R. Stefan Deeran

I see an industry wide need to include more functions and teams in the GTM motion, this one reflects pretty closely to what I have in mind https://lnkd.in/ek2iCWXb

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To scale from $1M to $10M ARR, you need to turn your ad hoc GTM efforts into a well-oiled machine. This means creating repeatable processes across your entire GTM - from lead gen to sales to customer success. The good news for technical founders is that they're experts at solving complex engineering challenges with precision, efficiency, and structure. At this stage of startup growth, they need to apply that same systems-oriented mindset to GTM - which, for B2B startups, can be approached more as a science than an art. More in the May edition of B2BaCEO: https://lnkd.in/emsvFN9q

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Have you ever looked for theory that can answer - how to approach investors - what kind of product to build first - how you’ll defend the company against competitors This new article from CDA partner, Kevin Maney extends Steven Johnson's writing from the book Emergence to #CategoryDesign. All #Startups and #VentureCapital teams should dig in. (link to article in comments)

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I meet and talk with 5-10 of the greatest GTM minds on the planet every week. CRO’s, VPs of Sales, CMO’s. 100% agree that getting outbound right is one of the hardest parts of their business, why? 1. Recruiting is hard again The same voices that sold tech sales as an easy path to 6 figures are now the voices saying the BDR role is dead. They sold a bill of goods to people who didn’t understand how hard this role is, are surprised these people who chose a path because it was sold as “easy” aren’t performing, and now have ulterior motives to pivot to a new message. Hard jobs are hard to recruit for. 2. Lack of Leadership 2020 through mid 2022 we had a bunch of capital bloat and talent bloat enter the market. Just like we have overvalued “zombie” companies we have overvalued “zombie” leaders who don’t know how to coach good habits for this type of market. Outbound was easy from 2014ish to summer 2022. 8 years is a long time, most of the voices we hear only know those times or only know what type of sales motion. 3. Absolute statements muddy the waters I've been around the block enough to click on their profile and see their track record. 99.9% of folks make these statements only sold transactional commodity technology, sold to GTM teams, or in most cases – only both. What works depends on multiple factors: ASP, buyer persona, and complexity of your sales process/customer’s buying process. Depending on what you sell – sometimes you are going to need to pick up the phone or send a note to get someone’s attention. That will NEVER change. 4. Generational consideration for career pathing is key BDR is still hands down the best route to market for future AE’s. You have to learn to prospect and get meetings before you can run a meeting, qualify, and manage a deal. No argument from me on CAC math – thousands of products require veracious qualification, deal management, and creating customer consensus. You can not run those types of deals and prospect. If any Voice had EVER done that type of role or ran a team that did, they wouldn’t say what they are. For BDRs to stick around for more than 14 months, you need steps in the BDR path where comp, responsibility and role grow over time. 5. Results are tanking Point 1&2. You are the equivalent of a fire fighter that starts a fire then takes the glory when you put it out. I absolutely loved the movie Backdraft – but stop it. These are the ideas of “not famous” GTM people. People who spend all day serving their customer and developing their people – not posting on this platform. They don’t care about clicks, followers, or impressions. They care about revenue and earnings. Outbound is hard. It (almost) always has been. Ya’ll need to block the noise and focus on what works for your business and try everything. Even the hard stuff. #AllGasNoBrakes #DialedIn

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Starting to learn a lot more about #AnalystRelations as they become a more important influencer and champion in our deals at UserEvidence. Had a great chat w/Chris Manfredi who runs AR at Sprout Social, Inc. last week. AR isn't just having a relationship w/the Gartner and Forrester analysts covering your space. The top AR pros have a much broader and more strategic interpretation of the function - which is really to harness/foster external validation to build trust and credibility for their company. It's inherently a cross-functional role - insights externally need to be brought internally to inform product vision, product marketing, sales and competitive intelligence. And proof and evidence needs to move internally and from customers out externally to the analyst community - so analysts feel the momentum of customers. This is the really critical intersection between #AR & #CustomerMarketing. Analyst insights, opinions and assessments are heavily influenced by customers. So while it may not be AR's directly responsibility, AR pros need to have access to happy customers, and have an arsenal of credible proof and evidence that demonstrates the value being delivered to customers. A strong customer marketing team (like Jen Anderson's team at Sprout Social) is a huge asset for an AR pro/team. Still learning more about AR - there's a lot of nuance to the role/function, but especially in an enterprise context, it's clearly critical. Thanks to AR leaders like Robin Schaffer, Carter Lusher, Jodie Ohr, Michael Beaudet, Dan O'Brien, and Elena Hutchison for sharing some great insights in their posts and in coversations that have helped me get up to speed.

