Revenue Remix - Inspiring Visionary Leaders

Most founders find out their playbook is broken when revenue stalls. The ones who catch it early — they knew what signals to watch months before the stall hit. In this episode of Revenue Remix, host Summer Poletti is joined by two operators who specialize in exactly this inflection point: the $5M to $10M growth plateau that catches founders off guard, not because they made bad decisions, but because they made good ones that stopped compounding.

This is episode one of the Messy Middle series — a multi-part conversation about what breaks, what slows, and what has to change when a B2B company outgrows the playbook that built it.

The early signals that a growth playbook is expiring The first sign is rarely revenue. It shows up as friction — the founder back in every decision, meetings multiplying with no increase in clarity, teams optimizing for activity instead of outcomes. Growth that used to feel energizing starts to feel expensive. Operationally. Emotionally. Culturally. If the founder is asking "why can't people just think like I do" — that is the signal.

When hustle becomes the bottleneck At $5M, grit and grind are competitive advantages. At $10M, they are structural liabilities. The founders who navigate this transition well pause long enough to diagnose before they double down. They separate what got them here from what needs to change. They ask: what parts of how we operate no longer scale?

Why the founding team problem is always the last thing a founder sees Loyalty to early employees is real and it is earned. But the communication rhythms, decision-making capacity, and operational discipline required at $10M are different from what built the first $5M. The role that got you here is not always the role the business needs next. The company can see it. The founder almost never can — until they zoom out.

The go-to-market mistakes that hurt the most and last the longest Two patterns show up in nearly every company that stalls at this stage. First: messaging and positioning that sounds identical to every competitor — built from the inside out, describing what the product does rather than why buyers actually buy. Second: an ICP defined by firmographics instead of triggering events. If you do not know what happened in the 90 days before your best customers bought from you, your targeting is guesswork. The revenue you realize will always be harder than it has to be.

Revenue concentration risk — the metric most founders ignore until it's a crisis If your top five customers represent 50% or more of your revenue, you are one cancellation away from a contraction event. At this stage, the middle of the customer base needs to grow. Most founders are not looking at this until it is already a problem.

The one question that tells you everything Where is your next $5M to $10M in revenue coming from? If the answer is a blank stare — that is the diagnosis. Not because growth is impossible, but because growth without a known source is not a strategy. It is hope.

Amirah Raveneau-Bey

Maria Trysla

Summer Poletti

#GoToMarket #B2BSales #SalesStrategy #GTM #RevenueSystems #FounderGrowth #B2BMarketing #MessyMiddle #StartupGrowth #ScalingStartups #FractionalCRO #RevenueGrowth #GTMStrategy #FounderLedSales #SaaSGrowth

I started this business for fifty dollars a month. Me, ChatGPT, a Wix website, and what was in my brain. AI didn't just lower the barrier to entry — it basically removed it.

Antonio Nguyen and Quinn Fukawa are the co-founders of Quant Community and the architects of The 100 Experiment — one of the most ambitious community concepts in the early-stage entrepreneurship space right now. The premise: can 100 scrappy founders build a combined net worth more than Elon's billions, starting from zero?

They're at 56 of 100 and building fast.

Summer met Antonio and Quinn at TechCon SoCal — caught them mid-hustle, rolling camera and working the room the way only founders who are all in on their mission do. The follow-up conversation made this bonus episode inevitable.

This one covers a lot of ground and covers it fast. Antonio and Quinn talk about why they drove six hours from Arizona to San Diego for TechCon — not just for the event, but to meet community members in person for the first time. They break down the simple but powerful principle that early-stage founders have to live by: nothing ever has just one job. The trip wasn't just a conference. It was a community meetup, a content shoot, and a relationship deepening trip all at once.

From there the conversation moves into the Arizona tech scene — why Phoenix is becoming one of the most interesting places to build right now, what's driving the influx of entrepreneurs and infrastructure investment, and why the consistent weather and available real estate make it a serious contender for the next wave of data center and energy technology development.

Then comes the generational divide on AI that nobody is talking about honestly. LinkedIn is an AI hype machine. Instagram and TikTok tell a completely different story — younger creators and entrepreneurs pushing back hard, using AI as a convenient label for anything they don't trust or don't like. Antonio and Quinn live on Instagram. Their read on where their generation actually stands on AI is more nuanced and more honest than most of what gets published.

