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)

Technology should serve humans during the moments that matter most in our lives. 

I co-founded Vera to help families care for their ageing parents. After building products and teams at Google and Airtasker and advising and investing in numerous startups, I am applying my experience to solve this massive, often overlooked, problem. 

As well as my work at Vera, I co-host The Startup Podcast. TSP aims to provide actionable advice to founders looking to build a Silicon Valley-style startup, wherever they are in the world.

Meet Vera: https://vera.guide

Listen to The Startup Podcast: https://tsp.show


*My connection policy (tl;dr don't sell me stuff)*

I like to use LinkedIn as a way of building a community of interesting and interested people in technology and the technology industry. If you are:

-A software developer, product manager, designer, marketer anywhere in the world
-An organisational leader or manager in engineering or at a tech company
-Otherwise heavily involved in the tech industry

I'd be happy to connect! Even if we haven't met.

Even if you're not one of those things I'm probably happy to connect, as long as you don't immediately turn around and try to sell me something. If you do, I consider that a breach of trust and will block and report you.

Yaniv Bernstein

Sunday night. I'm on a plane, making multiple nontrivial changes to my product using Claude Code Web.

Don't listen to the haters, we live in an age of miracles.

Helping people care for ageing parents | The Startup Podcast

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I had a beer with one of Australia's best founders on Friday night, running a 9-figure company that will become a unicorn in the nearish future.

He was late, and sent me a text: "I have to wait for my agents to finish."

Ten minutes later, he showed up to the pub with an open laptop. "I figured I would just bring my agents with me". Every couple of minutes he would glance over at the screen to see what they were up to.

I wasn't mad. I understood. After all, I had kicked off two changes on Claude Code Web on my phone while I had been waiting.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. And here is a fact:

Every one of the best CEOs, CTOs, and business leaders I know is spending more time building than they have in years. They are AI-pilled, they are obsessed, and they are LOVING IT.

I've been in this game for 20 years now, and this does feel different. The way startups work is changing, and the change is coming from the top, driven by founders who have rediscovered the joy of building.

LinkedIn took away my 🤖 emoji, so I've updated my profile picture to include my little robot friend.

There's a club that more than 10% of Australians are members of...

...yet nobody talks about it.

...most of the members don't even know they've joined.

...and like the Hotel California, members can check out any time you like, but they can never leave.

It's Club Sandwich, the club for folks in the sandwich generation: juggling, work, kids, and ageing parents.

At Vera, Melissa and I are incredibly proud to have created the Club Sandwich podcast and community, hosted by the incomparable Sarah Macdonald.

Serious topics, discussed with warmth and humour by Sarah and our wonderful group of "Clubbers". 

Episode 1 dropped today, and is SO good. Get it in your ears now!

We're back baby!

After a couple of months off, The Startup Podcast is fresh in your feeds for 2026. With AI upending everything in startups, the discussions we are having with some of the best startup folks in the world are more important than ever.

Thanks to our marvellous sponsors .TECH Domains and Vanta for making this season possible.

Still reading? Why are you still here? Go get it in your ears now!

I know a number of you are jonesing for the 2026 season of The Startup Podcast to start.

Not long now! But in the meantime, here's a fun conversation I had with the marvellous Scotty Allen 🚌 on The Bootstrap- Startups from Scratch Podcast about what I've learned so far about building a startup in the AI era.

Tomorrow's episode of The Startup Podcast is with a founder who's started 10+ companies out of Silicon Valley, went through YC, was mentored by Paul Graham and Sam Altman, and regularly sits in rooms with Fortune 500 CEOs and unicorn founders.

She told me that this is the wildest time she has ever seen in Silicon Valley.

A few things we talked about:

The private anxiety among successful people in SF is the highest she's ever seen. 

She has a single interview question that she says now matters more than anything else on a candidate's resume.

She personally shows up at CEOs' offices and gives them three hours to build a working app. No delegating.

She told me why the era of loud, self-promoting founders raising big rounds is giving way to something much quieter.

Drops tomorrow. You do not want to miss it (trust me).

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Yaniv Bernstein

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The Battle

Vaibhav Namburi

Yaniv Bernstein

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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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