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🚨 GTM, RevOps, and Automation/No-Code Agencies: Read this if you’re looking for your secret weapon. I know a Chief of Staff and ex-investor who’s looking to work with agencies part-time—and she’s a force multiplier. Here’s the breakdown: • 4+ years investing across multiple funds, working with countless startups. • Deep GTM, planning, enablement, and RevOps expertise from the trenches of venture-backed companies. • A next-level understanding of what your clients need to scale and succeed. If you’re ready to level up with someone who knows how to align strategy, execution, and client success, DM me, and I’ll connect you. Let’s get you the strategic muscle to scale smarter.

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Great conversation with Joey Brodsky! Definitely one of the sharpest guys I know. I love his passion, drive and unique perspectives. I have followed his podcast for a long time and was super happy to be able to be a guest. I will share more insights from our time together but wanted to post a quick thank you to Joey and share the episode. #NextGenSales

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RevOps leaders, this is the playbook you’ve been waiting for. In a world flooded with content that often lacks substance, the RevOps Docs for Startups by LeanScale are a breath of fresh air. This guide isn’t just another rundown of the basics—it’s an in-depth, yet easily approachable, guide to the rapidly evolving RevOps landscape, crafted from real insights gathered across 50+ hyper-growth companies. Huge shoutout to my longtime buddy Joe Zaghloul and the team at LeanScale for putting in the thought and care to make something truly impactful. The format alone—structured like API docs, complete with a changelog—makes it incredibly usable and memorable. #RevOps leaders and #GTM teams will find it packed with playbooks that feel almost built-in to the process. If you’re scaling a B2B SaaS, you’ll want to bookmark this one. It’s hands-on, actionable, and unlike anything else out there. https://lnkd.in/ekrUJAW5

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✨🚨 Another Make Cents post is live! 🚨✨ In this post, "AI & its Impact on Vertical SaaS: The Gates of Distribution have Flung Open", I explore how AI is impacting vertical SaaS workflows and its implication for distribution and defensibility. We defy.vc are more excited than ever to invest in vertical SaaS because we believe there's tremendous value leveraging AI to enhance human productivity across tasks like 1) structuring data, 2) analysis, 3) recommendations, and 4) taking action. I also walk through why customer acquisition costs are at an all-time low, attributed to more than just AI-driven product functionality. Read more ⬇ and share your thoughts and feedback in the comments! https://lnkd.in/gRVcJASH

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At most networking events… Business owners shake hands, exchange business cards, and go home. HumanX has a different approach. You’ll be paired together in 1:1 conversations with investors & AI startups. You’re not just adding people to your rolodex. Deals will be made.

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𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐏𝐆 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 $𝟏𝟎𝟎𝐌+ 𝐀𝐑𝐑. Specially impressive is how Charles Coristine pivoted into 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 and yet systematically invested in the 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝. Being 𝐟𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐥, and yet raising just enough capital to make the 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡. 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐬. Doesn’t take a whole lot of mistakes to see those margins vanish. A bad production run. Not capturing wasted labor costs. Not ordering on time. Ordering more than necessary and tie up capital. 𝐒𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫. Maintaining Cash flow is king. #food #manufacturing #branding #grossmargins #cashflows

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Real intent data doesn’t exist. There are dozens of tools promising “intent” data and it’s confusing to everyone. Let’s clarify what’s going on with “intent”. Real intent is when a prospect (1) has the problem you solve and (2) is ready to spend budget to solve it. Real intent is almost impossible to find unless you have an intelligence edge (e.g. getting a tip form a cold call or channel partners referring to prospects). This isn’t a software problem, it’s an intelligence problem. And I’ve yet to see a credible data source for real intent. What the entire industry calls “intent” data are actually signals that correlate with intent. Here are a few buckets based on how strongly each signal correlates with real intent: Signals that correlate most with real intent: - Comparison shopping solutions on G2 and other review sites - Visiting your pricing page multiple times - Explicitly mentions the problem you solve on LinkedIn, job postings, and financial filings Signals that correlate somewhat with real intent: - Visiting your website once or twice - Has a specific tech stack that implies they may have the problem you solve Signals that correlate weakly with real intent: - Leadership job changes (including past customers familiar with your product) - Headcount growth within your target persona - Fundraising - Searching for tracked key words on blogs and partner websites Every signal has a tradeoff between volume and correlation with real intent. For example, even though job changes or headcount growth are lower on the list, they help “fill the hopper” for the SDR and DG team. Your conversion rates and signal ranking will vary based on your product /ICP. If you want to approach intent from first principles, start with that’s working already (ask your reps) and double down there. Simultaneously, test other signals that work for your competitors. Avoid the dogma that intent = blackbox KW tracking that can’t be explained to a rep. It’s possible that works well for you, though for most GTM teams I’ve found it’s consistently on the bottom of the list. Ironic, since that’s what most think of as “intent”.

