Dan Lee (Co-Founder & CEO of Nooks) joins GTMnow to give a behind the scenes on how Nooks is launching a new Agent Workspace and AI Sequencing layer designed to operate across the full action set of a rep’s day — calls, emails, research, prospecting, and strategy.

The conversation explores why top of funnel is changing the fastest, why traditional sequencing tools optimize the “move” but not the strategy, and how AI systems that learn from rep behavior can compound advantage over time. As adoption deepens, automation can move from ~40% of outbound execution toward 70% and beyond, while switching away resets that intelligence.

We also discuss the broader category shift: customers pushing AI-native tools to take on incumbents, the rise of agent workspaces as the new interface for GTM teams, and why calls remain the most data-rich channel in outbound compared to silent email non-responses.

Guest links:

Guest - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan9lee/

Guest company - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nooksapp/

Guest company website: https://www.nooks.ai/

Host links:

Sophie Buonassisi - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

Sophie Buonassisi - X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona

Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Sponsors:

HockeyStack - the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale. Learn more at https://www.hockeystack.com/

Granola - the AI notepad that turns meetings into action by capturing context, decisions, and next steps automatically. Head to https://www.granola.ai/gtmfund and get three months free with the code GTMFUND.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:

00:00 – Announcing the Agent Workspace and AI sequencing product

01:25 – Why sales is fundamentally human (even in the AI era)

02:39 – The Agent Workspace as the human–AI interface

02:56 – Why legacy sequencing tools were built for a manual world

04:14 – The sales chess analogy: understand the board before making the move

05:02 – Reps spend too much time "making the move"

06:00 – Nooks as a simulation engine: suggesting the next best move

07:07 – The reason for the email isn't in the email

07:45 – Signal vs. noise: reasoning like a rep

10:00 – Why calls are the most data-rich outbound channel

10:25 – Using calls to move up the org chart

13:12 – The sales iceberg analogy: what's above vs. below the surface

13:38 – Don't pay enterprise reps to find phone numbers

14:15 – Doing more with less vs. doing more with more

15:00 – Why sales remains competitive even with full automation

16:38 – Owning the end-to-end prospecting workflow

18:53 – How Nooks learns from rep decisions over time

19:15 – The path from 40% → 90% AI-written emails

19:58 – Reimagining sequences with org chart intelligence

22:17 – Evolution from virtual classroom to virtual sales floor

25:11 – Pivoting into the sales use case before ChatGPT

26:08 – Near-death experiences and surviving the pivot graveyard

27:03 – Nooks' six core values

27:57 – "Ask why" as a core operating principle

28:39 – Ruthless prioritization as a startup advantage

29:25 – AI literacy as a hiring filter for GTM roles

30:07 – Making sales sexy for top engineers

31:31 – Hiring across the board in 2026

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

Emir Atli (Co-founder and CRO of HockeyStack) joins GTMnow to share how go-to-market is shifting in the AI era — from fragmented tools and GTM sprawl to unified, AI-native platforms built on a single data foundation.

Originally known for attribution and market intelligence, HockeyStack is evolving into a central operating system for go-to-market, spanning marketing, sales, and post-sales through AI agents, blueprints, and an execution layer.

We also explore weekly GTM sprints, founder-led content as a pipeline driver (even with <100 followers), and the long-game mindset behind building a generational company from age 20 after YC.

In this episode, we cover:- Why you can’t layer AI onto legacy GTM — you must rebuild GTM around AI

- The “sprawl crisis” and why siloed tools break without a single data foundation

- HockeyStack’s evolution from attribution to a unified GTM operating system

- AI agents, blueprints, and the shift from reporting to execution

- Why consolidation is moving from tools to full buyer journey control

- The case for a winner-takes-all GTM platform

- How AI increases leverage across reps, managers, and pipeline reviews

- Weekly GTM sprints and faster iteration cycles in the AI era

- Founder-led content as a core growth engine and pipeline driver

- LinkedIn as a top channel for MQL-to-opportunity and deal acceleration

- The 10-year mindset, YC lessons, and building a generational company

Guest links:

