The GTMnow Podcast

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.

Cassie Young is a General Partner at Primary Venture Partners, a $1B AUM early-stage firm in New York backing category-defining SaaS, fintech, and vertical software companies. Before investing, she spent 15 years as a GTM operator, serving as Chief Revenue Officer at Sailthru and later Chief Customer & Commercial Officer at Marigold (Campaign Monitor, Sailthru, and other martech brands), where she scaled global sales, marketing, and customer success organizations.
Today, Cassie leads investments while also running Primary’s Impact program, giving founders access to a 30-person team across talent, GTM, and strategic finance, and she continues to teach operators through programs like Pavilion and Duke’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship board.
Discussed in this episode:
How Cassie “accidentally” became a VC after 15 years in GTM leadership.
The career advice Bill Gurley gave her that changed her trajectory.
Why Primary refuses to say “platform” and instead built a 30-person Impact team.
How she actually sources pre-seed/seed founders before they leave their jobs.
Primary’s 5-part Founder Outcomes Framework (vision, talent, JDCE, and more).
The difference between real traction vs. “happy ears” and fake design partners.
Why she’s picky on GTM/AI tools and looks for step-change, not incremental gains.
How operators can actually break into VC (hint: it’s all about doing the work).
Episode highlights
00:35 — Clay, usage-based pricing, and the $100M ARR rocketship
09:10 — The real story on AISDR: where AI reps actually work (and where they really don’t)
14:02 — Inside “The Gross Retention Apocalypse” and why AI experimental budgets are a ticking time bomb
22:46 — How Cassie accidentally became a VC and the Bill Gurley advice that changed her career path
27:17 — Why Primary hates the word “platform” and how Cassie built a 30-person Impact team for founders
36:10 — Cassie breaks down her 5-part founder outcomes framework (including “jaw-dropping customer experience”)
46:01 — Avoiding “happy ears”: how founders should really use design partners and MedPick-style rigor
57:48 — Time to value as the new north star and why nailing a tight wedge beats peanut-buttering features
1:01:29 — So you want to be a VC: Cassie’s playbook for operators to break into venture (without delusion)
Brought to you by: AngelList
How did we build the GTMfund back office? Easy!
We leveraged AngelList’s Rolling Fund product for Fund I, which was the perfect vehicle to scale up GTMfund in its first iteration. This structure allowed us to build our network, and add revenue leaders while we raised and deployed capital simultaneously, which was crucial for getting early points on the board and building relationships with founders.
For Fund II, we transitioned to a traditional closed-end fund structure through AngelList. This time with institutional investor support. This model allowed us to be more intentional about our portfolio construction. We worked closely with the AngelList team throughout this process, and they were incredible — always there to support us and our LPs every step of the way.
If you’re raising a fund or are looking to migrate your fund, we highly recommend you check them out. You can do so at www.angellist.com/gtmfund.
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.

Dave Boyce is a go-to-market–focused technology executive, author of Freemium, and longtime SaaS operator and board member. Over two decades leading and advising B2B companies, he’s helped founders navigate the shift from sales-led to product-led, from gut-driven to instrumented, and now from manual GTM to AI-assisted systems. Today, Dave teaches revenue architecture and PLG through Winning by Design’s Growth Institute, works with leadership teams on Bow Tie–based growth models, and is all-in on how AI will reshape GTM as a true engineered system.
Discussed in this episode
Why classic sales & marketing playbooks haven’t caught up to how modern buyers actually buy.
How the Bowtie model exposes the real levers of growth that funnels hide.
Why PLG-style thinking is now essential even for sales-led and enterprise motions.
The 3 first principles of freemium: empathy, generosity, and metrics.
Where AI can reliably outperform humans across the customer journey, and where it absolutely shouldn’t.
How to design hybrid human + AI workflows using a clear data model, not vibes.
What RevOps should own in a modern revenue architecture (and why it can’t just serve the CRO narrative).
Hard-earned founder lessons from Fundly on reinvention, calling bets early, and letting go of old branches.
Episode highlights
00:00 — GTM is still running 20-year-old playbooks
01:29 — “Sales, marketing, CS… the last unengineered engine”
03:20 — The myth of “just add more heads”
05:50 — The Fundly story: reinvention, too late
08:30 — Why Freemium had to be written
11:01 — Three first principles of freemium
15:25 — Mapping AI across the entire customer journey
19:29 — “Automate the predictable, humanize the exceptional”
25:18 — What the Bowtie exposes that funnels hide
27:25 — Building a “minimum viable Bowtie
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor: ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is the GTM Intelligence Platform built for sales, marketing, and RevOps.
By unifying data, workflows, and insights into a single system, ZoomInfo helps revenue teams find and engage the right buyers, launch go-to-market plays faster, and drive predictable growth. With industry-leading accuracy and depth of data, it gives your team the intelligence advantage to win in competitive markets.
It’s trusted by the fastest-growing companies and has become the category leader in GTM Intelligence.
Learn more at zoominfo.com.
Follow Dave Boyce (Guest)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boycedave
Substack: https://daveboyce.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.

Brian Weinberger is the Chief Revenue Officer at Sisense, a leading analytics platform helping companies embed intelligence into every product experience. With over 30 years in sales leadership across New York’s tech scene, Brian has built and scaled go-to-market teams at every stage—from early-stage startups to category-defining giants like Yext, Segment, and Salesforce.
Discussed in this episode
The evolution of partner selling — from VARs to SIs to ecosystems
How to know if partner selling fits your GTM model
The delivery-first mindset that drives retention
Direct vs. partner motion: Microsoft vs. Salesforce
Why enablement is the #1 green flag for partner success
Partner marketing: how to make resellers self-sustaining
Using AI to power future-ready GTM models
The case for hybrid work in high-performance sales cultures
Episode Highlights
00:00 — The “year four” moment when partners are selling for you
01:07 — 30 years of selling through partners in New York
03:22 — Start partner strategy with delivery, not distribution
06:32 — Why partner selling creates “superhuman” sellers
09:59 — Salesforce vs. Microsoft: direct vs. reseller — and why the future is hybrid
12:13 — The startup hack: sell delivery on your paper, subcontract partners
17:16 — A 90-day playbook for integration partnerships
21:39 — Hiring the right people to build a partner business
27:18 — How Sisense runs delivery partners and an Australian reseller
29:55 — White-labeling Snowflake: using resell to get the giant’s attention
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor: BoomPop
We’re deep in event planning right now, as no doubt many of you are.
Whether it’s an offsite, conference, or any other kind of event, BoomPop makes that happen with end-to-end planning all in one place.
They handle everything from venues to experiences, so you can focus on the delights of meeting in person, not the logistics.
Being part of GTMnow, you’re eligible for full-service event planning for just $99 per person (terms apply). Head to boompop.com/gtmfund to explore seamless support for your events.
Follow Brian Weinberger
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianweinberger
Recommended Books
What Great Salespeople Do by Michael Bosworth & Ben Zoldan — The power of storytelling in sales
The Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan Thaler & Robin Koval — Why kindness compounds in business
Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson — Coaching and leadership lessons from the Bulls dynasty
Referenced
Sisense: https://www.sisense.com
Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com
AWS: https://aws.amazon.com
Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com
Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com
Accenture (SI example): https://www.accenture.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.