown away by the caliber of this community.

A huge thank you to our partners for helping to make this evening possible: 
💚 ZoomInfo
💚 Momentum.io

(next up: NYC!)

Cannot think of a better way to close out the year of events than going deep on GTM with an incredible group of founders 🙏  

The philosophy behind today was simple: value is created through people and perspective.

So here's how it unfolded:
We kicked off this Friday morning with an open networking breakfast.

From there, we broke into small-group conversations, which are one of the most effective ways to create from both people (connections) and perspective (insight). 

A huge thank you to our expert session facilitators: 
Dave Greenberger (sales and going upmarket)
Paul Mander (customer success)
James D. Wilton (pricing strategies)
Paul Irving (fundraising)

These were highly curated topical groups, creating space for deeper, more tactical discussions tailored to the stage and needs of each company - usually the kinds of conversations that happen 1:1 behind closed doors. 

And that's exactly why we do this. 

As tech moats continue to decline, it's your go-to-market that determines your growth trajectory. And democratizing access to GTM knowledge feels like a duty. So we try to do just that not only through direct support, but through events and media that help broaden access to meaningful GTM insight. 

A huge thank-you to 645 Ventures for co-hosting this event in their beautiful NYC office, and to everyone who chose to start their Friday with us. 

This was the last event of the year for both GTMfund and 645 Ventures! 
2026 events coming 🔜

Gamma just hit $100M ARR (profitably), crossed 70M+ users, and raised a Series B at a $2.1B valuation. 

We deconstructed the go-to-market behind Gamma's growth, as a third-part of our GTM Deconstructed series under GTMnow. 

These are some of the frameworks, mental models and playbooks from their journey:

1️⃣ Solve the first mile, not the last mile

Activation is the hardest part of PLG. The blank page is where almost every slide product dies. Gamma reframed the problem:
Solve the first mile (idea → draft) and the user will gladly handle the last mile (editing → polishing).

To apply this, identify the single highest-friction moment in your onboarding. Then, design the product so users skip it entirely.

2️⃣ Output is distribution

Every artifact created becomes a marketing asset.

Tips for implementing:
- Add subtle branding to every shared output.
- Reduce friction between viewing and trying.
- Instrument “view → signup” as a core growth KPI.

3️⃣ Experimentation is a culture, not a team

Gamma ran experiments on everything: Model selection, prompt orchestration, pricing, onboarding, templates, share flows.

Experimentation can (and should) be an operating system.

4️⃣ Monetize after the magic

Value first, price later.
Freemium → instant output → emotional “wow” → habit → conversion.

Tips for implementing:
- Delay paywalls until after the “aha moment.”
- Charge only for meaningful upgrades (collab, export, brand control).

5️⃣ The activation flywheel

Value unlocks virality:
Draft → Refine → Share → Return → Expand → Invite → Share → Expand

Activation is the upstream driver of virality and retention.

Tips for implementing:
- Instrument the activation path.
- Define the “first meaningful output.”
- Optimize time-to-draft relentlessly.

6️⃣ The three-horizon output strategy

Gamma’s layers of value:
Horizon 1: Presentations (core entry point)
Horizon 2: Documents (adjacent use case)
Horizon 3: Websites / microsites (expansion surface)

This increases TAM and reduces churn by spanning roles and formats.

Tips for implementing:
- Map 3 adjacencies to your core workflow.
- Build the next one only when retention holds.

7️⃣ The model efficiency ladder

AI costs drop as usage scales.
Gamma moved from expensive frontier models → more efficient models → hybrid orchestration → cost-effective API usage.

Tips for implementing:
- Score every model on 3 dimensions: Quality, Speed, Cost.
- Optimize for “intelligence per dollar,” not just intelligence.

8️⃣ Rapid creator loop for virility tracking

Gamma used creators, yes for impressions, but also for insight. Through creators, they could quickly test formats, hooks, angles and narratives.
They became a distributed R&D lab. 

Tips for implementing:
- Underwrite 20–30 micro-creators.
- Reward virility and document the patterns that work.

