Podcasts about Topline

Craig Rosenberg, Chief Platform Officer at Scale Venture Partners and co-founder of Topo, joins AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman to take on the question every founder is wrestling with: can you still build a world-class sales team when OpenAI and Anthropic are handing individual contributors $10 million equity packages? Craig argues you do not have to compete head-on, then lays out the hiring profile to chase instead, the quota-to-comp discipline that keeps packages sane, and why founder brand has become the most reliable pipeline play left as CAC keeps climbing. Topics include enterprise AE compensation, where private equity is still winning the GTM talent war, the Topo playbook for events and data-as-moat, and a bull-versus-bear debate on whether Gong goes public in the next 36 months. Plus, a Quiz Pro Quo on the real customer counts behind Salesforce, HubSpot, and ZoomInfo. Key Takeaways: - Rather than try to outbid OpenAI and Anthropic for talent, build your own farm system and develop people into the role. As Craig Rosenberg, Chief Platform Officer at Scale Venture Partners, put it: "You have to change your hiring profile to a unique profile that's unique to your business, but then you gotta coach 'em up." - A resume from a hot AI lab is not a guarantee of success at your company. As Craig Rosenberg noted, "The person that is going to do well at Anthropic may not do well at Series B," so hire for the stage and the hunger rather than the logo. - On compensation, Craig anchors the package to the role's real value: "you pay for what your wedge costs… if you feel like you have to pay $10 million, then you have a huge problem and you gotta go back to the drawing board." If the number runs away from you, the model is broken. - With CAC climbing and most channels breaking down, founder brand has become the highest-leverage pipeline play. As Craig Rosenberg said, "The value of building a founder brand, when you look at the data, it's amazing," pointing to gains in both pipeline and deal size. Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at Sales Talent Agency - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/ Guest: Craig Rosenberg, Chief Platform Officer at Scale Venture Partners - https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigrosenberg/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Craig Rosenberg 02:34 Can Anyone Out-Hire The AI Labs? 04:33 Why Craig Isn't Worried 06:52 Enterprise AE Comp Is Climbing 08:21 Founders Overpay For Star CROs 10:53 Why AI Reps Struggle At Series B 14:00 Hire The Slighted CRO 14:42 Quota-To-Comp And Attainment 18:45 Can AI Labs Sustain Growth? 22:20 Where PE Still Wins GTM Talent 27:17 Major Runs Reshape GTM 32:36 The Topo GTM Playbook 37:55 Quiz Pro Quo 47:45 Founder Brand And Rising CAC 58:42 Bulls and Bears

Kyle Lacy, CMO at Docebo (previously Lessonly, Seismic, Jellyfish), joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to push back on AI-era "efficiency" gospel in marketing. Topics include why product marketing under a sales-led organization will die, and the one-page Wall Street Journal manifesto every CMO should make their CEO write. Plus, why OpenAI and Anthropic might be lost when it comes to POV...AND the $300M Windows 95 launch with Jennifer Aniston and a Polish submarine (obviously). Key Takeaways: - Build the company manifesto first. As Kyle Lacy, CMO at Docebo, framed it: "I frame it with my CEO as... you have a direction you want to take this company. I need a one-page document that reads like a manifesto that you would publish in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow as a full-page ad. And that's our guiding light." Messaging pillars, ICPs, and personas all flow from that single document; the framework can never be the source. - Spend 80% on demand, then defend the other 20% for brand. Kyle's decade-long rule: "If you can figure out how to generate the demand you need off of 70 to 80% of your budget, then you can do whatever the hell you want, like golden llamas or hiring Jennifer Aniston to do your software training, whatever." Marketing leaders who haven't earned pipeline credibility lose the brand line item first when budget tightens. - Don't fold marketing under the CRO. "Product marketing living under a sales-led organization, it will die, will die slowly because you can't get the right people in the role that want to do it," Kyle said. He distinguishes between marketers becoming CROs (good) and marketing being absorbed structurally into the revenue org (fatal) because the executive-level tension between brand and demand is what protects both. - The Lessonly playbook wouldn't survive 2026. Kyle's honest reading: "Lessonly in this age would get eaten alive. Our software did not have a moat. It was really simple to use. You could probably vibe code it down a weekend." What does survive is the customer-first culture and the storytelling. At Docebo's recent Inspire user conference in Miami, customers organically produced more LinkedIn content about the event than the team had ever seen, with zero solicitation campaigns. Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs, CEO at Pavilion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at Sales Talent Agency - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/ Guest: Kyle Lacy, CMO at Docebo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylelacy/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Kyle Lacy 03:30 Is Brand Building Having Its Moment? 08:33 Word Is Brand: The 60/40 Mix 11:12 Surprise and Delight, Lessonly Lore 16:36 The Manifesto Framework 19:37 OpenAI and Anthropic Have No Manifesto 26:40 Brand at the Application Layer 27:35 Six Figures, No Anthropic Time 32:35 Quiz Pro Quo 39:27 SaaS-Era Marketers Under Attack 43:10 Should Marketing Report to a CRO? 54:42 Authenticity, Jellyfish, and Docebo 57:06 Bulls and Bears