And underneath all of it is the question that connects every thread in this episode: are we seeing more young entrepreneurs because AI lowered the barrier to entry for everyone, or is this generation choosing entrepreneurship because corporate stopped being a reliable path? The answer is probably both. And the window is open right now in a way it won't be forever.

The 100 Experiment is built for founders who are done being entrepreneurs in isolation. If that's you, check it out.

Follow Antonio
Follow Quinn
Quant on Instagram
Quant on LinkedIn

Follow Summer

Recorded in connection with TechCon SoCal. Subscribe to Revenue Remix on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#Entrepreneurship #YoungEntrepreneurs #StartupCommunity #TheHundredExperiment #QuantCommunity #AIEntrepreneurship #BarrierToEntry #ArizonaTech #PhoenixStartups #TechConSoCal #RevenueRemix #FounderStory #BuildInPublic #SolopreneurLife #FutureOfWork #GenerationalDivide #ArtificialIntelligence #StartupGrowth #EarlyStageFounders #CommunityBuilding

Summer Poletti sits down again with Steve Krull (BeFound Online) and Toni (LandingRabbit) on what's actually happening in B2B buyer discovery right now. Google keeps 60% of clicks inside AI overviews. Buyers are talking to robots instead of visiting websites. Your funnel is broken. Here's what works now.

• The 60% stat: Google is keeping 60% of clicks inside AI. Buyers never see your website.
• The dark funnel: The invisible research phase where buyers decide before they contact sales.
• Three languages framework: Analysts, managers, and executives speak different languages. Most companies write for one.
• Above/below the line: How buyers jump between discovery and decision now (it's not linear).
• Content quotability: How to structure content so LLMs actually recommend you.
• MVP website approach: Start minimal. Let behavior guide what you build next.
• Why gating content kills you: In the AI age, your best stuff needs to be ungated.
• Sales/marketing alignment: It's no longer optional. It's the difference between winning and losing.

Steve on AI discovery: "60% of Google clicks never leave Google. If your website doesn't show up, you're now on the backend of a robot helping your buyer decide what to buy."

Toni on speed: "Product documentation has a one-day shelf life. By the time you write it, it's outdated. That's the challenge: keeping marketing, sales, and your website aligned when everything moves that fast."

Steve Krull — Founder, BeFound Online. Digital agency for high-consideration B2B brands navigating AI discovery. LinkedIn

Toni — Founder, LandingRabbit. Content-to-page platform for founders keeping websites in sync with product velocity. LinkedIn

Catch their last appearance on the show

Follow Summer on LinkedIn

1. Test your AI visibility. Ask Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini the questions your buyers ask. Log out first. See if you're quoted. See if it's accurate. Track monthly.
2. Pull your last 10 sales calls. What did buyers ask? What language did they use? Get that on your website (FAQ, case study, help doc).
3. Map your three personas. Analyst (execution). Manager (team outcomes). Executive (market/growth). Where's the content gap?

#DarkFunnel #AIMarketing #GoToMarket #B2BMarketing #AIDiscovery #ContentStrategy #SalesMarketing #GTM #LLM #BuyerJourney #WebsiteStrategy #MarketingAlignment

The way you've always done it works. Until it doesn't. And by then, you've already lost ground.

Bill Stierle has spent 35 years helping founders, CEOs, and executive teams communicate their way through the moments that matter most — scaling inflection points, leadership transitions, organizational conflict, and high-stakes crisis. He's a speaker, consultant, trainer, and author of The Emotional Sobriety Solution. Summer connected with him at TechCon SoCal after seeing his thinking on crisis communication and quickly realized the conversation was going to go much deeper than that.

In this bonus episode, Bill breaks down why the mindset that builds a company to $5M is the exact mindset that stalls it at $10M — and what founders have to rewire in order to scale past it. He introduces the concept of the Magic Seven, the executive team structure designed to take a founder from vision to execution without losing the plot, and explains why the CEO's real job is language translation between business units that don't naturally speak to each other.