-- 

✍ Full GTM Deconstructed in The GTMnow Newsletter (link in comments). 

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

NEW: We’re adding a VC series under The GTMnow Podcast! 

I have the extreme privilege of sitting down with the top 1% of operators and founders to dissect their stories of building and scaling. We're continuing to double down on this, and there are some really exciting conversations and guests coming up that I can't wait to share with you! 

This new series adds the element of “invest” under our media platform:
GTMnow: Build, scale, and invest with the best minds in tech.

People want the investing side (something to date we've shared privately with our community) because it helps them fundraise smarter, get career leverage, understand liquidity options, make better personal investments, and see the market through a different lens.

These monthly episodes will be hosted by GTMfund’s GP, Max Altschuler. 
Each episode starts with him and Paul Irving breaking down:
- What we’re seeing in the market right now
- Commentary and takeaways on the insights shared in the episode

A huge thanks to AngelList for all of these support across our funds and for partnering with us on this series.

And the first episode of the VC series is live! 
It's with Alex Clayton, GP of Meritech Capital and king of the S-1 tear downs. A few key takeaways:
- Two metrics matter more than any dashboard: GAAP revenue and cash burn.
- Secondaries have gone from edge case to mainstream liquidity strategy.
- The traditional 10-year venture fund is buckling under modern timelines.
- AI-native startups are smashing the SaaS growth curve and changing what “good” looks like.
The link to the full conversation will be in the comments. 

Subscribe to The GTMnow Podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to get the VC episodes when they go live. 

The VC series was added to the media platform in direct response to requests for access to more of the investing closed wall conversations.

Thank you, as always, for being on this journey 🙏

Super cool to see GTMfund featured in Entrepreneur Media’s November magazine edition!

Huge thank you to AngelList for highlighting us among the top emerging managers.

To create this list, they began with a dataset of several hundred venture GPs and then focused on sustained performance, portfolio quality, and consistent early-stage activity. They then prioritized reputation and founder credibility, strength of top investments, and deal-leading activity.

3 GTMfund events next week! 

Dinner in Toronto. 
Dinner in NYC. 
Founder breakfast in NYC. 

We used to share attendee lists for events in a Notion lookbook or in Google Sheets. 

Earlier this year we upgraded to using Anything to create them.
They look better, the search functionality is improved for guests, and they're faster for us to make! 

We now type what we want to create into a sidebar, and whatever we write gets created. A few prompts and we get a beautiful event page. Anytime we want to make changes, we just prompt the chat (e.g. "make the top logo 25% smaller"). We then complete it with a custom domain. 
And it takes less than 10 minutes to create!

Shoutout to Dhruv Amin and the team behind Anything for elevating our events 🙏 

Pictured: a preview of one of the list pages. 

Lists being sent out soon. Buzzing with excitement!

In AI, your product won’t be your moat for long: your go-to-market will be. 

Features can get copied in days, hype cycles burn fast, and benchmarks have skyrocketed. Distribution has become the final remaining moat. The founders who understand this from Day 0 are the ones breaking out.

In a recent 𝘎𝘛𝘔 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 edition of The GTMnow Newsletter, we broke down the exact GTM decisions behind Gamma’s rise. Their creator-first strategy gave them a distribution advantage that became a catalyst for exponential growth.

It’s also one of the reasons why ecosystem-led growth is gaining important momentum. Emily Kramer just wrote a fantastic deep dive on it in Lenny Rachitsky's newsletter. Ecosystem partners are becoming one of the most effective distribution channels.

None of this changes the two rules every founder faces:
1. No customers, no business
2. No growth, no capital

But the source of defensibility has changed.
And the bar for breakout performance has never been higher.

Last week, in The GTMnow Newsletter, we published Part II of a series on 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘎𝘛𝘔 𝘮𝘰𝘢𝘵. Here’s what it covers: 
- Why distribution is outpacing product as the primary moat
- The “one-channel” strategy the best founders use to dominate early
- How to find the channel where your customers actually live
- The 5-step framework for building your GTM moat from day zero

-- 

✍ Read the full newsletter edition on Substack (link in comments). 