Emir Atli - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emiratli/

- HockeyStack - Website: https://www.hockeystack.com/

- HockeyStack - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hockeystack/

Host links:

- Sophie Buonassisi - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

- Sophie Buonassisi - X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona

- Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Sponsors:Granola - the AI notepad that turns meetings into action by capturing context, decisions, and next steps automatically. Head to https://www.granola.ai/?via=gtmfund&dub_id=ytmcNnCjtlqCbgH5 and get three months free with the code GTMFUND.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:

00:00 – The GTM sprawl crisis and why AI breaks in siloed systems

01:50 – From attribution to a GTM operating system

02:41 – Launching AI agents, blueprints, and the execution layer in 2026

03:57 – Building a single data foundation across the buyer journey

05:09 – Why GTM must be rebuilt around AI (not layered with tools)

06:23 – Doing "more with more" and increasing management leverage

07:30 – Tool consolidation vs controlling the buyer journey

08:48 – 2026–2028: the great GTM consolidation wave

09:01 – The case for a winner-takes-all GTM platform

10:10 – Moat: data foundation + application layer

11:35 – Expanding horizontally across marketing, sales, and post-sales

14:28 – Running GTM in weekly sprints like an engineering org

14:46 – Content as a core investment and distribution strategy

15:26 – Why connected TV works for B2B brand trust

16:43 – Faster GTM iteration cycles in the AI era

17:47 – LinkedIn as the top pipeline and opportunity channel

18:12 – Product stories, personal stories, and data stories in content

21:02 – How founders carve out time to create content

22:43 – Generating first customers from LinkedIn with <100 followers

23:45 – Founding journey: pivoting into market intelligence

25:37 – YC lesson: make something people love before scaling

27:18 – The 10-year commitment mindset from YC advice

30:13 – Executive coaching and founder bottlenecks

31:53 – In-person culture and competing in the AI era

33:26 – Whiteboarding interviews vs AI-generated case studies

34:35 – Final advice: build a good business and enjoy the process

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

Amanda “Robby” Robson (Founder of Modern Technical Fund) joins GTMnow to break down how she evaluates companies at the very earliest stages and why discipline matters more than ever in today’s market.

Amanda has spent over a decade in venture before launching Modern Technical Fund, investing across verticals ranging from security and compliance to developer tools at firms like Norwest and Cowboy Ventures. Her investment thesis is centered on backing elite technical founders early and helping them translate deep engineering talent into real products, real customers, and real momentum.

In this conversation, we unpack how Amanda thinks about founder quality, market timing, and risk when there’s limited data and plenty of noise, which is more critical than ever in an AI-heavy investing environment.

Guest Links

Amanda’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-robson-7227685b/

Amanda’s Twitter: https://x.com/robby_mtf

Modern Technical Fund’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/modern-technical-fund/

Modern Technical Fund website: https://moderntechnicalfund.com/

Host links:

Max - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler/

Max - X: https://x.com/HackItMax

Paul - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving/

Paul - X: https://x.com/PaulGTM

Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Brought to you by: AngelList

From starting as a small, operator-led rolling fund, to evolving to an institutional platform, AngelList has been a core partner in every phase of GTMfund’s growth. Their software-first fund admin infrastructure allowed us to scale without sacrificing agility — from onboarding hundreds of LPs seamlessly to handling compliance, capital calls, and reporting as our fund size evolved.

As we expanded from Fund I to Fund II, AngelList took care of the back-office operations, allowing us to stay focused on what matters most: investing in world-class founders and building the strongest go-to-market network in venture.

They’ve scaled with us across funds and into the future.