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Maximizing Event ROI with Generative AI 💡 Part 1 - Lead Follow Ups Events like conferences, trade shows, and webinars are crucial for B2B companies to generate leads and build relationships. The real work, however, begins after the event, when companies need to quickly follow up with leads and nurture them into loyal customers. It's also when your teams are the most tired and tapped out! By tailoring follow-up content to nuggets from the event paired with each lead's specific needs, pain points, and interests based on their persona, account, industry, and behavior, companies can demonstrate their commitment to being a trusted partner. Generative AI tools like Tofu can make this level of personalization scalable, timely, and repeatable. How does it work? 1️⃣ Upload your lead lists: Upload or sync your lead lists from the event to your CRM. This can be lists of attendees and non-attendees from webinars, lead scans from an event, signups from a booth, or attendees of a small dinner. Tofu will pull in your list including information on the contact, their account, and any notes/behavioral information that you include. 2️⃣ AI-powered research: Tofu will then do account and contact research for each lead in your list. Tofu crawls their company websites, the internet, and other sources you provide to, analyze their industries, identify pain points, and surface unique insights and value propositions you should use when speaking with each. 3️⃣ Personalized content generation: Using Tofu Insights paired with your CRM data, Tofu creates personalized content for each lead including tailored email sequences, targeted landing pages, personalized ads, and more. 4️⃣ Automated execution: By integrating with your marketing automation platforms, CRM, and CMS, Tofu can automatically execute campaigns through the tools you already use and collect the data on performance to measure the ROI and create a feedback loop so the model gets smarter for the next event. Stay tuned for Part 2 all about repurposing rich content from events! https://lnkd.in/gYBvcZGd #B2BMarketing #EventROI #GenerativeAI #Personalization

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ossa.ai is averaging over 1200-1500 sign-ups a day at 5% to 10% marketing capacity. Here's my plan to take that to 100% capacity: For context, ossa.ai is a bootstrapped AI-video generation company in the tech space. We are the only company in the world that is genuinely focused on helping individuals create engaging short-form videos with AI—and succeeding at it—objectively. Over the last 5 months since we launched, we have all been wearing all the hats in the business. For anyone who has started a business, you know what this looks like. Everyone is the the Head of Operations, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, Customer Success, HR, Finance, and Legal. Now that we've settled in, we are structuring the business into specific departments and adopting industry-standard work management frameworks. With our exponential growth, we are grateful to have recently brought on some incredibly talented individuals to help us build the @ossa.ai vision and take on specialized roles in the company. It's incredibly humbling to have someone believe in me and the rest of the team enough to join us and work alongside us. I could not be more excited to put my creator hat back on and get back in my element. Over the last 2 weeks, I have been building out internal content creation and management systems with Sean Akyildiz (Zoro) to support a large volume of both ossa.ai & Colewherld content. We are currently only posting around 15-20 pieces of content a week. My goal with this new system is to scale that into at least 200+ pieces of content a week. We also have some ambitious plans to roll out marketing initiatives that will set new standards in this industry. These next few quarters will be massive, and it's time for the world to start knowing OSSA.AI. P.S. - This doesn't take into account the insane features we will be dropping over the next couple quarters... Back to work.

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We just released new reporting infrastructure for managers to track stage progressions, dial activity, objections that reps are falling into and more Current users can head over to their trellus dashboards to take a look #sdrs #bdrs #ai #coldcalls #coldcalling #salesenagement #salesplatforms