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

After reading dozens of newsletters every week, one theme across AI has become impossible to ignore:

Most AI traction today is experimental, not durable.
And the market is beginning to price that reality in.

Different leaders are approaching the space from different angles. But if you zoom out, a shared macro story emerges. 

A few standout pieces made that story especially clear.

Start with Jamin Ball (Partner, Altimeter Capital)'s analysis of ERR vs. ARR. He surfaces one of the most uncomfortable realities in AI revenue today: a massive amount of what startups report as “ARR” is actually ERR - Experimental Run-Rate Revenue. Teams are annualizing monthly spikes without commitment, buyers are testing multiple AI tools in parallel, and early categories are commoditizing before companies can even measure churn. Growth looks strong on paper, but most of it won’t survive a renewal cycle. 

That’s where Des Traynor (Co-Founder, Intercom)’s lens comes in. If ERR explains the instability of early traction, the "Four Horsemen of AI" explain what durable traction actually requires: 
1. Revenue backed by usage
2. Usage tied to real business impact
3. Deep, differentiated AI
4. Positive unit margins

Many AI companies only hit the illusion of the first horseman: revenue. 
But the moment you pressure-test that revenue across the remaining three, the gap between reported growth and retained value can become more obvious. AI’s revenue quality is being redefined not by velocity, but by durability.

And Cassie Young (GP, Primary Venture Partners)’s recent publication ties the bow on all of it. She shows how collapsing switching costs and compressed time-to-value are creating a retention crisis, and simultaneously triggering a customer-success renaissance.

Companies are adopting AI faster than they understand it, and churning faster than anyone projected. That means compressing time-to-value, proving ROI weekly (not annually), integrating directly into workflows, and running POC factories that accelerate adoption and reduce risk. Customer success becomes the operating system of durable AI companies.

Put these pieces together - ERR, the Four Horsemen, and the customer-success renaissance - and a unified story emerges:

AI’s early traction is inflated by experimental revenue.
Durability is becoming the filter through which all AI revenue will be judged.
And value delivery (not feature delivery) is what is necessary. 

The winners of the AI decade won’t be defined by how fast they grow, but by how long they can last.

Always play the long game.

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✍ Wrote a deeper dive, with links to these three great pieces, in the latest The GTMnow Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gAtrS9pR

You can tell the difference between someone who is GOOD and GREAT. 

🎙️ Now live on The GTMnow Podcast: the most replayed moment from the full episode with Cristina Cordova (early Stripe, Notion and Linear). 

It outlines her framework and strategies for identifying exceptional talent early, and how to know when a team/company is truly worth betting your career on.

One of my key takeaways: 

If someone’s been exceptional in any domain, odds are they’ll bring that same intensity to leading GTM, building product or scaling a company.
Look for excellence you can’t replicate - skills outside your lane that you can still recognize as great.

--

🎧 Tune in and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen by searching "The GTMnow Podcast."

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

If I were a founder trying to get placed in TechCrunch, here are the 5 key things I would do.

Over the past year, at GTMfund we've helped dozens of startups navigate their first major press moment –  usually tied to a fundraise or product launch.

Here’s what I’d focus on if I were trying to land top-tier coverage today:

1️⃣ Start with the ‘why’, not the ‘what’

The best PR campaigns start with a goal. 
Ask: What do we want this announcement to achieve?

- Hiring → Broad tech outlets (e.g., TechCrunch) help you look legit to talent.
- Enterprise deals → Niche industry publications speak directly to your ICP.
- Fundraising → Tier I outlets add credibility with downstream investors.

PR is like jet fuel (not the engine), amplifying what you’ve already built.

2️⃣ Warm intros go a long way 

Think of PR like sales: cold outreach converts at a lower rate than warm outreach. 

If you haven’t built media relationships yet, ask your investors for help.

Here’s a simple message you could send: 
“Hi {{first name}} – excited to share we’ll be announcing our $XX round soon.
We’re targeting [Outlet] and [Outlet]. Do you have any contacts there that we should know before we kick off?”

Investors often have trusted connections with journalists, so it’s worth checking. 