He also gets into the neuroscience behind why change is so hard for leaders — the front brain has 400,000 neuroconnections, the back brain has 4.3 million — and what it practically takes to upgrade your operating beliefs the way you'd update software. The Progressive Insurance and Flo story alone is worth the listen for any founder who thinks their product should sell itself.

And yes, the milk on the table story will make you rethink how you talk to your team. And possibly your kids.

Connect with Bill Stierle: https://www.billstierle.com Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-stierle-7314181/

Recorded in connection with TechCon SoCal. Subscribe to Revenue Remix on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#LeadershipDevelopment #FounderMindset #ScalingBusiness #EmotionalIntelligence #CommunicationStrategy #ExecutiveLeadership #B2BGrowth #RevenueRemix #TechConSoCal #BusinessGrowth #StartupGrowth #GTMStrategy #CrisisCommunication #CEOMindset #NeedsBasedMarketing #TechConSoCal #TechCon #TechConSoCal2026

"It's not a technology problem. It's not a people problem. It's a structure problem." That's the line that stopped the conversation, and it's the whole reason this episode exists.

Kimberly Nelson-Wright and Taylor Chaney are the co-founding mother-daughter team behind Preflight AI, an AI governance and readiness platform built for organizations that are moving fast on AI implementation without the structural foundation to support it. Summer connected with Kimberly on LinkedIn months before this recording, lost track of her when she went quiet — and then found out why. She'd been heads down building. They finally met in person at TechCon SoCal, and the conversation that happened there made this episode inevitable.

Kimberly spent decades as a COO working across industries. She kept seeing the same pattern: executives announcing AI initiatives, nobody asking whether the organization was actually ready, and the fallout landing in HR. Taylor is the software engineer who looked at her mother's early prototype and told her she could build something better. Within one living room conversation and a quick mockup, Preflight AI was born.

In this episode, Summer, Kimberly, and Taylor dig into why AI implementations fail before they start — and what it actually costs when companies skip the readiness work. They break down the Starbucks inventory disaster, Uber's blown AI budget, and Klarna's very public lesson in what happens when customer experience breaks because no one asked the right questions upfront. They get into why "we need to reduce headcount" is the wrong starting point for an AI strategy, why your CTO is not the right person to own AI governance, and what founders and operators should actually pause and examine before they spend a dollar on tools or licenses.

Taylor also makes the case that AI isn't always the answer — and explains what she looks for when evaluating whether a company's problem even warrants an AI solution in the first place. Kim breaks down what leadership accountability for AI actually looks like, and why most organizations are structuring it wrong.

This is the same conversation happening in boardrooms and leadership offsites right now. The difference is most people are having it after the budget is already gone. If you're a founder, COO, CMO, or anyone sitting in a room where someone just said "we need to do AI" — this episode is the pause button you didn't know you needed.

Connect with Preflight AI: [URL] Kimberly Nelson-Wright on LinkedIn: [URL] Taylor Chaney on LinkedIn: [URL]

Women building things worth knowing about: Camille Terry, Founder & CEO, Charger Help: [URL] Sister Scriptors at Towson University: [URL] Bit Brothers at Towson University: [URL]

Follow Summer on LinkedIn

Recorded in connection with TechCon SoCal. Subscribe to Revenue Remix on YouTube, Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#AIReadiness #ArtificialIntelligence #AIImplementation #AIGovernance #AIStrategy #B2BSaaS #RevenueRemix #GTMStrategy #FounderStory #WomenInTech #WomenFounders #StartupGrowth #TechConSoCal #OperationsStrategy #BusinessGrowth

Summer Poletti sits down with Sean Parnell for a bonus deep dive on how partnerships actually work in practice. Most founders think they need a huge pipeline to attract partners. Sean breaks down why that's backwards, and how to start building partnerships when you have no leads to give back.

This is the first bonus episode in the Partner-Led Growth series. After that panel showed why partnerships belong in modern GTM systems, this episode answers the question: How do you actually build them from scratch?

What You'll Learn

• Why "give first" isn't naive — it's strategic.
• The KLTR Framework: Know, Like, Trust, Refer.
• The one mistake that kills partnerships immediately.
• Pre-qualify or waste everyone's time.
• Partnership follow-up is not optional.
• Why your calendar is the partnership management tool.
• How to balance reciprocity without keeping score.

