Sam Jacobs

Founder & CEO

I build elite, modern GTM operators - CROs, CMOs, CCOs, and Revenue Operations leaders - who drive growth at the world’s fastest-growing B2B companies, including Salesforce, Hubspot, Stripe, Oracle, Snowflake, Clay, Klaviyo, Xero, Upside, Owner.com, Otter.ai, and Square

That’s the mission behind Pavilion, the leading global community of over 10,000 high-performance go-to-market executives. We exist to help ambitious professionals unlock and realize their full potential—not just as employees, but as leaders, thinkers, and builders.  

Pavilion is a paid membership for GTM leaders at every level. We provide tactical support, advanced education - incorporating financial literacy, advanced AI-powered GTM motions, and modern leadership tools - career acceleration, and a powerful peer network to help Members perform better in their roles and grow into the next. We operate in every major global hub and represent a new way of thinking about career development—community-powered, principle-led, and relentlessly practical.

This all started with a belief: that greatness exists within all of us. Sometimes it just needs the right mechanism to bring it forth.

To learn more, visit: www.joinpavilion.com

I also co-host the Topline Podcast with AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman.

And I wrote a bestselling book, Kind Folks Finish First, about building with kindness at the center.

Host, Sales Hacker Podcast

Host of The Sales Hacker Podcast featuring interviews and discussion with leading sales practitioners from high growth companies around the world.  

Learn more here: https://www.saleshacker.com/podcast-announcement/

I thought AI SDRs were a gimmick.  I no longer think that.  I do think that if you have a team of poorly trained people sending thousands of crappy emails, having a bot replace them won't do very much.

But, I can also recognize that an agent sending thousands of emails is cheaper than a team of humans sending thousands of emails.

And I also appreciate instant follow-up.

We've long discussed the exponential half-life of lead value as response time increases.  

Following up within 1 minute is 10x more valuable than an hour which is 10x more valuable than a day.

So there is definitely a place for AI SDRs.

But I think benchmarks and standards are important.  

That's why I partnered with Otter.ai to put together a new guide for B2B sales leaders on how to unlock the potential of AI SDRs.

What you’ll learn:

- Benchmarks that matter: See how AI SDRs outperform traditional reps with 10x outreach, 3x faster replies, and 50% lower cost per meeting.

- Key advantages: AI SDRs persistently follow up and boost meeting conversion rates from 15% to over 25%.

- Common pitfalls: Learn what to watch out for from over-automation to data accuracy and how to balance AI efficiency with human insight.

- Measurement framework: Know which KPIs every sales leader should track, including qualified meetings, cost per meeting, response time, and lead quality.

- Ethical and operational best practices: Maintain transparency, protect data, and know when to hand the conversation back to your rep.

AI SDRs are booking twice as many qualified meetings at half the cost. 

This guide shows you how to get there faster: https://lnkd.in/ezn6i-Vy

Data in the table below provided by Otter.

#sponsored

CEO @ Pavilion | Co-Host of Topline Podcast | WSJ Best Selling Author of "Kind Folks Finish First"

There's a pipeline crisis happening right now in B2B tech. Which means there's a growth crisis.  

And while this website is full of a lot of very talented people who can get a lot of likes and engagement on social media posts, 

Communities are where the real operators are spending time.

Real operators don't have endless hours building their brand on social media.  They're too busy running their teams to try and master the ever changing algorithm.  

But they do have time to talk to each other, share ideas and best practices, and try and find strategies that unlock growth.

This was one of my favorite such conversations this past week in Pavilion.  

And the best part was 15 different CROs, GTM operators, and true practitioners leaning in to share real stories from the front lines.  

The way we're going to navigate our new persistent state of uncertainty is through a community of diverse vetted expert opinions in constant dialogue.  

There is no single framework that will save you.

Nor one single thought leader (including me).

It's going to be about you and your engagement with a group of fellow practitioners.  

We've built the very best GTM community in tech over the past 10 years and I'd be honored if you joined us and contributed to the conversation.  

Click here: https://lnkd.in/gtYxeg7J

We're heading for a crash.  Unit economics was the unlock that drove 20 years of software growth.  Once people understood the basic math, we could confidently invest in GROWTH.  But when a new generation of AI founders don't understand that math, everything breaks.

BACKGROUND

Unit economics describe the relationship between:

- How you much you spend to get a customer
- How much they pay you back
- What it costs you to service them
- How long they stick around

The basic assumptions are:

- It's expensive to change someone's mind (CAC)
- Once they change it, they stick around for awhile (Retention, GRR)
- It costs little to service them (Gross Margin, Cost of Service)

So ... 

- Even if it's expensive to acquire a customer
- Because they stay for a long time and it's cheap to keep them
- You can spend more than you make today knowing they'll be around for a long time and pay you back

THE AI HYSTERIA BREAKS THE MATH

Fast forward to today.

- Is it still expensive to acquire a customer?  YES and it's getting more expensive all the time

- Is it still cheap to service them? NO most AI companies have manufacturing-like gross margins. Replit has negative gross margins.  Meaning they lose money every time they make a sale.  So AI companies don't look like traditional software.

- Do they stick around a long time? Probably NOT.  If you can grow that quickly on Experimental Revenue you have no idea if those people are going to stay.  And you need them to stay MUCH longer because your margins are so terrible. 

The entire equation is broken.

