Anonymous GTM Tech Demo Day, Who's actually hiring in GTM right now, & News in GTM tech-land
GTM Monthly Roundup, by The Signal
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Announcing: Anonymous GTM Tech Demo Day, by The Signal!
The best operators are heads-down, building. They don’t have time to scroll LinkedIn for 2 hrs/day to find the latest+greatest gtm technologies (and vet if it’s even real or just a vibe coded ai-slop machine with a great marketing video).
Come watch 20 (Live!) mini-demos of GTM tech cos building for AI-native GTM teams.
Innovation happens within startups (no big companies allowed, sorry!). No pay to play. Real customer demos (not founder/seller demos). Attend anonymously (your data won’t be shared). Register to watch the ones you want afterwards (async).
→ Want to demo or nominate a company? Comment on this post.
→ Limited seats (and 200+ ppl already signed up). Register now
Hey, y’all! 👋
I’m trying a different format today.
Maybe this will become a recurring monthly (?) thing. I’m experimenting :) Let me know if you like it or don’t like it (my feelings won’t be hurt!).
GTM-tech funding/news
It’s been a wild month in GTM-tech land so far.
Gong passed $500M in revenue, while growth has accelerated (according to my quant, that’ll put them at $800M in 1 year, so IPO is clearly in sight; that’ll be a big win for GTM-tech).
Actively AI announced their Series B. We first wrote about Actively AI when they raised their Series A in April of 2024: The AI Research Company Building GTM Superintelligence.
Monaco announced their Series B ($50M) just 3 months after announcing their A. Bonkers. Before starting Monaco, Sam Blond (CEO) was the VP Sales at Zenefits, then CRO of Brex, followed by a brief stint as a capital allocator at Founders Fund. And notably, one of his co-founders, Abhishek, is the previous CPO of Apollo.io. They’re building an all-in-one sales platform.
I announced I’m officially full-time on The Signal. I’m building this into a proper media business :) Exciting and scary plunge (with three young kids). But yolo. Thanks for the support. Speaking of, I’ll be partnering with a limited number of brands for the next 6 months. We should talk this week if you’re interested (reply to this email or dm me on LinkedIn).
The Signal, featured recently:
[Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar] → The best AI-native plays you’re not running (Our second collaboration)
[30 Minutes to President’s Club] → How to Use AI to Identify the Perfect Time to Prospect
[Topline] → GTM Engineer: The Most Misunderstood Role in Go-to-Market by Brendan Short [Topline] | A framework for revenue leaders deciding whether to build this capacity now, later, or not at all
GTM content of the month:
Kyle Norton (CRO at Owner.com, and friend of The Signal) gave a kind shout-out to me/The Signal in his talk at SaaStr this week. Super cool to see from such a goat in our space. His entire talk is worth listening to: AI-native GTM 101: The 5 AI Decisions to Get Right
Who’s actually hiring in GTM right now | The companies selling AI are the ones doubling their SDR headcount on Growth Unhinged with Kyle Poyar
IC work is the new career flex | The rise of the High-impact Individual Contributor (HI-C!) by another one of the goats, Elena Verna. Here’s my take on this trend.
Sell the Truth | On persuasion, charisma, dealmaking, and walking away (podcast episode by Naval)
Firsthand: How I Bet On Clay (And It Bet On Me) | I joined Clay as one of its earliest employees and a reluctant marketing hire. This is how, over the last three years, we built a role around my strengths as a storyteller, scaled past $100M ARR, and created a brand that startups study. by Mishti Sharma
Agentic workflow (by Jerry O’Shea) that does the heavy lifting before a rep touches an account using a bunch of tools connected together:
Knowledge bomb by Todd Bussler (former Co-founder & CEO of Champify, recently joined Clay as an Enterprise Sales Leader) → “90 days into a new job, everyone loves to post about their 5 biggest learnings. I’m doing the opposite. Here is everything I had to UN-LEARN going from a sales leader at a traditional SaaS company to an AI-first company like Clay”.
10 memes (h/t Will Aiken) for you to Slack to your co-worker (instead of updating Salesforce before your forecast meeting later today)
Oldies, but goodies (from the archives)
The Signal has added ~2,000 new subscribers in the past 90 days (roughly 30% growth), so I thought it would be worth (re)sharing a few older posts from the archives.
The “System of Intelligence” The biggest opportunity in GTM tech
This was true in Oct 2024 when I wrote this piece. And even more true today, as AI has continued to ramp. There is still no clear winner (though, there are many attacking this problem). Excerpt:
The Rise of the GTM Engineer (published Nov 2024). Excerpt:
I am hopeful for the future of modern go-to-market. I think it will include more intelligence and creativity injected throughout it. And, no matter what this name of this new role ends up being, I think these new “jobs to be done” are going to grow in importance in the coming years. We’ll find out!
…The question in my mind is simple: will this number be higher or lower this time next year? What about in two years? My bet: it will be much, much higher.
Crazy to see this early data from back then (here’s what I said in the article:
My AI Journey: Not One Lightbulb Moment, but 100 Sparks that Gave Me Deep Conviction (& why you’re not behind on AI) + My top 11 lessons from my AI journey so far. Excerpt:
(Last week’s post) How Two of Rippling’s Marketing Pioneers are Building a GTM Engine from Scratch (I Was Surprised) | With Brandon Camhi & Noah Adelstein. Excerpt:
Alright, that’s it for today!
Reply to this email and let me know what you think of this (monthly?) format.
Thank you for your attention and trust. I do not take it for granted.
See you next time,
Brendan 🫡
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