Sam Slevin, Global SVP of Customer Success at AlphaSense, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman on the AI-era customer success playbook. Topics include why service is the differentiator over the next 2 to 3 years, the case for customer success owning a revenue number from day one, the gap between finance's productivity targets and real-life capacity. Plus, the origins of customer success, why consumption-based pricing can quickly become a trap, and a bull-versus-bear debate on whether HubSpot can get back to a $20 billion market cap. In short... big episode! Key Takeaways: - After 17 years building customer success teams, Sam Slevin doesn't entertain the "should CS own a number" debate. As Sam Slevin, Global SVP of Customer Success at AlphaSense, put it: "in my 17 years of, of customer success and leadership within customer success, that has never actually been a debate for, for me. I, I would never take a role that doesn't have revenue focused and like impact owning a number, calling your forecast from day one." His standing practice when he joins a new company: build a top-down and bottoms-up forecast on day one and validate it the same way sales does. - Slevin's central thesis is that AI raises the floor on automation while service becomes the upside lever for the next 2 to 3 years. As Slevin put it: "I don't think there could be a more exciting time to be in customer success where service feels like it could be the major differentiator over the next 2 to 3 years." The CS team that listens carefully, builds deep relationships, and meets customers where they are wins the renewal and the expansion. - The hardest tension in CS productivity is the gap between what finance models demand and what individual accounts actually support. As Slevin put it on his approach: "I definitely want to increase productivity in ARR per AM. What's interesting is I feel like there's a finance model and then there's a real life model… finance will say we need $15 million per AM." The leader's job, Slevin argues, is to find the 10% operational drag (AM-to-AE handoffs, billing friction, segmentation gaps) and remove it to close the gap. - On HubSpot's path back to $20 billion, AJ Bruno takes the bullish side based on customer behavior signals. As AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath, put it: "And the fact that they've gone horizontal, um, now I know that there are like 70% of their customers are still looking for answers for HubSpot of what AI needs to look like, and they haven't let the opportunity yet pass them by, but it's getting shaky right now." Sam Jacobs took the bearish side, citing structural challenges and faster-moving AI-first competitors.   Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs, CEO at Pavilion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at Sales Talent Agency - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/ Guest: Sam Slevin, Global SVP Customer Success at AlphaSense - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-slevin-9b2ba21b/   Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Sam Slevin 03:13 Customer Success in the AI Era 04:28 Should CS Own a Number? 07:43 Gross Retention vs. Growth 11:02 The Number-Owner Premium 14:37 Service as the AI-Era Moat 22:19 Productivity Per Person 26:34 Vendor Spend and AI Voice Modes 35:12 Reimagining GTM Roles 38:51 Quiz Pro Quo 45:38 Seat to Usage-Based Pricing 50:12 Pricing AI Like a Meter 55:43 CSM vs Salesperson Comp Gap 58:43 Bulls and Bears

Send Audrey a Text to get your question answered on the showThe horse industry has a dirty little secret.We've been calling deterioration a care plan.Joint injections at ten. Ulcers at seven. Behavioral issues blamed on attitude. Topline disappearing despite a full feed room. And everyone just… nods along. Like this is fine. Like this is just what horses do.It's not fine. And it's not inevitable. And today we are going to talk about why. Minerals and Metals Mane Test: https://equine-energy-medicine.myshopify.com/products/minerals-and-metals-mane-test?variant=51330892300592Find all the Resource Listed Here: linktr.ee/equineenergymedAudrey is not an MD or DVM and has never implied or claimed to be either. Audrey holds a Doctoral Degree of Traditional Naturopathy and a Masters Degree in Science. She created an evidenced-based anti-inflammatory nutrition program for equine and has successfully helped over 10k horses. This information is not meant to diagnose, prescribe for, treat, or cure, and is not a replacement for your veterinarian.  These are my personal interpretations based on my education, skill and experience. Equine Energy Medicine refers to non-invasive, supportive modalities focused on energetic balance, nutrition, and overall well-being, and does not replace veterinary care.

