Jason Demant just joined GTMfund as Partner, Head of Networks after 6 years at Foundation Capital where he reviewed over 1,000 emerging manager funds and invested in 100+.In this episode, Max (GP), Paul (GP), and Jason break down what separates the VC firms that survive from the ones that quietly die, why the best founders today are skipping mega funds at pre-seed, and what LPs are excited in about emerging managers.What we cover:

• The real reason raising from mega funds at pre-seed can backfire
• Why less than 10% of VC firms ever make it to Fund 3
• What makes an emerging manager fundable (sourcing, founder support, durability)
• The media flywheel that gives certain funds an unfair advantage
• How LPs should think about mega funds vs. emerging platforms (the barbell approach)
• Why founders are the ones now choosing their investors, not the other way around

Connect with Jason:   / jasondemant  

Connect with Max:   / maxaltschuler  

Connect with Paul:   / paulsirving  

GTMnow is the media extension of GTMfund, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage B2B companies. Every episode features operators, investors, and founders on the front lines of go-to-market.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

1:54 Jason's Background at Foundation Capital

3:07 Why Jason Chose GTMfund

4:35 How Media Has Evolved in the VC Ecosystem

6:20 What Separates Winning Emerging Managers from the Rest

8:28 GTM Fund's Flywheel: Fund, Community & Media

10:41 Building a VC Firm Is Like Building a Startup

12:31 Emerging Managers vs. Mega Funds (a16z, Lightspeed)

14:01 Why Top Founders Are Picking Emerging Managers for Early Rounds

16:36 The LP Perspective: Emerging Managers vs. Platform Funds

18:39 The Barbell Strategy for LP Portfolio Construction

19:14 Early Stage vs. Growth Stage: Risk, Return & Why Early Stage Wins

20:18 Closing Thoughts & Welcome to the Team

Visit us and subscribe: https://gtmnow.com

Follow us on LinkedIn:   / gtmnow  

Follow us on X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_

Follow us on YouTube:    / @gtm_now  

Follow us on TikTok:   / gtmnow_  

Follow us on Instagram:   / gtmnow_ 

 Sign up for the Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

NEW: @Paul Fipps (President of Global Customer Operations at @ServiceNow) joins GTMnow to break down how ServiceNow built the customer engine behind $10B+ in revenue and 20%+ growth for five consecutive years.

From CIO at Under Armour overseeing a 300 million-member connected fitness ecosystem, to now leading global sales, customer success, field marketing, and partners at one of the most disciplined GTM organizations in enterprise software, Paul has seen what it takes to scale from both sides of the table.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

- Why complacency is a bigger threat than competition at scale

- How to detect churn long before it shows up in a report

- What a CIO cancelling 900 AI pilots tells you about where enterprise AI is actually headed

- How ServiceNow unified sales, customer success, field marketing, and partners into one GTM motion so customers never feel the org chart

- Why ServiceNow monitors customer health daily — and what signals their teams actually track

- How community became a core GTM advantage, not just a marketing channel

- How ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower governs agents across the enterprise stack

- Inside “Now on Now”: how ServiceNow generated $335M in annualized AI productivity gains using its own platform

- How integrating Claude into the GTM workflow cut account planning from days to minutes

- What DTC product thinking from Under Armour unlocked in enterprise GTM

- How ServiceNow shifted from 6-month product releases to monthly innovation cycles

- Paul’s advice for building a world-class GTM organization: put the best people in the right seats

Guest links:

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

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

Guest company website: https://www.servicenow.com/

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/

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

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

Highlights:

00:00 – How ServiceNow built one of the most disciplined GTM engines in enterprise software01:22 – 80B workflows, $10B+ revenue: what gets harder and easier at scale02:05 – Why complacency is the real threat at scale05:49 – Why ServiceNow unified sales, customer success, field marketing, and partners under one motion06:49 – The post-sale handoff problem: signing on Friday, new team showing up Monday08:22 – How to spot churn before it shows up in a report09:55 – How often ServiceNow teams check customer health12:25 – If you took away the dashboards, how would you know a customer is truly winning?15:35 – Why Paul blocks calendar time every week for direct customer conversations (and responds within 24 hours)17:53 – From Under Armour to ServiceNow: what DTC product thinking unlocks in enterprise B2B21:06 – The personalization gap in B2B enterprise software and how ServiceNow is closing it25:18 – The CIO with 900 AI pilots who cancelled every single one26:03 – How embedding agentic AI inside existing workflows drives measurable ROI32:39 – "Now on Now": $335M in productivity gains running on their own platform34:18 – Integrating Claude into the GTM motion for all 10,000 go-to-market team members36:44 – The AI control tower: governing every agent across the entire enterprise39:15 – Paul's one piece of advice for every GTM leader: get the best people in the right seats40:21 – The book that shaped Paul's career: Execution by Bossidy & Charan