If your fund is growing in size or complexity, check them out at www.angellist.com/gtmfund.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:

00:00 – Why Modern Technical Fund exclusively backs technical founders

02:15 – What actually defines a “technical founder” beyond coding ability

03:45 – Why product judgment and customer instinct matter early

05:05 – How early teams split engineering and go-to-market roles

07:10 – When investor advice helps and when it gets in the way

09:05 – Why calibrating the hiring bar matters more than providing playbooks

12:40 – How network-driven support helps founders see what “great” looks like

15:45 – Why valuation discipline sets the bar in today’s market

17:10 – When first-time founders become too risky at certain prices

19:40 – How early-stage defensibility often comes down to the team

27:20 – Why TAM momentum matters more than static market size

30:30 – How small markets quietly turn into billion-dollar categories

39:55 – What separates real AI companies from AI theater

41:40 – Why infrastructure and data tools benefit most from AI tailwinds

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

Follow us on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow/

Follow us on X (Twitter):

https://x.com/GTMnow_

Follow us on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGQM23b5lZbcfLtHAe87J_A

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Archana Agrawal (President of Intercom) joins GTMnow to share how Intercom (founded in 2011) successfully restructured its product, pricing, and go-to-market to become AI-native at a speed and scale most legacy SaaS companies haven’t achieved.

Their agent, Fin, now handles 80%+ of support volume, resolves 1M customer issues per week, and has grown from $1M to $100M+ ARR with a $0.99 outcome-based pricing model backed by up to a $1M performance guarantee if resolution targets aren’t met.

In this episode, we cover:- Why customer support is fundamentally a 24/7 business

- How Fin now handles 80%+ of customer queries through automation

- Why human empathy often breaks down in real-world support workflows

- How AI makes instant, individualized service possible for the first time

- Why Intercom put a million-dollar guarantee behind its resolution rate

- What it takes to confidently price software on outcomes

- Why the future of support is humans + AI

Guest links:

- Archana Agrawal - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/archana-agrawal/

- Intercom - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/intercom/

- Intercom’s Fin Agent: https://fin.ai/

Host links:

- Sophie Buonassisi - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

- Sophie Buonassisi - X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona

- Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Sponsors:

HockeyStack - the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale. Learn more at https://www.hockeystack.com/

Granola - the AI notepad that turns meetings into action by capturing context, decisions, and next steps automatically. Head to https://www.granola.ai/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=gtmfund&utm_campaign=intercom-episode  and get three months free with the code GTMFUND.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:

00:00 – Why Intercom went all-in on AI

03:23 – What Fin is and how it changes customer support

05:27 – How Fin scaled to a 67% resolution-rate

06:38 – The thinking behind 99¢ outcome-based pricing

08:54 – Why customers don’t want to pay for activity

09:10 – How outcome-based pricing aligns incentives

09:57 – What changed for sales, success, and revenue operations

15:10 – How Intercom thinks about forward-deployed engineers

16:22 – Why the future is humans + AI

18:56 – The real moat: product feedback loops at scale

19:32 – Why Intercom put a million-dollar guarantee behind results

23:29 – Why enablement is now the GTM bottleneck

32:24 – From $1M to nearly $100M: what Fin’s growth reveals

38:26 – Hiring in a world with no playbooks

42:20 – How Archana learns from podcasts, books, and customers

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

Lou Shipley (three-time CEO, Harvard Business School professor, and author of Unlikely Entrepreneurs) joins GTMnow to break down why most founders struggle to turn good ideas into great companies.

Lou has led companies through acquisitions, teaches sales and go-to-market at Harvard, and has spent decades studying what actually separates companies that scale from those that stall.

In this conversation, we unpack why understanding customer pain and learning how to sell are still the two most important founder skills, especially as product moats decline and go-to-market becomes the real differentiator.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Why understanding customer pain matters more than having a great idea

- Why early selling should optimize for learning, not revenue

- Why founders can’t outsource sales too early

- How distribution becomes a competitive advantage at scale

- What makes “unlikely entrepreneurs” outperform expectations

- Why small, high-quality teams beat large organizations

- Why churn is a symptom, not the root problem

- How product-market fit quietly changes as companies grow

- Why founders must evolve from heroic sellers to system builders

- How culture becomes a real go-to-market asset

Lou also shares lessons from teaching sales at Harvard, profiling 13 unlikely entrepreneurs, and working with founders who realized too late that they were building the wrong company for the wrong customer.

If you’re a founder, operator, or investor trying to avoid costly early mistakes and build a company that actually scales, this episode will give you a clearer mental model for what matters most.