Enlivex CEO Oren Hershlovitz joined Steve Darling from Proactive to discuss the company's dual strategy of advancing late-stage clinical drug development while building a digital asset treasury initiative tied to decentralized prediction markets. Hershkovitz explained that Enlivex continues progressing development of Allocetra for osteoarthritis while simultaneously gaining exposure to the growing prediction market sector through the RAIN token ecosystem. The company completed a transformative transaction at the end of 2025 that established a treasury strategy centered around the RAIN protocol, which management describes as a decentralized prediction market platform. Enlivex invested more than $200 million in RAIN tokens and also secured an exclusive option to acquire additional tokens at a fixed price. Hershkovitz said the structure provides shareholders with significant upside exposure tied to the future growth of the protocol and broader adoption of decentralized prediction markets. On the clinical side, Enlivex continues advancing Allocetra™ for knee osteoarthritis. The company previously completed a Phase 2a double-blind, placebo-controlled study that demonstrated statistically significant improvements in pain reduction and functional outcomes among patients over the age of 64. Enlivex has now received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin a Phase 2b study and has also secured Clinical Trial Application approval in Denmark. Topline results from the Phase 2b trial are expected in the first half of 2027 and could support advancement into Phase 3 development. The company believes its combination of biotechnology development and strategic exposure to emerging digital asset infrastructure creates a differentiated growth profile as both sectors continue to evolve. #proactiveinvestors #enlivixltd #nasdaq #enlv #Biotech #Allocetra #Osteoarthritis #ClinicalTrials #PredictionMarkets #DigitalAssets #RAINToken #HealthcareInnovation

Ryan Burke, VP of Worldwide Sales at Crogl, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman on the new economics of enterprise cyber risk. Topics include Anthropic's Mythos model, AI for the security operations center, why vibe-coded apps are far more likely to have security issues, why Claude Design tanked Figma's stock, and what the Elon Musk versus OpenAI lawsuit signals for AI governance. Key takeaways: AI has crashed the cost of running sophisticated attacks, putting nation-state-grade tooling in the hands of low-skill operators. As Ryan Burke, VP of Worldwide Sales at Crogl, put it on Anthropic's Mythos model: "Mythos has lowered the cost to like the dollar menu equivalent of...running an attack...so more people can do it." Enterprises are staring down a multi-year patching backlog that runs from now until the end of time. Non-technical teams in finance, ops, and HR are shipping internal tools using Replit and Claude, and almost none of them are securing what they build. Ryan Burke flagged the research: "vibe-coded software is almost 3 times as likely to have security issues." When the employee who built the agent quits, the agent stays behind with no owner, no documentation, and quiet access to systems it never should have had in the first place. For founders eyeing an exit, security has joined revenue, IP, and hitting your numbers as a non-negotiable diligence pillar. As Ryan Burke explained: "lack of security can kill an acquisition...a fourth pillar now is you're secure." Acquirers like JPMorgan Chase will not buy a fintech startup that turns into a vector for attackers to walk straight into their environment. The market case for NRR-fortress legacy SaaS may be weaker than the last decade made it look. As Asad Zaman, CEO of Sales Talent Agency, argued: "there was a generation of software companies that had signs that they had really good customer relationships...but their customers felt more like prisoners." If AI makes switching cheap and a new generation of software actually delights users, the moats around system-of-record incumbents start to compress fast. Connect with the hosts and guest:  Host: Sam Jacobs, CEO at Pavilion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at Sales Talent Agency - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/  Guest: Ryan Burke, VP Worldwide Sales at Crogl - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-burke-bos/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel:  Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/  Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast  Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters:  00:00 Introducing Ryan Burke 03:14 Anthropic Mythos and Cyber Risk 04:20 How Attackers Use AI at Scale  07:00 Dollar Menu Attacks Explained  10:41 AI for the Security Ops Center  14:53 Why Claude Tanks Figma's Stock  18:30 Sam's Advice on Falling Stocks  20:50 Are Legacy SaaS Companies Back?  24:04 The Vibe-Coding Risk Surface  27:56 Quiz Pro: Cybersecurity Edition  33:46 Replit Apps Inside Enterprises  40:18 Security as the M&A Fourth Pillar  44:17 Personal Data and Digital Legacy  47:24 Bulls vs Bears: Elon vs OpenAI  52:03 Will ServiceNow Hit $32B?

Название релиза: Incode, Nifiant - Topline Дата релиза: 27.02.2026 Тип Релиза: Сингл Жанр: Dance Pop Ссылка на соц сети артиста: vk.com/nifiant Ссылка на BandLink: band.link/Topline Описание Артиста: Евгений Никитин — талантливый российский артист и продюсер, создатель успешных лейблов Music Destinations и Robot Soul Records. Его проекты Nifiant и XM представляют качественную музыку в жанрах Slap House, Dance Pop, Deep House и Club House, завоевывая популярность как в России, так и за рубежом, в том числе на крупных музыкальных платформах и радиостанциях. Incode — талантливый музыкант, чья музыка в стилях Deep House и Dance Pop идеально подходит как для отдыха, так и для танцев. Его мелодичные и энергичные треки получают широкую поддержку на популярных платформах, таких как Яндекс.Музыка и YouTube, а также звучат на ведущих радиостанциях страны. С 2020 года Incode является уважаемым резидентом лейбла "Music Destinations", что подчеркивает его профессионализм и актуальность в музыкальной индустрии. Описание релиза: Трек "Topline" выражает глубокие эмоции и внутреннюю энергию. Свежий мужской вокал, синтезированная мелодия из Brass и энергичный басовый дроп, придают треку энергичность и свежесть.

