Founder — BizDev Labs. Progressive outbound BDR agency (45+ SaaS clients 🚀)

In 2020, I quit my job with $3K in the bank and no plan. 

Two years later, I built a multi-million-dollar BDR agency and earned a spot on Forbes 30U30.

Today I am redefining the role of a BDR. I believe the BDR role is a lifelong career. And my goal is to build the most tenured BDR team on the market.

—-

Outside of work, I was an Olympic-class windsurfer. 

I lived in Israel, Canada, USA, England, Mexico, Hong Kong, Portugal and Aruba.

Roy Itzhaki

Your first BDR should get paid $200K.

And if that sentence triggers you…
you probably haven’t built outbound from scratch.

Your first BDR is not a rep.

They’re not “booking meetings.”

They are the first version of your GTM engine.

There’s a massive difference between:

• 2 → 10 (scaling a working system)
vs
• 0 → 1 (creating the system)

Most founders confuse the two.

A true first BDR hire:

• Turns founder-led sales into a repeatable motion
• Defines ICP through real conversations, not slide decks
• Tests positioning until it actually lands
• Builds sequences that don’t embarrass the brand
• Identifies triggers that convert
• Documents what works and what doesn’t
• Creates the first predictable pipeline

They’re not following a playbook.

They’re writing it.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

If you underpay this seat, you don’t save money.
You delay momentum.

A weak 0→1 foundation compounds.
Bad messaging scales.
Wrong ICP scales.
Low-quality pipeline scales.

And then you wonder why 5 SDRs can’t fix what 1 strategic operator could’ve built properly.

You’re not paying $200K for activity.

You’re paying for leverage.

The right first BDR hire builds an asset.
The wrong one creates noise.

Founders who understand this scale faster.
The ones who don’t keep “trying outbound.”

#BDR #Outbound #GTM #SaaS #Sales #Startups

Roy Itzhaki 

Founder @ BizDev Labs | Forbes 30 Under 30

You don’t have a pipeline problem.
You have a “no one wants to call” problem.

In a world of automation, 
AI-written emails, 
and perfectly timed sequences…

Cold calling is becoming rare.

And rare becomes valuable.

Everyone can send 1,000 emails.
Everyone can automate LinkedIn touches.
Everyone can build a 12-step cadence.

Very few are willing to interrupt their day,
ask a direct question,
and handle a real objection live.

That’s why the phone is quietly becoming the edge again.

When something becomes uncomfortable,
most people avoid it.

When most people avoid it,
it becomes opportunity.

The less the market calls,
the more powerful your voice becomes.

If pipeline is slow,
don’t look at LinkedIn and Email.

Look at your call blocks.

#Sales #Outbound #BDR #Pipeline #GTM

Want to know the real difference between 
$120k and $500k Account Executive?

It's not just about:
• Product knowledge
• Negotiation tactics
• Closing techniques

It's what happens AFTER the meeting.

Most sales people:
• Take days to follow up
• Send generic check-ins
• Forget key details
• Hope for the best

Here's how top performers do it:

"Hey [name] - 
I hope you had a great weekend!
I was just looking over our call notes and noticed you mentioned reviewing the proposal Friday.
I know there's a lot to process.
Is there anything I can help with?"

And they send this on a Monday.
Right on schedule. 

Simple. Personal. Attentive.
Shows you're listening.
Shows you care.
Shows you're organized.

Because great follow-up isn't about:
• Fancy words
• Aggressive tactics
• Complex strategies

It's about:
• Being present
• Staying organized
• Showing you care
• Guiding the journey

P.S. Your prospects can feel when they're being prioritized. I can't tell you how many compliments we get about this 🎯

The best BDRs should stay BDRs.

Read that again.

Every company says they want consistent pipeline.

But the moment a BDR gets really good…
you promote them out of the role.

Or you lose them.

Think about the timeline.

Month 1–3:
They’re learning the product.
Learning the ICP.
Learning how to not sound robotic.

Month 4–9:
They start figuring it out.
Messaging improves.
Confidence builds.
Meetings go up.

Month 10–14:
Now they’re dangerous.
They understand objections.
They know which triggers convert.
They are able to maximize efficiency.

And that’s exactly when they leave.

AE.
Management.
Another company.

So you restart.

New hire.
New ramp.
New mistakes.
Lost momentum.

You don’t have a pipeline problem.
You have a tenure problem.

We decided to fix that.

Instead of building “future AEs,”
we built career BDRs.