Timestamps:

00:00 – What actually makes a company great

00:26 – Why early selling is about learning, not revenue

01:47 – Why founders misunderstand customer pain

02:06 – “If you build it, they will come” is a lie

02:33 – Distribution as the real moat

02:58 – What makes an “unlikely entrepreneur” succeed

06:15 – Why age and experience increase founder success

07:01 – Curiosity, coachability, and risk elimination

09:29 – Why founders can’t outsource sales too early

15:26 – Pattern recognition vs short-term ARR

21:10 – Founder-led sales vs scalable systems

29:12 – Leadership, culture, and delegation

33:18 – Founder evolution from $1M to $100M

38:24 – When product-market fit starts to break

39:15 – Why churn is a lagging indicator

39:54 – Why small teams outperform large ones

44:22 – Lessons from Unlikely Entrepreneurs

45:23 – Final advice for founders

Sponsors:

HockeyStack - the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale. Learn more at hockeystack.com

Guest links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loushipley/X: https://twitter.com/loushipleyHost (Sophie Buonassisi) links:LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuonaNewsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.comHost (GTMnow) links: https://gtmnow.com

Follow us on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow/

Follow us on X (Twitter):

https://x.com/GTMnow_

Follow us on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGQM23b5lZbcfLtHAe87J_A

Follow us on TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@gtmnow_

Follow us on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/gtmnow_/

Healey Cypher (multi-time founder and CEO of BoomPop) joins GTMnow to unpack one of the fastest growing channels for company growth: in-person events.

As AI floods digital channels with perfectly personalized messages, trust is becoming harder to earn online. Healey explains why events, dinners, and in-person experiences are becoming a premium GTM channel, not a nice-to-have, and how founders can use them intentionally for distribution, alignment, and acquisition.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Why in-person events are becoming a premium GTM channel in an AI-first world

- How founders can de-risk distribution before building the product

- The most common internal missteps that derail startups early

- Why offsites are the new HQ for remote and hybrid teams

- How to design offsites that drive alignment, not just fun

- What makes a dinner actually work — including overlooked details like acoustics

- How teams use events for customer acquisition and partnerships

- Why kindness and positivity can be a real leadership advantage

Healey also shares a powerful insight from Sam Altman that reframes how we should think about AI’s impact on trust and human connection.

If you’re interested in scaling events as a growth channel, this episode will give you all the details you need and an understanding of what is working in today’s world.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Why founders underestimate distribution

03:30 – Product vs distribution: what actually matters early

06:45 – Why most startups fail from internal misalignment

10:30 – Culture, communication, and focus as scaling constraints

14:40 – Hybrid work broke alignment

17:45 – Why offsites are becoming the new HQ

21:30 – Events as a go-to-market strategy

25:00 – AI, outbound fatigue, and inbox trust collapse

28:40 – “In-person experiences are becoming a premium”

32:30 – How to use events for customer and partner acquisition

36:15 – What makes a high-impact event vs a wasted one

39:50 – Dinners, summits, and unforgettable experiences

43:30 – Leadership, kindness, and “don’t be a jerk”

47:40 – Mental state as a competitive advantage

52:30 – Final reflections and advice for founders

Sponsors:

HockeyStack - the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale. Learn more at hockeystack.com

Guest links:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healeycypher/?hl=enHealey’s podcast: https://www.dontbeajerkpodcast.com/

Mentioned Resources:

Host (Sophie Buonassisi) links:

X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuonaNewsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.comHost (GTMnow) links: https://gtmnow.com

Follow us on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow/

Follow us on X (Twitter):

https://x.com/GTMnow_

Follow us on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGQM23b5lZbcfLtHAe87J_A

Follow us on TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@gtmnow_

Follow us on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/gtmnow_/

Why do so many go-to-market motions fall apart right when a company starts to scale?

In this episode of GTMnow, Sophie Buonassisi sits down with Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, former GTM leader at Google and Stripe and now COO at Vercel, to unpack why GTM fragility is one of the most underdiagnosed risks in startups and scaling companies.