In a conversation with CancerNetwork®, Diane Simeone, MD, discussed the implications of daraxonrasib demonstrating meaningful improvements in survival among patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in the phase 3 RASolute 302 trial (NCT06625320). Topline findings from the trial showed that the novel multiselective RAS(ON) inhibitor approximately doubled the median overall survival (OS) compared with investigator's choice of chemotherapy, with survival benefits extending to those with different RAS mutations and RAS wild-type disease.Simeone spoke about the significance of these results in the context of the pancreatic cancer field, breaking down how daraxonrasib's mechanism of action as a pan-RAS inhibitor may open a “new fronter” beyond standard-of-care chemotherapy and platinum-based regimens. She also touched upon the prominent toxicities that have emerged with daraxonrasib, including rashes, while emphasizing the balancing of risk and benefit as part of further optimizing RAS therapeutics.The discussion also highlighted strategies for expanding genetic testing for patients with pancreatic cancer, as Simeone described the importance of receiving second opinions at comprehensive cancer centers where multidisciplinary teams can guide patients towards personalized treatment plans. She also mentioned how initiatives such as the Pancreatic Cancer Early Detection (PRECEDE) Consortium represent viable opportunities for continuing to elevate the quality of care for patients.“This has been a Holy Grail type of thing, where people have been wanting to target KRAS but it's been a challenge. This has been a breakthrough,” Simeone said regarding the results seen with daraxonrasib. “While the effect is dramatic in patients with metastatic cancer—and unfortunately that's still half of patients who walk in the door with pancreatic cancer—applying this therapy to stage I cancer could be even more profound and drive cures. Investment in early detection, partnered with these advances in therapeutics, is where we will see the most significant progress in increasing survival rates.”Simeone is the director of the Moores Cancer Center at University of California San Diego Health.ReferenceDaraxonrasib demonstrates unprecedented overall survival benefit in pivotal phase 3 RASolute 302 clinical trial in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. News release. Revolution Medicines. April 13, 2026. Accessed April 29, 2026. https://tinyurl.com/44t5vh5d

Stage 2 Capital General Partner Liz Christo joins the show to discuss the disconnect between venture expectations and reality in the software market. The conversation covers the hidden costs of the new build versus buy debate, the structural changes happening within modern sales organizations, and whether traditional B2B SaaS go-to-market strategies and moats still matter when AI coding tools make software replication cheaper than ever. Key Takeaways: -The shift toward building internal AI tools instead of buying SaaS products overlooks long-term technical debt, as Liz Christo points out that "there's like a huge amount of cost buried behind the scenes that we're not really talking about today because it's still like sexy and fun." -Founders are artificially inflating their Total Addressable Market to meet new venture capital baseline expectations, with Liz Christo noting that "pitch decks read like really ridiculous right now where everybody wants to tell the story of like a $10 billion outcome because that's the new milestone that got set." -Revenue Operations is becoming the most direct path to the Chief Revenue Officer seat in AI-first organizations, which Sam Jacobs explains is "because as we use fewer humans and more agents, the sort of the half technical, the semi-technical capabilities of most RevOps people will translate into orchestrating armies of agents." -Delegating analysis and writing to AI risks destroying strategic judgment across go-to-market teams, a trend Liz Christo summarizes by stating, "I think we are producing an incredible amount of content that's not getting consumed... I just think we're like losing the ability to think and we're not teaching junior employees how to do it." Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/  Guest: Liz Christo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizchristo/   Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack   Chapters:  00:00 Intro and Cold Open 02:41 The New Build vs Buy Debate 06:10 Engineers in Every Department 10:48 Pitch Decks and 10B Dollar TAMs 17:53 Venture Capital Funding Quiz 23:43 AI Memos and Critical Thinking 42:41 Software Moats and Switching Costs 47:46 Bulls vs Bears Segment 48:23 RevOps as a Path to CRO 51:25 The Future of SDR Managers 55:14 Is Clay Actually Undervalued 59:12 Odds of Hitting 50M ARR  