• Pay them like closers
• Give them specialization tracks
• Give them strategy ownership
• Remove the “junior” label
• Treat outbound like a craft

Our average BDR tenure? 3–4 years.

---

The best BDRs shouldn’t be promoted out.
They should be leveled up inside.

#BDR #Outbound #Sales #SaaS #Pipeline

CEO: We need to hire a BDR.

ME: For what exactly?

CEO: Pipeline. We need more meetings.

ME: Do you already have an outbound motion that works?

CEO: We have sequences. Lists. A script.

ME: I’ll rephrase.

ME: Do you know who to target, why now, what to say, which channel, in what order, and how to adjust when it stops working?

CEO: …Not fully.

ME: Then you don’t need a BDR.

CEO: What do you mean?

ME: Most companies THINK they just need BDRs.

ME: But they don't.

ME: A BDRs isn't supposed to figure out the outbound motion
They're just supposed to perform inside of it.

CEO: Tell me more.

ME: That’s the gap you're missing.

ME: Discovery and execution are two different jobs.

ME: You’re asking one person to:
• Discover ICP nuance
• Test messaging
• Find triggers that convert
• Decide channel order
• Fix deliverability
• Handle objections they’ve never heard before

ME: While also being judged on meetings booked.

CEO: But we need activity now.

ME: Activity without a solved motion is just paid guessing.

ME: Especially when the BDR is junior, inexperienced,
or hasn’t done this across multiple companies.

ME: They’re learning and being evaluated at the same time.

ME: That’s not scalable.
And it’s not fair.

CEO: So what do we actually need?

ME: If outbound isn’t already solved…

ME: You don’t need a BDR.

ME: You need:
• Process before people
• Strategy before volume
• A team that’s already done this before
• Clear rules for targeting, messaging, and sequencing
• Feedback loops that compound

ME: Once that exists?

ME: A BDR becomes leverage.

ME: Before that?

ME: They’re just an experiment with a quota.

#BDR #Outbound #Sales #SaaS #GTM

P.S. If your BDR has to invent outbound before they can run it…
you hired too early.

You call BDR entry level?

Cool.

If it’s truly entry level…

Why do so few ever become elite?

Think about it.

If it’s “junior,” then why can’t most people do it well for more than 6 months?

Why do performance numbers collapse the moment pressure increases?

Why does rejection break people?

Because it’s not entry level.

It’s emotional control at scale.

You’re asking someone to:

Call executives who don’t want to talk.
Get rejected 20–50 times a day.
Stay sharp.
Stay confident.
Write messages that convert in 3 lines.
Manage multiple channels at once.
And not let yesterday’s losses affect today’s calls.

That’s not beginner work.

That’s psychological endurance.

If it were truly entry level…

You’d have thousands of elite BDRs.

You don’t.

And that tells you everything.

#BDR #Sales #Outbound #Leadership

If your best BDR leaves tomorrow:

• Pipeline drops immediately with no warning
• Ramp time goes back to zero
• ICP nuance and buyer context disappear
• Messaging quality regresses overnight
• Objections get pushed downstream to AEs
• Campaign momentum stalls or dies
• Marketing loses its most valuable feedback loop
• AEs feel the impact on day one
• Leadership shifts into reactive mode
• A new req gets opened to plug the gap
• A junior is hired to replace leverage
• Paid less to “prove themselves”
• All the learned knowledge leaves with them
• The cycle starts all over again

If your best BDR stays:

• Pipeline compounds instead of resetting
• ICP understanding sharpens over time
• Messaging improves with real market data
• Objections are handled before AEs get involved
• Campaigns launch faster with fewer mistakes
• Less management is needed to maintain output
• Knowledge compounds year after year

BDRs aren’t expensive.
Losing top performers is.

Pay top performers more.
Way more.

#BDR #Sales #GTM #Outbound

🚀 35 Software & SaaS companies hiring SDRs / BDRs in the US right now - February 2026 edition 👇

