Vaibhav Namburi

Founder @ SmartLead | 1x Exit | Always Hiring The Best

I like buying coffees, leading passionate people and building great products - FAST.

I'm recommended by C - Level Execs of Billion $ companies, I've been given prestigious awards and lost my hair in doing so.

I started Five2One in May 2017 with $500 and grew it to 7 figures and 10 team members in 11 months & 28 days (the day I closed the deal that got us the 7 Fig mark)

I started & sold Cenario.co 1.5 years post the pandemic outbreak.

I started SmartWriter in June 2021, grew it to 14,000 users including Facebook, Stripe & VaynerMedia.

I started Smartlead in June 2022, currently (Aug) at 6,000 accounts.

We've been recognised as one of the best in Australia and have built 62 production-grade applications for start ups and corporates.

I've worked with The UN, PwC, NewsCorp, Carsguide, AutoTrader, IAG, WilliamHill, Maoneng, SocietyOne, Lumachain, UNSW, Archistair and many other multi-(b)million dollar companies.

I have taught at 2 software bootcamps on how to build quality software products in various technologies and authored 3 courses on Udemy that gained nearly ~35,000 students online.

I've spoken internationally and nationally at over 46 events from meetups to paid conferences.

We've helped clients raise Millions in blockchain and worked with companies that are changing the world as we know it.

During this time I learnt how important having a strong team (that aligns with you) is, how important it is to believe in yourself and to enjoy what you're doing.

I still forget to put semi-colons and eat dessert before the main course.

I'm now building what I've wanted to from the beginning - our own products (smartwriter.ai, smartlead.ai)

You'll often find me on stage sharing advice and tips on bootstrapping a B2B business to talks on AI's position in the future, the best software development and product growth tactics.

I've been called a tech lead, CEO, CTO, coder, engineer, founder, leader, coffee buyer, non-sleeper and many other things -no one seems to realise i'm an excellent singer 😂

I've had the amazing opportunity to mentor for world-class accelerators like Startmate, Antler UK, Incubate, UNSW Founders and Australia's largest VC fund Blackbird as a Giant

I can be your "thought leader" too, just beware that I think a lot about potatoes

So, you've read this far ... coffee?

Member

RevGenius is a group of revenue-generating sales and marketing professionals brought together to learn, share, support and grow with each other.

I don't think people understand. Building a growing business was never about code.

It's about grit. Doing a meticulous grind, obsessively, while the world moves ahead of you, year after year.

Promising yourself "one more time". When there's no steam left, but somehow you need to build back up, again and again and again.

A conversation last week sparked a thought, and coincidentally as I was using Claude Cowork to do some analysis, I found this document I wrote to myself in 2019 (PS I carry this in my wallet, those who know, know).

Fun fact.

I missed EVERY. SINGLE. TIMELINE.

Not even by an inch, or a mile, but probably a 100 miles.

Then the second one I missed by 80 miles.

The third by 50 miles.

The fourth by 20 miles.

Failed 11 ecommerce brands.
Flowyse didn't make 0.00001% of that
Failed Forbes 30U30 4 times in a row, year after year.
Was renting in 2021.
Didn't own a Tesla.
Was definitely a multi-thousandaire 😅
Was barely paying myself a salary in 2021 forget the revenue
I was living in my sister's & brother in laws house in 2022.

Things don't always go according to your plan.

But that is no excuse to not stop.

Last week could have been bad. It's your responsibility to make the next week better.

PS yes I had all the way till 2023, but that was too embarrassing to share haha

This eventually led to Smartlead - whose numbers will be a guess till I die, those who know, know tho. 😉

So yes, atleast in my perspective (i may be wrong), business was NEVER about "coding" apps, respectfully that was the most predictable part.

5 Webinars averaging ~1000 registrations every 1.5 weeks.

Super proud of the Smartlead team for absolutely crushing the office hours we've been doing.

Had one of the most fun office hours with Kellen Casebeer and Ilija Stojkovski on everything LinkedIn and how to ACTUALLY sell

Not some BS advice on "do multi-channel"

The team's working on trends, social collaboration and strong relevance!

Drawing in that type of crowd week on week is a testament to the work the entire team is doing collectively on all fronts!

From collaborations, social assets, content and topics and event managament - lets go!

Sanjana Kotak Devesh Srivastava Priya Prasad Alka Gupta and everyone else🚀🚀🚀

You'll NEVER see me tag or talk bad about a business publically but sometimes things need to be called out.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) we spend multiple 7 figures a year on your infra.

You have ridiculously horrible support which we again pay for...

And to top it off your team takes very little accountability on issues caused by your team, which your team's admitted to as well.