This is a deep, operator-level conversation about what actually breaks in sales, why AI won’t magically fix it, and how the best teams treat go-to-market like a product that must be designed, tested, and iterated.

If you are a founder, operator, or investor navigating growth, this episode will give you clearer mental models for building GTM that actually holds up under pressure.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why most GTM motions fail at scale, even with strong products
• What it really means to treat go-to-market like a product
• How AI changes execution without changing fundamentals
• The rise of the forward deployed engineer
• Why “lost on price” is usually a lie
• What great sales reps still do better than anyone in the AI era
• How to think about joining companies “early” without getting timing wrong

Listen if GTM feels fragile, unpredictable, or overly dependent on heroes.

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction

01:00 – “Yes is great. No is great. Maybe will kill you.”

02:00 – Why go-to-market should be treated like a product

04:45 – Designing the experience of being sold to

06:30 – Using AI to debug GTM process failures

09:00 – Why “lost on price” usually isn’t about price

12:00 – What go-to-market engineering actually is

16:00 – The rise of the forward deployed engineer

20:45 – AI, agents, and what still needs human judgment

25:45 – What great sales reps do differently in the AI era

29:30 – Why GTM roles are becoming more consultative

33:30 – Will there be an AI reckoning?

38:00 – What “joining early” really means

42:00 – Career lessons from Google, Stripe, and Vercel

44:00 – Closing thoughts

Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a new early-stage venture firm with a $350M debut fund backing standout software companies from Seed to Series A. Prior to Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early-stage investments across software and fintech for nearly a decade. Before Index, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox, helping the company navigate hypergrowth. 

Discussed in this episode

• Why Mark studied international relations, and why venture feels like “the liberal arts of jobs”
• Index’s US “invisibility” era and what that taught him about building a new firm
• The Chemistry spinout thesis: “take great multi-stage DNA, reconstitute it with focus”
• Fund design: pre-seed → seed → A, light reserves, and concentrated doubling-down
• Hiring strategy: network access > spreadsheet diligence
• Culture principles: excellence, performance, “no one takes themselves too seriously”
• Conviction-based investing vs consensus IC, and why omissions are the real killer
• The hardest lesson in venture: managing co-founder dynamics (and when to just listen)

Episode highlights

00:00 — “A+ people want to work with A+ people.”

01:46 — GTMfund’s 2026 prediction: big players come roaring back (Google, Meta, Microsoft, Uber/Waymo).

14:51 — GTMfund platform metrics: thousands of support items, intros, hires, and fundraising connects.

26:29 — Why Mark left Index to build Chemistry: big-fund lessons, rebuilt with focus.

33:39 — Chemistry’s strategy: early-stage focus, light reserves, and building for “product-market discovery.”

44:05 — “Venture doesn’t scale well.” Why Chemistry stays small to avoid bureaucracy.

49:59 — Events that actually work: chess tournaments, surfing, and hobby-driven gathering > happy hours.

54:56 — Investment process: conviction, not consensus—optimize for outliers, not averages.

1:10:32 — Hardest lesson in venture: co-founder dynamics, and learning when to listen (not “advise”).

Brought to you by: AngelList

From starting as a small, operator-led rolling fund, to evolving to an institutional platform, AngelList has been a core partner in every phase of GTMfund’s growth. Their software-first fund admin infrastructure allowed us to scale without sacrificing agility — from onboarding hundreds of LPs seamlessly to handling compliance, capital calls, and reporting as our fund size evolved.

As we expanded from Fund I to Fund II, AngelList took care of the back-office operations, allowing us to stay focused on what matters most: investing in world-class founders and building the strongest go-to-market network in venture. 

They’ve scaled with us across funds and into the future.

If your fund is growing in size or complexity, check them out at www.angellist.com/gtmfund.

Follow Mark Goldberg

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-goldberg-25458110
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/Mark_Goldberg_X (formerly Twitter)
• Chemistry (website): https://www.chemistry.vc/Chemistry

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.

Abbas Haider Ali is SVP of Customer Success at GitHub, where he leads a 550+ person post-sales organization supporting a $2B+ ARR business serving over 150 million developers, including more than 90% of the Fortune 100.