1. Snap Inc. (8,465 employees) — BDR — New York, NY
2. Slice | Global Equity (42 employees) — BDR — New York
3. Deck (80 employees) — BDR — SF Bay Area
4. Hopper (1,156 employees) — Founding SDR (Remote) — NY
5. Runware (30 employees) — Founding BDR — SF, CA
6. Storyblok (291 employees) — BDR — Boston, MA
7. PlaybookUX (36 employees) — BDR — US
8. Prospecta Software (299 employees) — BDR — US
9. Jumio Corporation (620 employees) — BDR — US
10. Syndigo (1,423 employees) — BDR — Chicago, IL
11. Yext (2,367 employees) — BDR — New York, NY
12. Rounds (12 employees) — SDR — SF Bay Area
13. Tessera Data (31 employees) — Enterprise BDR — Denver
14. Quantum Health (1,532 employees) — BDR — US
15. Inspiren (145 employees) — SDR — New York, NY
16. Adaptive Security (179 employees) — BDR — NY, NY
17. WireMock (12 employees) — BDR — US
18. Tangent (274 employees) — SDR — NYC Metro Area
19. Okta (7,056 employees) — BDR (East) — Washington, DC
20. Inworld AI (90 employees) — BDR — Mountain View, CA
21. ControlRooms.ai (17 employees) — BDR — San Jose, CA
22. Adaptive6 (48 employees) — SDR (Remote) — Seattle, WA
23. Nimble (135 employees) — BDR — New York, NY
24. Astrix Security (124 employees) — SDR — Boston, MA
25. Rilla (134 employees) — BDR — New York, NY
26. SafetyKit (18 employees) — BDR — San Francisco, CA
27. Mirakl (863 employees) — BDR — Boston, MA
28. Zartech (54 employees) — BDR (Entry Level) — Dallas
29. Telnyx (349 employees) — BDR — Denver, CO
30. Odoo (8,023 employees) — SDR — SF Bay Area
31. Dragonfly AI (51 employees) — SDR — Boston, MA
32. IXOPAY (160 employees) — BDR — US
33. CHAMP (138 employees) — BDR — US
34. Avvale (2,842 employees) — BDR — Chicago, IL
35. Timus (46 employees) — BDR — Tampa, FL

If you’re looking to break into tech sales or level up in a BDR/SDR role, this market is still very active.

Who should I add next?

#saas #salesjobs #sdr #bdr #techsales #startups

Most people think the BDR role is temporary.

A phase.
A stepping stone.
Something you “get through” before the real job starts.

That belief is exactly why lifelong BDRs have a massive edge.

Because the BDR role is built on fundamentals that never go away.

• Prospecting.
• Starting conversations.
• Handling rejection.
• Following up.
• Doing the unglamorous work, every single day.

Most people can do that for a year or two.
Then they get bored.
Or they think they’ve outgrown it.

Lifelong BDRs don’t...

They accept something early that others resist:
No matter how good you get, this work never stops.
And instead of fighting it, they lean into it.

While others move on and reset their learning curve,
they compound skill in the same role.

Every year adds:
• Better judgment
• Faster pattern recognition
• Sharper instincts
• Less wasted effort

What feels repetitive to most
becomes precision to them.

That’s the advantage.

Not because the role is bigger.
But because mastery in this role compounds longer than almost any other.

Being a lifelong BDR isn’t a lack of ambition.
It’s choosing the longest compounding edge in revenue.

P.S. Who's a lifelong BDR? I want to hear from you!

#BDR #Outbound #Sales #GTM

Marketing messaging is the single most important element for B2B SaaS startups.

We’re in a world of attention, today it’s not about distraction, it’s about disorientation.

You might care about campaigns, growth hacks, and hidden tricks, but the most important part is how you’re being relevant and memorable to your target audience.

I was frustrated with managing sales and marketing campaigns with silence as the only result, especially when the issue was right in front of my eyes.

While most are testing blindly, ad hoc and without a clear structure in mind, I get obsessed on what actually matters—tracking the index that is telling you that your key messages actually resonate.

Ideally, you would need a clear workflow that you can follow to get there, with someone who can be your guide to not make the same mistakes startups are making, over and over.

This index is called Message-Market Fit, and startups can get there in 5 steps:

Urgent problems → ICP → Research → Core Messaging → Message testing

I’ve helped 30+ early-stage B2B SaaS startups get there and I can help you:

→ Making sure your outbound emails are relevant and land meetings
→ Generating inbound leads from your content
→ Making your new feature or product launch is successful
→ Reinforcing your positioning in competitive markets

But like great messaging, you need trust to make things work.
If you’re new here, you can:

1. Subscribe to my newsletter to get better at messaging twice a month
2. Book a messaging audit with me to see if I can help

Find your preferred pick on my featured section

Merci, salut 👋

Gab Bujold

Stop hiding your product behind a "book a demo" button 🫥

Nobody wants to book a demo 

They want to see if your product actually solves their problem.

Right now. Not next Tuesday at 2pm with a sales rep who's gonna ask about their "pain points."