"Even when you're starting out, you have knowledge. You know how to solve problems they don't have experience with."

"I referred somebody I didn't really know that well but they talked a good game. My client said, 'That guy you referred was terrible.' Now I've just risked my relationship with my client because I referred too early."

"I only like to make an introduction when both parties have expressed interest to me. Cause I don't want to waste anybody's time."

"If you want to keep getting leads from that partner, you follow up in a timely manner and express appreciation."

"If you're feeling things are out of balance with reciprocity, one thing I tend to do is ask for something specific... but also stay on their radar. Post on LinkedIn, send newsletters — it's really important to include people like that because sometimes it's a timing issue."

"If you're not on the calendar, you're not going to happen. It's like date night with your spouse — you have to work on it."

B2B partnership strategy • partnership fundamentals • referral partnerships • know-like-trust-refer framework • giver mentality • trust building • reciprocity • pre-qualifying introductions • partner vetting • referral follow-up • partnership communication • partner retention • calendar discipline • relationship maintenance • early-stage partnerships • professional networks • B2B sales strategy • growth through relationships • founder network building • sustainable partnerships

Sean Parnell Founder of Innovaxis

Connect with Sean

Summer Poletti Founder of Rise of Us.

Connect with Summer

This is a bonus episode in a multi-part exploration of partner-led growth.

Already Released:

• 64% of New Business Came From Partners

Coming Soon:

• More deep dives on partnerships in action

Subscribe so you don't miss the full series

In this Revenue Remix roundtable, Summer Poletti sits down with three operators who've built partner programs at different stages of growth. Pat Ferdig (25+ years in enterprise partner ecosystems), Danny Engels (SalesEQ co-founder scaling through strategic partnerships), and Kathey Palmer (Chief Growth Officer at Innova Payroll - recently acquired by UKG) growing 200% through partner-led revenue) break down why partnerships are the third way when outbound and inbound are broken.

Key insight: 64% of Innova Payroll's new business last year came through partners

• Why partner-led growth matters now: Outbound is noisy. Inbound is broken. Warm intros cut the line and get you on the shortlist before buyers even start evaluating.
• The partnership mistakes that kill momentum: Partners die on the vine when there's no strategy, no onboarding, no measurement. The difference between "partners in name only" and partners that actually refer.
• How to structure a partner program that scales: Intentional partner selection (ideal partner profile), mandatory onboarding within the first month, monthly cadence check-ins, go-to-market plans written and approved by both parties, partner tiering (A/B/C/D partners), and actual revenue tracking.
• Why your sales team is the linchpin (and how to support them): AEs are overwhelmed. Remove friction from partner tracking. Automate what you can. Teach reps how to find leads for partners, not just get them.
• How to measure partnership ROI: Track partner-sourced leads through specific links. Ask how prospects heard about you on sales calls (web leads are often partner referrals). Measure bookings AND revenue generated. If you're not showing the board partner program ROI, you're doing yourself a disservice.
• The real cost of not having a partner strategy: Companies competing in commoditized industries (like payroll) can't outspend ADP or Paychex on marketing. Partners become the growth engine. Without them, you're grinding harder for slower growth.

Partner-led growth strategy • B2B partnership models • Partner program structure • Ideal partner profile • Partner onboarding • Go-to-market strategy • Partner tiering • Revenue attribution • Sales team alignment • Early-stage partnerships • Enterprise partnerships • Partnership measurement • Partner activation • Growth-stage revenue systems • Outbound vs. inbound vs. partnerships • Founder-led sales • Sales enablement • CRM tracking • Partner success • Scalable partnerships • GTM alignment

Pat Ferdig LinkedIn

Danny Engels LinkedIn

Tune in to the previous episode featuring Danny's co-founder discussing why sales intelligence matters. Listen

Kathy Palmer LinkedIn

Summer Poletti on LinkedIn

93% of HR executives say their organization values veteran employees. Only 31% say they're effective at hiring them. That gap between intention and execution is what this conversation is about.