Previously, Abbas was VP of Customer & Partner Success at Twilio following its acquisition of Segment, and has held executive roles at xMatters, Opnet Technologies, Managed Objects, and IBM. He is also a General Partner at GTM Operators Network, investing from seed through growth, and is deeply committed to mentorship and advancing underrepresented leaders in tech.

Discussed in this episode:

• Why “AI-led growth” can hide churn and value erosion
• Lagging vs leading indicators for retention endurance
• Why the CS investment benchmark is shifting from 10% → ~7%
• A simple “waterfall” for allocating post-sales budget: support → onboarding → outcomes
• How to “lever up” the envelope with premium support + professional services
• Why expansion (not renewals) is the early signal of product-market fit
• The rise of AI-powered specialized generalists in post-sales
• When forward deployed engineers make sense (and when they’re just a fad)

Episode highlights

00:00 — Why customer expansion is the real signal of product-market fit

00:50 — Lagging revenue vs. leading indicators of endurance

04:11 — Why the CS benchmark dropped from 10% to 7%

08:41 — How AI moved from internal efficiency to customer-facing leverage

11:41 — Why retention cost matters more than CAC in the AI era

14:17 — The simplest framework for allocating the 7% CS budget

18:53 — Founder-led CS, design partners, and early-stage PMF myths

23:16 — The rise of AI-powered specialized generalists

30:00 — When forward-deployed engineers actually make sense

49:31 — The one rule for building a durable SaaS company

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor: HockeyStack

If you run go-to-market, you already know the problem: your data lives everywhere. Spreadsheets, CRMs, sales calls, ad platforms… yet you’re still guessing what to do next.

HockeyStack is the AI platform for modern GTM teams. It unifies all your sales and marketing data into a single system of action. Built-in AI agents help teams prospect the right accounts, improve conversions, close and expand deals, and scale what works. That’s why teams like RingCentral, Outreach, ActiveCampaign, and Fortune 100 companies rely on HockeyStack to eliminate wasted spend, take better decisions, and make space to think.

Learn more at hockeystack.com

Follow Abbas Haider Ali

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbashaiderali
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/abbashaiderali
• GitHub: https://github.com/AbbasHaiderAli

Follow Sophie Buonassisi (Host)

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
• Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.

Adam Carr is the Chief Revenue Officer at Apollo, where he’s scaling revenue by layering sales on top of a $150M+ ARR product-led growth engine. Previously, Adam helped scale Miro from a PLG-led company into a global sales organization, contributing to its growth into a $17.5B business. He’s known for building systems-driven GTM teams that turn product signals into durable revenue.

Discussed in this episode

• Why PLG is gravity (signals + acquisition) and sales is the monetization layer
• The “one-team” model to prevent PLG vs. sales cannibalization
• Building talent density (and why slowing hiring can be the fastest path)
• Hiring for curiosity, coachability, ownership, and team-first execution
• The “architect / systems thinker” profile for modern sellers
• A new post-sales model: CSMs → technical GTM Engineers + intervention-led journey
• Using customer journey milestones to drive expansion and prevent churn proactively
• AI in GTM: streamlining manual work so humans focus on better conversations

Episode highlights

00:00 — PLG is about signaling + acquisition (not monetization)

01:30 — “PLG isn’t the monetization way… it’s layering sales.”

02:41 — Talent density: hire for the next 12–18 months, not just “today”

04:50 — The soft skills that scaled Miro: curiosity, coachability, ownership

08:38 — Why Adam hires “architects” (system thinkers) instead of just sellers

10:41 — The mindset shift: celebrate value realized, not contracts signed

15:41 — Replacing CSMs with “go-to-market engineers” + an intervention model

19:14 — Turning PLG signals into PQA/PQL routing (and reducing the “noise”)

29:26 — “100M ARR is late” — when to start layering sales into PLG

Guest links

• LinkedIn (Adam Carr):https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhcarr

Follow Sophie Buonassisi (Host)

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
• Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Where to Find GTMnow

• Website: https://gtmnow.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now
• Podcast Directory: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.