Peter Walker brings Carta's proprietary private market data from 60,000 startups and 85% of US unicorns to expose the brutal realities of today's tech landscape. While Q1 saw record capital raised, the money is highly concentrated among foundation models. We review the harsh truth behind the 530,000 open tech jobs in the US and the widening talent divide separating top 10% performers from the rest of the market. The conversation covers why venture capital is squeezing operators, how private equity is no longer a guaranteed exit strategy, and the urgent need to optimize your GTM strategy for AI-native workflows. We also debate the death of long-term product roadmaps, the impact of AI on enterprise pipeline generation, and evaluate whether middle management will survive the next 24 months. Key Takeaways The traditional safety net for slow-growth SaaS companies has disappeared, with Peter Walker noting that "A lot of companies held out this PE route as like, this is my escape hatch if I don't grow that fast. And now they're finding it's like, actually, the PEs don't care about you either." Securing venture capital has never been harder for founders outside of the AI bubble, as Peter Walker states "it's definitely not the easiest time to raise money unless you are already in the legible cohort. And if you're in the legible cohort, you know who you are." Rapid execution is replacing traditional product planning, with Peter Walker emphasizing that "the companies that are moving fast… don't know what they're doing in three weeks... we have no idea what's going to happen in October." Artificial intelligence is fundamentally threatening traditional communication hierarchies, and Sam Jacobs is bearish on the future of people managers because "if the purpose of management is to facilitate decision making at certain executive levels, that is something that AI can do." Connect with the Hosts & Guests  Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/  Guest: Peter Walker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjameswalker/   Topline is more than a YouTube Channel! Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast  Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters:  00:00 The AI Funding Divide  02:36 Is It Harder to Raise Capital  04:37 VCs Only Care About Growth  06:44 The Death of the PE Exit  10:48 Transitioning to AI Native  14:50 Why Product Roadmaps Are (Kinda) Dead  19:19 Stop Defaulting to VC  29:11 Historic Tech Funding Rounds  31:59 Over 530K Open Tech Jobs  36:55 Hiring Market Concentration  46:29 The Growing Tech Talent Divide  49:11 VC Fund Performance Realities  54:28 Future of Foundation Models  58:29 The End of Middle Management  

In this episode, Jordan Crawford outlines how revenue leaders can build an autonomous pipeline generation engine and transition away from static playbooks. The discussion covers practical methods for extracting competitor usage data, identifying segments of users who are far more likely to buy, and generally how top GTM teams are using GTM Engineering to dramatically improve their results. The hosts also evaluate how AI tools alter revenue operations, shift the traditional B2B SaaS go-to-market strategy, and force a total redesign of traditional AE compensation models. Key Takeaways: Top-down executive mandates fail because leadership lacks hands-on experience with the required technical systems. Jordan Crawford notes the absurdity of this disconnect, stating, "You read these letters from all these CEOs and they're like, 'We need to be an AI first organization and I can't tell you what that means or how to implement it, but goddamn, you need to be able to do it.'" The core function of revenue operations must shift from administrative reporting tasks to running active market tests. Sam Jacobs explains this organizational friction, observing many Rev Ops employees think their job is still to deliver reports to the C-Suite and ensure data accuracy, when today's reality is that "actually your job now is to generate demand and like I need 50 campaigns tested by tomorrow." Identifying high-value target accounts requires prioritizing product telemetry and user actions over static CRM fields. Jordan highlights the power of this approach, explaining that "AI can basically analyze customers' words, actions, and what's in the CRM and say... these accounts are worth 10 times more than these accounts." Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/  Guest: Jordan Crawford - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordancrawford/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter  Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast J Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Podcast Episode Introduction  02:52 Reversing GTM Strategy  06:44 RevOps and AI Thought Partners  13:58 Executing Fast Sales Campaigns  18:25 AI For Comp Plan Benchmarks  21:04 Defining Pain Qualified Segments  26:42 Shifting RevOps Priorities  38:41 Unbundling B2B SaaS Jobs  39:21 The Topline Trivia Game  45:11 Top Of Funnel AI Tactics  46:43 Middle Of Funnel Telemetry  47:56 Bottom Of Funnel Contract Review  49:10 Bull/Bear Predictions  