Shawn Campbell is a director at Victory Strategies, an Air Force veteran, HR executive, leadership coach, and bestselling author. He spent decades inside the US military and now works with organizations on leadership development and veteran transition. He has seen this problem from both sides — as a veteran translating 20-plus years of service into a private sector resume, and as an HR leader watching well-meaning companies fail veterans before they walk through the door.

This episode drops just before Memorial Day. Not because we wanted to do a flag-waving moment, but because the people hearing thank you for your service on Monday deserve more than that on Tuesday.

We get into why nearly one third of veteran job seekers are underemployed and why underemployment is far more dangerous than unemployment. We talk about what veterans actually bring that doesn't show up on a resume: decisiveness, stick-to-it-iveness, integrity, a bias toward excellence, and the conditioning to show up ready to work the moment the clock starts. We talk about why the language in your job posting is probably screening great candidates out before you ever see them. And we get tactical about what founders and business leaders can do differently in recruiting, onboarding, and day-to-day integration.

We also talk about invisible wounds — PTSD, hearing loss, tinnitus, survivor's guilt — and what small practical accommodations actually look like for employers who want to get this right.

WHAT WE COVER:

— The 93/31 gap: why companies that value veterans still fail at hiring them

— Why underemployment is more dangerous than unemployment long-term

— What veterans bring that doesn't show up on a resume: decisiveness, discipline, loyalty, excellence

— The language translation problem: why military jargon kills veteran job applications

— How to rewrite your job posting so you stop screening veterans out

— Where to find veteran candidates beyond LinkedIn and Indeed

— ERGs and why veterans want to work where other veterans work

— Invisible wounds: PTSD, hearing loss, tinnitus, and practical workplace accommodations

— Service animals — what employers need to know

— The McKinsey $15 billion opportunity hiding in plain sight

CONNECT WITH SHAWN:

LinkedIn

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Military Officers Association of America

Veterans Administration employer resources

ABOUT REVENUE REMIX:

Revenue Remix is hosted by Summer Poletti, founder of Rise of Us. Feedspot Top Revenue Podcast 2025. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe: @RevenueRemix on YouTube

Follow Summer Poletti on LinkedIn

hiring veterans, veteran employment, veteran hiring strategy, military to civilian transition, HR strategy, talent acquisition, veteran workforce, underemployed veterans, veteran integration, veteran onboarding, supporting veterans, PTSD workplace, service animals work, veteran job seekers, military skills translation, veteran resume, veteran recruiting, military leadership, leadership development, Shawn Campbell, Revenue Remix, Summer Poletti, veteran unemployment, veteran underemployment, HR executives, inclusive hiring, workforce development, private sector transition, veteran retention, decisiveness leadership, leadership podcast, business podcast, B2B podcast

There are $45 trillion in retirement assets in the United States. One trillion is invested in the US fossil fuel industry — one fifth of the entire market cap of the fossil fuel sector — propping up an industry that has delivered the worst returns of any sector for the past two decades. Most people have no idea. And until recently, there was nothing they could do about it.

Alex Wright-Gladstein is a 2X founder and CEO of Sphere, a company making it easy for everyone to invest retirement savings in a climate-friendly way. Before Sphere, she was the founding CEO of IR Labs, a deep tech company spun out of MIT, UC Berkeley, and University of Colorado that is cutting the energy use of AI in half using light to move data between chips. She raised tens of millions in VC funding, successfully navigated five co-founders. Then did it again, solo, with a completely different kind of company.

This conversation covers a lot of ground. We get into how she managed five co-founders. We talk about what changed for female founders after the Me Too movement, why the VC funding gap is still sitting at 2%, and what MIT and Harvard research actually says about where subconscious bias comes from and how it gets fixed.

Then we get into the problem Sphere was built to solve. Why it took three years for a climate tech CEO to get a single fossil-fuel-free option in her own company's 401k. Why the big asset management firms won't fix this. Why the fossil fuel sector has underperformed every other sector for 20 years and your retirement plan is still defaulting into it. And how a two-sided go-to-market strategy targeting both employees and 401k advisors is moving the needle without a traditional ad budget.