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

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

Brett Queener (Partner at Bonfire Ventures) joins GTMnow to share what three decades across Siebel, early Salesforce, co-founding, and seed-stage investing has taught him about what actually wins now that software is cheaper and faster than he ever imagined.

Brett was one of the earliest GTM hires at Salesforce when it had seven employees. He helped build the go-to-market playbook that defined a generation of SaaS: enterprise segmentation, sales motion design, product marketing, the whole works. He then co-founded SmartRecruiters, angel invested in companies like Outreach and Pando, and eventually joined Bonfire Ventures as a Partner to do early-stage investing the way he thinks it should be done: hands-on, operator-led, and built around founders who are ruthless about execution.

Guest links:

Brett Queener - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettqueener/Bonfire Ventures - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bonfire-ventures/Guest company website: https://www.bonfirevc.com/Host links:Max - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler/Max - X: https://x.com/HackItMaxPaul - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving/Paul - X: https://x.com/PaulGTMNewsletter: 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 https://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 – Brett's career: Siebel, Salesforce employee #7, co-founder, angel investor, seed-stage VC06:58 – The big shift: from passive CRUD apps to agentic software that does the work for you08:07 – "Failing upwards" and what the fastest-growing companies taught Brett about investing in people10:58 – Why Brett moved into VC: 25 years of operators whose collective worth hit $25B16:50 – What Brett looks for in founders now and how it's changed over 6-7 years18:05 – Why anybody can build anything: Brett builds a fully functional travel app in 15 minutes19:20 – The last remaining moat in software26:20 – The real threat to Salesforce and HubSpot and why their ecosystem might be the boat anchor34:20 – How the entire GTM motion changes when the product does the job instead of just enabling it38:30 – Why communicating the right problem to the right ICP hasn't changed in 30 years39:20 – Deploy first, close later40:20 – Why face-to-face matters more now, not less41:00 – Why events are driving 75%+ of pipeline at Brett's early-stage portfolio companies42:10 – Pricing and packaging: the most important GTM lever nobody talks about enough46:35 – The death of the smooth-talking GTM leader47:25 – What happens to VC when software is no longer scarce to build52:00 – Why vertical software wins in the AI era: context, workflow, and the non-tech buyer55:20 – The rep who drove 65 miles to drop off donuts and closed an $80K deal

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

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

Dan Wright (Co-founder & CEO of Armada) joins GTMnow to unpack what it actually takes to bring AI infrastructure to the places the cloud was never built to reach.

The cloud covers about 30% of the world. The other 70% (think: oil rigs, the Arctic tundra, military ships, remote mines) is where some of the most critical decisions happen, making latency a life-or-death and billions of dollars difference. Armada is building the infrastructure for that part of the world: modular, ruggedized AI data centers that go to the data, instead of the other way around.

From the first offshore edge computing deployment with the US Navy, to cutting avalanche response times in Alaska from over a day to real time, to sovereign AI installations in Saudi Arabia with Aramco and Microsoft, Armada is redefining what operating at the edge even means.

In this episode, we cover:

- Why cloud infrastructure was built for a pre-AI world and what that gap costs

- How Starlink turned every remote location into a potential AI cluster

- What "distributed intelligence" means and why it's the founding principle behind Armada

- The global race for AI sovereignty and why modular compute is the linchpin

- How Armada goes to market when a product demo involves shipping a 40-foot container to a desert (yes, really)

- Why customer champions are better than any sales rep

- The Microsoft partnership and how Armada extends Azure to places Azure could never go on its own

- Category creation lessons from building a company before the market had a name for the industry

- What's next: SpaceX, sovereign AI, and why Dan thinks humans are on the moon in two years (yes, REALLY)

Guest links:

Dan Wright - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wrightdh/, h

Dan Wright - X: https://x.com/danwrightSF

Armada - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/armadaai/

Armada - Website: https://www.armada.ai/

Host links:

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

Sophie Buonassisi - X: 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/

Nooks - the AI workspace for outbound teams, where AI agents handle prospecting, research, and sequencing so reps can focus on conversations. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/