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At Forum we look at thousands of deals each year across our Accelerator and Pre-Seed funds but only end up investing in a little over 1% of those startups.  As an early stage VC, I am in the business of saying no to nearly every startup I meet, and while there is nuanced rationale for many of the startups I pass on, a vast majority of businesses that don’t meet the qualification to get funded typically fall into one of two buckets. ▪ First time founders have a tendency to go out to market too early to raise pre-seed capital ▪   I’m sure most founders have heard some iteration of this from VCs that ultimately pass on their business.  In some cases it's a blanket excuse covering up for other pass reasons- perhaps a VC doesn’t believe in a team or isn’t bullish on the market opportunity - but in many cases founders simply haven't proven enough to the market to warrant an investment. I meet many teams with an articulate vision for the product that they want to build, but they either haven't performed enough customer discovery to prove demand for their initial wedge product, or need to raise pre-seed capital to build out an MVP.  In those cases, pre-seed investors are unwilling to underwrite those risks.  To be default fundable, teams need to be able to keep costs low, perform extensive customer discovery, and ship some version of an early product - pilots and early paid customers are key. A huge piece of this is having founding engineering talent on the team. ▪Not every startup is a venture opportunity ▪ By definition, a venture backed business is solving a problem within a market opportunity so massive and so desperately needed, that its growth rate is off the charts.   It spreads like a weed, absorbing almost unlimited amounts of capital to fulfill demand within its customer base.   Each year there are maybe 20 companies launched that ultimately have venture scale outcomes. The bar to reach this rarified air is unfathomably high and the reality is the vast majority of founders simply aren’t building for opportunities that have the potential to be one of these generational companies. Many startup founders view VC as the only viable option for capitalizing their business, but not every great business is a venture business, and most successful founders never take VC dollars.  In order to reach an IPO/acquisition large enough to generate venture returns, a startup needs a credible path to $100s of millions in revenue. This is the standard by which early stage opportunities are evaluated. The flip side to this, and I share this feedback often with founders I meet that are building interesting business in non venture markets, if you are able to scale to $10- $20M in revenue that can be a massively successful outcome for a founder.  There are investors who focus on these type outcomes, namely lower middle market PE shops, and the typical path to those deals is a bootstrapped business or a friends/family capital raise.

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Myths about CMOs ⚫️ They can market ANYTHING ⚫️ Fix churn if product is broken  ⚫️ Can track attribution PERFECTLY ⚫️ They can be the most creative, most stellar in operations, most plugged to AI, most inspirational, most technical, most strategic, most business acumen all at once ⚫️ They can triple the pipeline with half the budget  ⚫️ They can mysteriously get campaigns to work within a week  ⚫️ They can fix bad culture  ⚫️ Can align with all the departments on their own  ⚫️ Can write magical stories that move people to action  ⚫️ Can create community with just a slack group  ⚫️ Can use AI to perfectly message to all their accounts What else am I missing? 

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MEDDIC is a popular approach to lead qualification for B2B SaaS. The M stands for Metrics and itis often where sales struggles. Some even skip over this. The value based approach provides the tools needed to manage the M in MEDDIC. Amar Dhaliwal shows how to think through the first critical Metrics (or Money) step in MEDDIC. https://lnkd.in/dbn9WAqT #MEDDIC #SaaS #valuebasedpricing #Sales

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I had a 30-minute meeting with Daniel Saks, co-founder and CEO of Landbase.com. He discussed their Agentic AI product for Sales and marketing, specifically the GTM-1 Omni solution. He also touched on the opportunities available for AI and ML engineers. This conversation likely gave insight into how their AI technology transforms go-to-market strategies and the growing demand for talent in AI and machine learning fields. Daniel Saks discusses the evolution of Landbase’s Agentic AI, its applications in sales and marketing, and the challenges faced in leveraging AI for lead generation. Highlights 🌍 Daniel Saks shares his entrepreneurial journey from a family furniture business to co-founding AppDirect and Landbase. 🤖 Landbase utilizes Agentic AI to intelligently automate go-to-market strategies for businesses. 📈 The Agentic AI market is predicted to be five times larger than the current SaaS market in the next 10-15 years. 🔍 Landbase offers insights through a Digital Trust Score, helping businesses improve their credibility. 📊 Their AI model has been trained on extensive data, optimizing lead generation and conversion strategies. 📚 Landbase provides a suite of products including outbound, nurture, and inbound solutions for effective lead management. 💪 The importance of assembling a skilled team and the challenges of data scarcity in AI development were highlighted. Key Insights 🌟 Transformative Potential of Agentic AI: Agentic AI represents a significant shift in how businesses approach lead generation, enabling them to automate and optimize strategies effectively. This could redefine market dynamics. 📊 Market Growth Prediction: The potential growth of the Agentic AI market suggests that startups can disrupt traditional software markets by offering innovative solutions. This emphasizes the need for adaptive business models. 🔑 Importance of Credibility: The Digital Trust Score reveals that a strong digital presence and credibility are crucial for successful marketing campaigns. This insight underlines the significance of brand reputation in lead generation. 💡Data-Driven Decision Making: The success of Landbase’s AI model relies on extensive data training, highlighting the necessity of having quality data for effective AI applications in businesses. 🛠️ AI Product Suite: Landbase’s offerings—outbound, nurture, and inbound solutions—illustrate a comprehensive approach to lead management, catering to various stages of the sales funnel. 🌍 Global Talent Scarcity: The challenges in finding skilled talent for AI development indicate a competitive landscape, suggesting that companies should invest in talent development and training. 🚀 Entrepreneurial Spirit: Saks encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to leverage the current era of technological advancement, emphasizing that great companies can emerge from anywhere with the right vision and conviction. #landbase #agenticai #ai #GTM #danielsaks #srinivasanramanujam

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