Matt Garman you'd have gotten a DM from our head of eng with more detail.

Sincerely,
One of your largest APAC customers (per your accounts team)

📉 Is your education business struggling to gain traction?
🤔 Are you having a hard time pinpointing your ideal client and how to gain their business? 
🤩 Do you want a dialed in sales process to attract new clients and transform your bottom line?

Having worked in ed tech, ed sales, and entrepreneurship for the better part of the last 20 years, I've witnessed firsthand from clients, consultants, and thought leaders that they can no longer rely on the old methods of networking and referrals to win new business. It’s not a sustainable nor scalable solution to CONSISTENTLY attract their ideal clients. 

🤑 However, there is an alternative that requires no sales collateral, no glitzy website or pages, and no fancy marketing schemes…And can generate 800+ leads in only 4-8 weeks!

👨‍🎓 I’ve been in thousands of schools and helped hundreds of thousands of kids in the K-12 environment and have realized several key areas where business leaders struggle with lead generation in ed tech and ed sales: 

1. Understanding your client – who is the ideal client for your business?
2. Establishing your credibility – what value added can you bring that makes you a good fit for your clients?
3. Dialing in your sales process – why would a superintendent or K-12 leader want to buy what you're selling?
4. Becoming an influencer - how can you take the pieces identified in 1-3 to influence others and become a thought leader?

To solve these problems, I designed the EdSales Elevation Experience to help you not only answer these questions but to put in place a repeatable, reliable system rapidly raising your education company’s key stakeholder relationship quality and revenue stream in three months.
 
If you are still reading, I'd love to connect with you. Please click the connect button and tell me how I can help you. Next, sign up for my EdSales Elevation Experience course to gain an advantage over your competition. 📈

✍️ One client saw a 50% improvement in deal traveling over the sales funnel 
💰 Another realized 82 new meetings and 72 warm deals in the pipeline! 
🏆 A third gained 19 leads of five to six-figure potential clients within weeks!
 
Will you be the next to add your name to the list?

Josh Chernikoff

I’m always a little surprised when people react with confusion after I tell them this: I have a coach — and I’ve consistently had coaches for the last four years, sometimes more than one at a time. There’s usually a pause, like they’re trying to reconcile the idea that someone who has built and exited companies would still choose to be coached.

“But you’re doing well.”

Exactly.

That’s why I invest in coaching.

I don’t hire coaches because things are broken. I hire them because I understand something most founders eventually learn:

🟢 Growth without proximity is slower than it needs to be.
🟢 Accountability prevents quiet complacency.
🟢 Blind spots are expensive when you’re the one setting the standard.

When you’re the CEO, it’s easy to normalize your own ceiling.

Right now, my primary coach is Andrew Kroeze, and in March I’ll be attending his 7 Figure CEO Mastermind in Cabo San Lucas. Yes, Mexico — a country that already means a lot to our family as we build our home in San Miguel de Allende. But this isn’t about magical Mexico. It’s about positioning myself in a room where the standard is higher than my current comfort zone.

The event is centered on partnerships, joint ventures, and building audiences of raving fans — not louder ads, but real relationships. And if you’ve followed my work lately, you know how much we’ve been talking about community. Because community compounds.

Proximity changes identity. Identity changes behavior. Behavior changes results.

So I’ll ask you:

Do you have someone stretching your thinking — or are you trying to build your next level alone?

I help education founders build lead gen engines to generate 12–20+ qualified sales calls/month using the 3E Method | 233 ed companies served | 2,600+ Coaching Hours in 2025 | Milken-Penn GSE Judge | StartEd Mentor

Most education founders are sabotaging their own credibility.
Not because they’re unqualified.
Because they’re hiding the only thing that creates trust.

They lead with degrees.
Titles.
Logos.
Years.

That’s safe.
But safe doesn’t create alignment in education.

Last week, I recorded a raw EdSales Edge conversation with Dr. Tara Williams — PhD, tenured professor, deeply respected.

Her credibility didn’t accelerate when she added letters after her name.

It accelerated when she stopped hiding the part of her story she thought made her look weaker.

That’s the shift.

In this week’s Founder’s Field Notes, I unpack why the thing you’re sanding down might be the exact thing that makes buyers lean in.
If you’re building in education, read this one.

Most education founders think credibility comes from credentials. Degrees. Titles. Years in the field. Dr. Tara Williams, PhD has all of it — PhD, ten

Open article: You’re sabotaging your own credibility. by Josh Chernikoff • 1 min read

You’re sabotaging your own credibility.

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The Battle

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Josh Chernikoff

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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);}Vaibhav Namburi's LinkedIn Performance

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