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 the cloud only reaches 30% of the world and what Armada actually builds

03:11 – From Saudi Arabia to the Arctic: recent deployments that redefine the edge

04:12 – AI's physics problem: why distance from data breaks everything

05:31 – How Starlink turned every remote location into a potential AI cluster

07:14 – What distributed intelligence means and why it's Armada's founding principle

08:14 – The global AI race: sovereign compute as a national security strategy

09:00 – The Genesis Mission, the White House, and Davos: why sovereign AI is mainstream

12:49 – GTM for a hardware company when the demo involves shipping a 40-foot container

15:18 – Why Armada's customers do the selling for them (and do a better job than some reps)

17:35 – The Microsoft partnership and extending Azure to the places it can't reach on its own

18:51 – Category creation: the lesson Dan learned about specificity and business value

21:02 – What's next for Armada, SpaceX, and why Dan thinks we're two years from the moon

25:34 – The founder advice Dan wishes more people took seriously

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

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

NEW: @Sheila Vashee (CMO of @Figma) joins GTMnow to share how she thinks about brand building across every stage. From selling brownies at age eight, to second marketing hire at Dropbox scaling to $1B+ in annualized revenue, to now leading marketing at one of the most beloved software brands in the world, Sheila has seen it all.

In this conversation, you’ll learn what brand actually means (hint: it's not your logo), how PLG companies make the leap to enterprise, why being obsessively close to your customers is a compounding advantage, and how AI is reshaping the marketing playbook without replacing the human craft that sets great brands apart.

Guest links:- Guest - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilavashee/

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

- Guest company website: https://www.figma.com/

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 – The brownie stand: why brand building started at age eight

03:55 – How Sheila defines brand: it's what people say when you're not in the room

05:08 – Joining Dropbox as the second marketing hire

06:07 – Space Race: the campaign that defined Dropbox's early strategy

06:56 – What consumer marketing taught her about driving revenue

08:29 – Measuring brand ROI through match market testing

09:15 – How Figma thinks about brand building at a macro level

11:21 – The PLG-to-enterprise equation: what Figma did early that Dropbox waited too long on

15:02 – Why building the enterprise team is both operational and optical

17:12 – How Figma ingests customer feedback at scale

18:26 – AI at Figma: enabling human creativity, not replacing it

21:13 – What the venture side taught her about staying sharp as an operator

22:33 – Why the shift from SEO to GEO is inevitable and what to do about it

23:24 – Why Reddit is back and social is a core growth lever

24:51 – The mentors that changed her trajectory

28:59 – One piece of advice: make good $h!t

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

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

Bill Binch (Operating Partner at Battery Ventures) joins GTMnow to share the operational frameworks he's built across 116 quarters on quota, and what actually changes when you move from driving revenue to advising an entire portfolio.

Before Battery, Bill was employee #16 at Marketo, where he led sales from zero revenue through IPO and a Vista Equity acquisition. He then served as CRO at Pendo, helping scale ARR to nearly $100M in only three years. His career spans some of the most defining sales organizations in enterprise software, from Oracle to PeopleSoft.

- Bill Binch - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-binch-302a4a2/,

- Battery Ventures - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/battery-ventures/

- Battery Ventures website: https://www.battery.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 https://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 – Bill's career path: Oracle, Marketo employee #16, Pendo CRO, and choosing Arizona over tech hubs

15:01 – Battery's approach: why there's no one-size-fits-all playbook

19:56 – Outreach's accidental sales experiment: remote vs. in-person results

21:23 – What nobody tells you about the transition from CRO to operating partner

23:01 – Gold watch and slippers? Why operating partner is not a retirement plan

27:15 – Three audiences: prospective investments, portfolio companies, and Battery internal

31:42 – Investing in GTM tech: why Battery went 7 years between bets

34:44 – The Phil Fernandez warning: "your hand is on the wheel, now you're a passenger"

36:44 – Why every forecast should start with "my quota is" not "my forecast is"

38:33 – The metric most companies miss: plan vs. planned quota vs. actual quota deployed

40:05 – The mojo metric: 6 daily pipeline inputs that tell you everything

43:16 – Helping technical founders sell: the one-eyed man in the land of the blind

48:04 – Advice for operators who want to move into an operating partner role

51:03 – The sales and marketing dance: what real GTM alignment sounds like in a board room

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

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

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_

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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_/