WHAT WE COVER:

— The $1 trillion hiding inside America's retirement accounts

— Why fossil fuels have had the worst returns of any sector for 20 years

— How Alex managed 5 co-founders when a prior team declined a grant over equity splits

— Why she went solo for Sphere and what she gained

— Pitching as a female founder before and after the Me Too movement

— Why the VC funding gap is still at 2% and what MIT research says about subconscious bias

— Why big asset management firms won't launch climate-friendly index funds

— Two-sided GTM: targeting employees and 401k advisors simultaneously

— 200 million views on awareness campaigns without paying for a single ad

— Equity crowdfunding and building a deliberately diverse cap table

CONNECT WITH ALEX:

LinkedIn

Sphere

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

FairBridge

Symphonic Capital

ABOUT REVENUE REMIX:

Revenue Remix is hosted by Summer Poletti, founder of Rise of Us. Feedspot Top Revenue Podcast 2025. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe: @RevenueRemix on YouTube

Follow Summer on LinkedIn.

401k investing, retirement savings, climate tech, fossil fuel free 401k, Sphere investing, Alex Gladstein, female founder, women in VC, venture capital women, female entrepreneur, 2x founder, MIT startup, IR Labs, co-founder equity, solo founder, VC funding gap, diverse cap table, 401k strategy, two sided marketplace, Revenue Remix, Summer Poletti, Rise of Us, sustainable finance, B2B podcast

Everyone is selling AI visibility strategy right now. AEO. GEO. AISCO. LLMO. The alphabet soup is endless and most of it is the same SEO playbook with a new coat of paint. Steve Krull has been in digital marketing long enough to see this pattern before — and he is not impressed.

Steve is the founder and CEO of BeFound Online, a boutique digital marketing agency specializing in high consideration brands with complex sales cycles. He built AIQ because founders needed something that actually told them where they stood in AI search and what to do about it.

This conversation was recorded before Steve appeared on our panel episode — we're dropping it Tarantino style. If you caught him on the panel, this is the origin story. If you didn't, start here.

We get into what actually carries over from traditional SEO into AI search and what is genuinely different. We talk about why lead magnets are dying, why gated content is mostly feeding your spam folder, and what you should be doing with your contact forms right now. Steve shares specific tips your team can implement this week — schema, H1 and H2 structure, EEAT principles, content taxonomy — without hiring an agency.

WHAT WE COVER:

— Why most AI visibility strategies are old SEO repackaged and how to tell the difference

— What actually carries over from SEO into AI search and what genuinely changed

— Why lead magnets don't work when buyers can just ask ChatGPT instead

— Contact form optimization — the specific changes that move the needle on conversions

— Schema, EEAT, H2 tags as questions, pillar content — practical tips you can use this week

— Why gated content is mostly collecting Gmail addresses you'll never market to anyway

— The real cost of being everything to everybody for too long

— Service vs. product: how Steve crossed the value bridge and stopped selling hours

— AIQ: what AI visibility actually means and how to measure it

— Why the order of operations in digital marketing has changed even if the tactics haven't

ABOUT STEVE KRULL:

Steve Krull is the founder and CEO of BeFound Online, a boutique digital marketing agency focused on high consideration brands with complex or consultative sales cycles. He is also the founder of AIQ, a proprietary AI visibility scoring tool built for companies trying to understand and improve how they show up in AI search.

CONNECT WITH STEVE:

LinkedIn

BeFoundOnline

Steve's panel appearance: the Gong Killer

ABOUT REVENUE REMIX:

Revenue Remix is hosted by Summer Poletti, founder of Rise of Us. Feedspot Top Revenue Podcast 2025. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe: @RevenueRemix on YouTube

Follow Summer Poletti on LinkedIn.

AI visibility, AI SEO, AEO, GEO, LLM optimization, AI search, ChatGPT SEO, AI overviews, B2B digital marketing, B2B SEO, content marketing strategy, lead magnet, gated content, contact form optimization, conversion optimization, B2B lead generation, SEO strategy, content strategy, AI search optimization, BeFound Online, Steve Krull, Revenue Remix, Summer Poletti, complex sales cycle, B2B SaaS marketing, website conversion, LLM visibility, ChatGPT visibility, B2B podcast, revenue podcast, digital marketing 2026, AI marketing strategy