{"id":302,"date":"2024-07-30T14:33:23","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T14:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/?p=302"},"modified":"2025-03-19T17:41:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T17:41:30","slug":"gtm-105-scaling-to-100m-arr-with-creative-demand-gen-and-hiring-discipline-with-sam-blond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/30\/gtm-105-scaling-to-100m-arr-with-creative-demand-gen-and-hiring-discipline-with-sam-blond\/","title":{"rendered":"GTM 105: Scaling to $100M ARR with Creative Demand Gen and Hiring Discipline with Sam Blond"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/sam-blond-791026b\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sam Blond<\/a>\u00a0is the former Chief Revenue Officer at Brex, where he scaled revenue from $1M to hundreds of millions in ARR. Prior to Brex, Sam served as VP of Sales at Zenefits, growing revenue from $1M to $70M in just two years. After his operating roles, Sam joined Founders Fund as an investing partner before leaving to co-found a new startup.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-discussed-in-this-episode\">Discussed in this Episode:<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Why investing early in sales ops and rev ops is critical for scaling revenue.<\/li>\n<li>How to generate demand through creative campaigns and a \u201cconcentric circles\u201d approach.<\/li>\n<li>The risks of scaling sales teams too quickly based on flawed hiring models.<\/li>\n<li>What VCs look for in a compelling founder pitch, beyond just business metrics.<\/li>\n<li>Why focusing on generating pipeline is often better than optimizing conversions.<\/li>\n<li>How to leverage customer marketing and \u201craving fans\u201d as an early acquisition channel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-highlights\">Highlights:<\/h3>\n<p>5:00 \u2013 Sam\u2019s incredible track record scaling Brex and Zenefits from $1M to $100M+ ARR.<br \/>13:58 \u2013 Outlining the most creative and successful demand gen campaigns run at Brex.<br \/>20:17 \u2013 The importance of sustaining a culture of creativity in marketing as you scale.<br \/>33:35 \u2013 Mistakes made at Zenefits: investing in rev ops too late, deprioritizing customer experience, hiring too fast.<br \/>43:45 \u2013 What VCs look for in founders when metrics alone aren\u2019t enough to get the deal done.<br \/>52:15 \u2013 One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Sam thinks is bull$***<br \/>60:21 \u2013 One thing that is working for Sam in go-to-market right now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Guest Speaker Links (Sam Blond):<br \/><\/strong>LinkedIn:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/sam-blond-791026b\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/sam-blond-791026b\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):<br \/><\/strong>LinkedIn:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ssbarker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.linkedin.com\/in\/ssbarker\/<\/a><br \/>Newsletter:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thegtmnewsletter.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">thegtmnewsletter.substack.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sponsors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Brought to you by\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flex.one\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Flex<\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.demandbase.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">.<\/a>\u00a0Flex is a finance super app built around a credit card with unique Net-60 day terms that enables businesses to make an investment today and pay it back 60 days later with zero percent interest. If your business growth is constrained by the cashflow you need for inventory, advertising, or something else, Flex could provide you with an interesting growth lever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The GTM Podcast<\/strong><br \/>Features conversations with well-known tech executive, VC, and founders \u2013 the expert operators in the trenches who have \u2018been there, done that\u2019 to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories, revealing expert insights around what worked, what didn\u2019t, and how things actually went down.<\/p>\n<p>This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of VC firm GTMfund \u2013 sharing insight on go-to-market from working with hundreds of portfolio companies backed by over 350 of the best go-to-market executives.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/gtmnow.com\/scaling-to-100m-arr-with-creative-demand-gen-sam-blond\/\">GTM 105: Scaling to $100M ARR with Creative Demand Gen and Hiring Discipline with Sam Blond<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/gtmnow.com\">GTMnow<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Blond\u00a0is the former Chief Revenue Officer at Brex, where he scaled revenue from $1M to hundreds of millions in ARR. Prior to Brex, Sam served as VP of Sales at Zenefits, growing revenue from $1M to $70M in just two years. After his operating roles, Sam joined Founders Fund as an investing partner before [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}