Your landing page says "Save 10 hours a week!"
Great.

So does literally every other SaaS tool I looked at today 🙃
Here's what separates you from the noise:

Some companies let me click through the actual workflow
- See HOW those 10 hours get saved
- Experience the product before talking to anyone

The rest hide behind a calendar link and pray I'm desperate enough to sit through their pitch deck (spoiler: I'm not)

Favikon stopped hiding when they started using Guideflow

Result? 
→ 35% higher conversions 
→ 50% more qualified leads

Not because their product got better overnight.
Because they stopped asking buyers to imagine what it does.
They just showed them.

If your product is good, show it.
If you're scared to show it?

Maybe fix it first lol
Then show it 👀

Check out Guideflow here: https://lnkd.in/eDkb4EFX

#productmarketing #pmmsaas #guideflowpartner

Gab Bujold 💀

Messaging + message testing for B2B SaaS | Co-host at We’re Not Marketers

Last week, I went to Above The Fold first-time event by Spiralyze

No expectations in sight, just glad to trade snowstorm for sunshine

100% the best decision I made this year so far

These were the best parts:

→ Met some old friends that I haven’t seen in forever like Tas, Ademola, Dom, Alexander, Clay, and Graham

→ Got the opportunity to meet Matthew Phillips and Thomas Miller, two pillars of the Guideflow team and actually getting to pitching the product while making people try it out.

→ Jammed in the Airbnb pool with Eric, eat my first shakeshack (incredibly insane taste), wore silly mustaches, and planned out our upcoming event (check out deadcampaign.com)

→ Assisted to killer workshops lead by Rob Kaminski, Eric Holland 💀, Alina Vandenberghe 🌶️, and Jess Cook. 
Now I know everything about creating a differentiated hero section, where to put interactive demos to drive conversion, how to build a team of AI agents to do redundant work, and leading a content strategy that feels authentic while driving results

→ Made new friends for life with Darren, James, Kevin, and Luke at the casino and more especially the karaoke where it was clearly the highlight for us (codename: Below the Fold)

→ Had awesome conversations with Peter, Sam, Lenny, Robyn, Josh, Annette, Courtney and many more

→ Got to try awesome delicious B2B cocktails, and got tied with Eric at CRO Crimes (Sahil & Ollie we need to run in back officially on the show)

Big shout-out and thank you to Sydney, Sahil, Ollie, Maddie and everyone else. You were phenomenal!

I’m tired but the fatigue was worth it

And I’ll definitely be there next year

Sorry about the FOMO folks

These past few weeks, I’ve been stuck inside with -30 Celcius (-22 in freedom units)

So, imagine how relieved I was when I saw that all of the cool kids were going to Florida for Above the Fold by Spiralyze?

No more snow, sick workshops, and most importantly, beach casual dress code

I’ll be there with Guideflow, the demo automation platform

Catch me at the event w/ Matthew Phillips and Thomas Miller
Our crew will be there for an out of the ordinary pitch too 👀

Who knows, I might even wear a moustache on top of my stache

Sunshine, coffee, workshops, and interactive demos w/ Matthew Phillips

Guideflow team at Above the Fold by Spiralyze

Trade show booths are where marketing budgets go to die. 

You pay $20k for a 10x10 square of carpet, hand out some cheap pens, and pray that a decision-maker accidentally wanders by so you can give them a pitch they didn’t ask for. 

It’s awkward for the sponsor, it’s draining for the attendee, and it rarely leads to a real partnership.

That's why we’re doing things differently at our first We're Not Marketers 💀 in-person event this Fall.

Here is why this is the sponsorship you actually want:

1. Nobody is "swinging by the booth" because we aren't having any. Instead of standing behind a table, you’ll be leading hands-on workshops where 150 PMMs actually use your software to solve real problems.

2. You aren't chasing leads; you’re building business cases. On Day 3, we dedicated an entire block to helping attendees document exactly how your tool fits into their 2027 stack so they can justify the spend the moment they get home.

3. Connection happens during the "Value Prop Roast" and the excursions, not over a scanned badge. When you’re white-water rafting or roasting a positioning statement with a Head of Marketing, the "sales wall" disappears and real trust begins.

That's why I would love to see companies like Lyssna, Tella, and Lovable joining us

Stop burning your budget on boring booths and badge scanners. 

Come build a lasting business case with the people who actually influence the purchase instead!

Check out our unconventional sponsorship tiers at: https://deadlysponsors.com

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