3️⃣ Targeted reporter research beats spray and pray

Most journalists operate within a defined "beat" – a focused subject area such as AI, Fintech, or Enterprise SaaS. Focus on finding the right specific reporter. Search their past articles, read what they write, and meticulously align your pitch with their recurring themes to ensure genuine relevance.

Build a short list of 3–5 reporters who cover your space deeply. 
Quality > quantity.

4️⃣ Make it storyworthy

“We raised money!” is not a story. What matters is why now, why you, and why it’s different.

Use this filter (full credit to Jenny He, GP at Position Ventures on this framework!):

- Timeliness: Would this matter in 2 weeks?
- Impact: Who’s affected, and how deeply?
- Relevance: Why will this audience care right now?

Then, layer in your positioning – what makes you uniquely different?
Your product is the WHAT.
But positioning is the WHY US. It’s what makes a journalist care.

5️⃣ Offer exclusivity 

Want to 10x your chances of a feature? Offer the exclusive.

But use it wisely:
- Pick your no.1 reporter
- Offer them the scoop (with a deadline: “open until Tues 5pm PST”)
- If no response, move to the next on your list

This is a respectful and effective way of reaching out, particularly if you want Tier I conversage. 

PR is a process. Just like sales or GTM:
- You qualify your leads (reporters)
- You align your pitch (positioning)
- You build trust (credibility)
- You close (placement)

2 recent PR announcements that caught my eye being really well done: Gamma hitting a $2.1B valuation & Fastbreak AI raising a $40M Series A.

PS we documented this in the GTMnow newsletter - more details in the full edition.

What if your top-performing seller doesn’t even work for you?...

Partner-led growth is one of the highest-leverage GTM plays (if you know when and how to use it).

Brian Weinberger is the CRO at Sisense and has 30+ years of GTM leadership. He’s built partner motions across every model – from VARs to SIs to global cloud marketplaces.

In this episode, he shares the playbook for building a partner ecosystem.

Key takeaways: 
 
1️⃣ Don’t start with distribution. Start with delivery.

Most founders want partner-led pipeline. But first, ask: who delivers your product best? If it’s complex, lean on experts. Great delivery builds stickiness and drives long-term retention.

2️⃣ Enablement speed is the best predictor of partner success.

Enablement is your early signal. How quickly can someone become fluent in your product and category? Invest in onboarding to compress time-to-value for every partner.

3️⃣ Partner ecosystems are not shortcuts, they’re systems.

You won’t see ROI in 6 months. But by year 3, compounding kicks in. A mature ecosystem drives pipeline, retention, and expansion (often outperforming internal teams).

4️⃣ Use both direct and partner models

Microsoft scaled through partners; Salesforce went direct. Today’s best SaaS companies use both: AEs for speed, partners for scale. Direct is your wedge and partners are your engine.

5️⃣ Sell on your own paper, even if you don’t do the work.

Early on, own the contract. Let partners deliver, but keep buying simple for customers. This gives you control while subcontracting trusted experts behind the scenes.

6️⃣ Use partners to extend coverage where you can’t hire.

New regions, verticals, or languages? Start with partners. The right one can be your seller, marketer, CSM, and architect - all in one.

7️⃣ The best partners hunt, not wait.

Most partner programs wait for inbound or expect the reseller to “bring leads.” Flip the script. Feed your partners a pipeline, offer meaningful margins, and give them a reason to care. Partners who market and close independently are the ones who scale with you.

8️⃣ Use integrations to gain leverage with giants.

Want attention from a cloud hyperscaler or dominant ecosystem? Don’t just build an integration, resell their product. Sisense white-labeled Snowflake, creating shared customers and shared incentives. Ecosystem selling builds political capital.

9️⃣ Want loyalty? Invest in in-person.

Remote is efficient, but in-person builds bonds. Whether it’s team offsites, co-selling sessions, or just dinners, the cultural glue that holds your partner network together is forged face-to-face. The ROI shows up in loyalty, learning speed, and long-term deal flow.

--

🎧 Tune in and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen by searching "The GTMnow Podcast."

💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

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