Once the equation breaks, you eventually hit a wall, run out of money, and shut down your company.

As long as investors will underwrite bad math, you're safe.

The minute the winds change direction, you're screwed.

So what do you?

Don't listen to me, I'm just over here trying to teach people to how to build long term businesses.  I'm probably doing it wrong :)

But if you do want to survive the chaos, DM me and we can talk about the little community I'm building to empower GTM operators of the future to flourish in a new world of persistent uncertainty.

Manny Medina

Executive Chairman of Outreach, the leading Sales AI platform

Outreach is the leading sales execution platform that helps market-facing teams efficiently create and predictably close more pipeline. From prospecting to deal management to forecasting, our platform leverages automation and artificial intelligence to help revenue leaders increase efficiency and effectiveness of all go-to-market activities and personnel across the revenue cycle. Outreach is the only company to offer sales engagement, revenue intelligence, and revenue operations functionalities in a unified platform. More than 5,500 companies, including Zoom, Siemens, Okta, DocuSign, and McKesson depend on Outreach to power their revenue organizations. Outreach is a privately held company based in Seattle, Washington, with offices worldwide. To learn more, please visit www.outreach.io.

this is the most alarming chart I have seen to date

for Saas, shifting to outcomes is an economic emergency.

I used to think it was a choice for the more enlightened ones

not anymore ...

Sign up at Paid.ai. We help AI Agents get paid!

Founder Signals | Co-Founder Silicon Slopes

SaaS isn’t slowing down. It’s getting eaten alive ... cannibalized.

Look at the Aventis Advisors growth chart. The trend isn’t subtle, it’s a cliff.

We went from 36 percent growth to 12 percent. Almost a decade of down and to the right.

With forecasts pointing to 11 percent … and falling, this feels like a pretty big structural shift. SaaS is starting to look like utilities and pipelines, durable and necessary, but no longer where the real upside lives.

And the reason is pretty simple. AI is cannibalizing the very work SaaS used to monetize. 

Here’s what the chart doesn’t show, but every operator feels.

1) SaaS used to sell “workflows.” AI sells “outcomes” (OaaS). Agents do the work inside the tool, so the tool stops being the product. The labor becomes the product. 

2) Budgets (and investors) are leaving SaaS and flowing to digital labor. CFOs aren’t buying more seats. They’re buying fewer humans. AI fits. SaaS doesn’t.

3) Feature parity killed differentiation. Entire categories are indistinguishable. CRM, CX, marketing automation … all the same. AI exposes how thin the moats always were.

4) Enterprises hit peak-SaaS years ago. Now they’re consolidating and cutting 20 to 40 percent of their stack. AI accelerates that purge.

5) AI startups are growing at speeds SaaS can’t touch. When companies hit nine figures in months, not years, investor expectations reset. SaaS looks slow, expensive, and operationally bloated.

6) Value is moving down the stack. The action is in compute, data, agents, and orchestration. SaaS is becoming a UI layer that AI sits on, not the engine driving the work.

The growth-rate collapse isn’t a mystery,  it’s more of a transfer of value. SaaS is maturing into a stable, cash-flow asset class. 

AI is becoming the new growth engine of the enterprise.

That means founders have a choice, build SaaS and optimize it like infrastructure, or build AI agents that replace the workflows SaaS was built to capture.

One path gives you stable multiples, the other gives you growth.

🧲 Uncle! we’re finally hiring a Founding AE Paid
We’ve built double digit millions of qualified pipeline in a month. 
It's just Manoj Ganapathy and I closing
Now we need help! 

🚀 You’ll own the sales motion end-to-end
From strategy to signature. Manoj and I will personally close together with you to make sure you are successful
Our deals are $250K ACV and above. Sold to the full SaaS exec team (CEO, CFO, CRO, CPO, CTO).

You’ll be the person who makes Paid happen inside the world’s best software companies.

🧠 We’re looking for a builder who can sell
We’re not looking for a “closer.” We’re looking for a builder who can sell.

Here’s what that looks like:
Winner: You are competitive. Like to win. All the time. 
Curious: You love untangling complex problems and asking the next question.
Customer-obsessed: You can talk to a CFO about ROI and a CPO about workflow pain.
Technical: You will work closely with our FDE to build what the customer needs and close the deal. Our engineers are sellers 😳 
Strategic: You build internal champions, navigate orgs, and multi-thread
Some Experience: You’ve closed a few $250K–$500K+ enterprise deals in the last 6 months. so you know what's like
Founder energy: You move fast, thrive in ambiguity, and love building. 
High-Agency: You make decisions independently. 

💼 The work
Partner directly with our cofounders (Manoj Ganapathy Raj Dosanjh and I)  to grow the business
Co-Create repeatable sales playbooks as we scale.
Shape the GTM motion — pricing, messaging, and process.

💥 Why Paid
At Paid we sell success - not software, not services - just outcomes!  
It high-stakes work. We don't differentiate between software and services. 
Our customers winning is ALL we care about 

We’re early, ambitious, and moving fast.
This is an opportunity to join at the foundation — massive upside, full agency and autonomy and the empowerment that comes w it..

👉 Let’s Talk
The job is in-person in SF/Bay area. First few weeks in London.

If this is you - DM me.

taplio

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Sam Jacobs

Manny Medina

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The Battle

Sam Jacobs

Manny Medina

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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);}Sam Jacobs's LinkedIn Performance

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