Cassie Young, Partner at Primary Venture Partners, joins the show to break down their contrarian $625 million seed fund and the reality of the coming gross retention apocalypse for tech companies. The conversation outlines why classical venture logic is breaking and how AI-native CRMs are plotting to steal enterprise market share from legacy giants like Salesforce. The group also details why the $6 trillion white-collar labor pool is the real target for emerging AI workflows rather than traditional software budgets. Expect a direct discussion on the myth of the zero CAC CEO, the evolving definition of the jaw-dropping customer experience, and the specific signals Primary looks for when writing checks to early-stage go-to-market founders building the next wave of B2B SaaS products. Key Takeaways -Primary Ventures just raised a massive $625 million seed fund by challenging traditional venture capital models, as Cassie explains, "The conventional wisdom at seed is to stay small. We fundamentally disagree with that." But don't worry: Cassie explains why they believe their approach is the right one. -Cassie warns that a retention reckoning is inevitable for AI startups noting, "I still very much live in fear of this... it might not be next month, it might not be next year, but it's ultimately going to come." Meanwhile, the hosts wonder: is it truly inevitable? Or just highly likely? -Cassie points out that a "Zero CAC CEO who's not supplemented by amazing technologists, it's just not enough." And that's just one of the many classic competitive moats which Cassie flags as reducing in value. -Asad highlights how rapid AI advancements are forcing companies to continuously rethink their competitive moats and sales motions, stating, "There are no product advantages that are long-lasting anymore." Connect with the Hosts & Guests  Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/  Guest: Cassie Young - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassyoung/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel:  Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter  Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast  Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Cassie Young Joins Topline 04:37 Raising a $625M Seed Fund 08:08 How Primary Wins Seed Deals 12:56 The 6 Trillion AI Opportunity 19:04 Can AI CRMs Beat Salesforce 29:14 Gross Retention Apocalypse 40:12 Myth of the Zero CAC CEO 46:58 Eradicating Switching Costs 53:15 Backing Go-to-Market Founders  

After slashing IT spending across civilian federal agencies last year, the White House's fiscal 2027 budget calls for a return to pre-Trump levels and then some. Though the proposal from President Donald Trump is just a starting point for haggling in Congress over what will ultimately be spent, the summary document released Friday projects $75.7 billion in federal civilian IT spending, up from $67.9 billion in fiscal 2026 and $75.1 billion in fiscal 2025. It doesn't include the Department of Defense's IT budget request, which in fiscal 2026 was a whopping $66.1 billion on its own. Despite the upward trend for overall spending on tech, OMB's budget request calls for a small decrease in funding for cybersecurity across all civilian agencies — falling from about $12.5 billion this year to $12.2 billion for 2027. This trend tracks with the Trump administration's decision to cut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's budget by $707 million. The largest IT investments are slated for the Department of Veterans Affairs ($12.2 billion), the Department of Homeland Security ($11.7 billion) and the Department of Health and Human Services ($9.5 billion). The General Services Administration is lobbying once again to rely on the transfer of unobligated appropriations from other agencies to support projects under the Technology Modernization Fund.The Trump administration included a provision in its fiscal 2027 budget justification for GSA “to collect up to $100 million in funding that would otherwise be unavailable for obligation from other agencies and bring that funding into the TMF.” The proposed funding mechanism comes after GSA included similar but broader language in its fiscal 2026 justification, calling for “both currently available funding and unobligated balances of expired discretionary funds from other agencies [to] be transferred into the TMF.” Ultimately, the appropriations laws passed by Congress for 2026 included a pair of statutes that allowed for those transfers to happen with limits — though it's unclear how or if GSA has used the authority. It also gave the TMF a $5 million plus-up and extended the fund's authorization through the end of fiscal 2026. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Kyle Norton's AI-enabled revenue team at Owner.com has completely rewritten the economics of what's possible in sales. Kyle joins the show to share why decentralized AI rollouts fail, how to build a core intelligence engine centrally, and why early AI investments must focus on one specific area. The hosts also discuss navigating go-to-market strategy shifts, rethinking RevOps AI integration, and why sales leadership can no longer use budget constraints to delay AI adoption. Key Takeaways: -Building a highly functional AI go-to-market strategy requires a perfect mapping of your entire market and deep enrichment, as Kyle Norton notes to "start with data... without that, nothing really works because you can't give the models what they need to make smart decisions or give you good outputs." -Pushing individual reps to build their own AI workflows yields poor results compared to building central intelligence, which is why Kyle Norton realized that "all of the best things, all of the most impactful implementations were all highly centralized... you just get a completely different result out of it and you can properly enable your whole org to adopt it." -Companies looking to see immediate ROI from their AI investments need to direct their resources toward the top of the funnel, with Kyle Norton emphasizing that "80% of your AI efforts in your early innings should be pipeline focused... AI is a really good pipeline tool." Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/  Guest: Kyle Norton - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylecnorton/   Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 04:05 - Data Foundations for Sales AI 08:14 - Predicting Lead Connect Rates 10:05 - Centralized AI Rollout Strategy 17:20 - Building the Intelligence Engine 22:05 - AI Investments for Startups 28:12 - Changing Comp Plans Quarterly  33:58 - Centralizing AI by Department 37:35 - The Five Ps Decision Framework 39:33 - Focusing AI on Pipeline Gen 43:16 - Salesforce Acquisition Strategy 45:24 - The Reality of Founder Mode 48:01 - The Next Phase of AI Workflows  

Amanda Kahlow raised $30 million to build AI sales agents that improve the buying experience. As the founder of 1mind and previously 6sense, she sits at the forefront of modern go to market strategy. In this episode, Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman sit down with Amanda to discuss the reality of AI in the sales motion; she explains how Superhumans (1mind's AI Agents) handle everything from top of funnel enterprise pipeline generation to acting as sales engineers on live demos. The conversation covers the technical hurdles of building high performing AI agents, why she believes buyers will soon demand to interact with AI over human sellers, and what revenue leaders must do to prepare their teams for a radically different future. Key Takeaways: According to Amanda, the speed and accuracy of application specific AI will soon eclipse traditional human selling, as Amanda Kahlow predicts that "When buyers realize their answer is going to be more accurate and more empathetic, they're going to demand to talk to an AI over a human." The traditional role of the sales representative is facing total disruption, and Amanda Kahlow states clearly that in the future "I don't think there will be sellers... I think the best thing we can do for sellers and for the market right now is to be f***ing honest about what is coming for them." Product development for revenue technology must prioritize the end customer over internal efficiency, a philosophy Amanda Kahlow emphasizes by noting that "If I can create a better buying experience, I believe the rest will fall into place... if that's not a better buying experience, I want to be a hard no to it." Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/  Guest: Amanda Kahlow - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandakahlow/ Topline is more than a Podcast: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter  Tune into Topline on YouTube, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.youtube.com/@TOPLINE-Media Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters (Audio Version): 01:00 Introducing Amanda Kahlow and 1mind 02:27 What are Go To Market Superhumans? 06:50 Managing AI Latency and Models 09:53 AI: More Trustworthy Than Human Sellers 15:40 Building the Future of GTM Tech 22:25 The Next Three Years of GTM 35:16 Closing Six Figure Enterprise Deals 40:01 Will Sales Reps Exist in Two Years? 50:00 Collapsing the Sales Assembly Line 54:08 Adapting to the AI Sales Era 58:36 The Autonomous Context Graph Future   

Intercom gave up $60 million in contracted seat-based ARR to bet the entire company on an AI agent named Fin. The result? They passed $400 million in total ARR, with Fin driving over $100 million in revenue and 35% growth. In this episode, Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman break down what went into this massive turnaround. The conversation starts with the problem: the SaaS market cap dropping by $600 billion, and how this creates an urgent need for structural pivots. The hosts discuss the financial reality of agentic business models, why historic 90% SaaS gross margins are disappearing, and how scaling compute costs will impact your GTM strategy. The episode wraps up with tactical advice on managing board support, handling leadership pushback, and executing a burn-the-boats transition before your legacy product-market fit evaporates. Link to Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe's essay: https://ideas.fin.ai/p/there-is-exactly-one-way-that-saas Key Episode Takeaways:  - Shifting to an AI-first product fundamentally changes your financial model, requiring exponential revenue generation to offset massive compute costs, which Sam Jacobs points out by stating, "You are trading a good business for a worse business... you have to grow at exponential rates as an agentic business because your gross margins are so much lower than SaaS." - Comfort is the enemy of innovation for established software companies, and survival often requires a massive operational reset, as AJ Bruno explains when noting that "Intercom had five straight quarters of zero net new ARR growth" before they took drastic action. - The cost of human capital is rising as top performers require heavy compute access to execute their roles effectively, a reality Asad Zaman highlights by predicting that "Every recruiter at STA will probably have $10K, $20K, $30K worth of inference calls in the next couple of years... That's like a mini assistant for each person." Connect with the Hosts: Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/   Topline is more than a YouTube Channel:  -Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter -Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast -Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Intro and Episode Overview  01:21 Intercom 400M ARR Turnaround  03:41 The Massive SaaS Market Cap Reset  05:27 Executing a Burn the Boats Pivot  09:05 Gross Margins of AI vs Legacy SaaS  12:00 Defending App Commoditization  18:16 Returning to Founder Mode  27:29 Why You Need Full Board Support  32:26 The Danger of Comfortable Growth  36:31 The Real Cost of AI Inference  42:27 Rising Talent Compute Economics  49:25 Tracking the Right Churn Metrics  52:38 Shifting GTM to Vertical SaaS  

Sam Jacobs (CEO, Pavilion), AJ Bruno (CEO, QuotaPath), and Asad Zaman (CEO, Sales Talent Agency) debate exactly how to handle team members resisting AI adoption. When to leave them, when to nudge them, and when to fire them. The discussion highlights real-world data, including how leading companies reach the top decile of AI adoption and the mechanics of running a 24-hour, four-squad AI hackathon to force experimentation. We also cover a critical performance heuristic from the past CPO of LaunchDarkly: if your team cannot execute simple tasks in a single day, you are falling behind. The conversation covers change management for revenue leaders, how to integrate AI into your daily enterprise pipeline generation, and why optimizing your GTM strategy means making hard decisions about personnel who refuse to adapt. Key Takeaways: >Driving AI adoption requires clear communication and rewarding good behavior, but AJ Bruno warns that leaders will ultimately have to "leave behind a handful of folks that are just not going to get on the bus, that aren't getting on board." >When implementing new AI tools across your teams, Asad Zaman notes that expectations must scale with seniority, stating "I have more tolerance as I move lower in the org and less tolerance at the higher levels." >AI should be treated as a creative partner for deeper analysis rather than a shortcut for unedited output, a reality Sam Jacobs emphasizes by warning "If you are just the pass through, you will be fired." Connect with the Hosts Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/  Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/  Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/   Topline is more than a YouTube Channel:  Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter  Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast  Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:35 The Question: Employees resisting AI 01:39 Convert them or fire them? 02:07 Running internal AI hackathons 03:54 How CEOs drive adoption 05:08 Mapping tasks to AI agents 06:27 The "Robot Layer" in emails 07:40 Claire Vo's anti-dinosaur framework 08:07 The One-Day Execution Heuristic 12:52 Why you should be scared 14:30 Elevating junior AI talent 16:35 Reducing 3 hours of work to 45 mins 18:54 Summary: How to uplevel the org 21:09 The tension between speed and depth 21:52 Pass-through? Fired! FIRED!!!  

Is your traditional SaaS experience becoming obsolete? In this new 20-minute rapid-fire format, Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman tackle a specific listener question: How does a senior operator transition from a legacy B2B SaaS role into a high-growth AI company? The market is shifting toward a meritocracy where recent hands-on capability outweighs decades of tenure on a CV. The hosts break down exactly how to position yourself for companies like CoreWeave and EliseAI. They discuss why hiding your lack of technical engineering skills is a mistake, how to build a portfolio of "work product" using low-code tools like Replit and Claude, and why being able to articulate the failures of AI models is actually the strongest signal of fluency. Key Takeaways: - Stop relying on a static resume and start building a portfolio of practical applications. As Sam Jacobs notes, the hiring landscape has shifted so that "your work product needs to speak for itself... demonstrating that you're capable of working with these tools, not theoretically, but practically through your conversations that you're having with hiring managers." - We are entering a career reset where agility beats seniority. Asad Zaman warns that "whenever there is a platform shift... the value of experience goes down a little bit," which creates a massive opportunity for younger leaders to "move up faster if you present in a very compelling manner because people are not looking at titles the same way." - Cultural currency matters as much as technical skill. To be taken seriously by founders in this space, you must consume information where they do. As Asad Zaman puts it, "If they find out that you're not on AI Twitter or AI X, I think they will think you're not a serious person... the information is not gonna be found in these old school channels." Connect with the Hosts: Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/   Topline is not JUST a YouTube Channel! Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack   Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:58 Viewer Q: Transitioning to AI 02:48 Show Work Product, Not Just CVs 04:36 Applying SaaS Principles to AI 05:58 The AI-First Mentality 08:58 Articulating AI Limitations 11:30 The Meritocracy Shift 13:55 Unexpected AI Wins 21:27 Staying Culturally Relevant 24:29 Summary: How to Get Hired  

Common causes of topline dysfunction in horses and how to evaluate and address them.Read the article: https://equimanagement.com/research-medical/sports-medicine/therapeutic-exercises-for-horses-with-topline-dysfunction/Mentioned in this episode:EquiManagement on Audio All the articles you have come to love in EquiManagement Magazine are now available in this podcast for free. Each article is released as its own separate episode to make them quick and easy to listen to. EquiManagement always has the latest insights on equine health, veterinary practice management, and veterinarian wellness.

Welcome back to Diabetes Dialogue: Technology, Therapeutics, & Real-World Perspectives!In this episode, cohosts Diana Isaacs, PharmD, and Natalie Bellini, DNP, provide a comprehensive update on the rapidly evolving landscape of incretin-based therapies, focusing on newly published and top-line clinical trial data across oral GLP-1 receptor agonists and emerging triple agonists.Key Episode Timestamps00:00:01 Intro00:00:22 Orforglipron in the ACHIEVE-3 trial00:03:30 Side effects from orforglipron00:10:28 Retatrutide in the TRIUMPH-4 trial00:18:26 Topline data on Novo Nordisk's UBT25100:21:47 Price cuts on Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy in 202700:26:26 Outro

AJ Meyer, CEO of Pickle Robot, isn't betting on general-purpose humanoid robots. Instead, he's a believer in robots and Physical AI which solve specific, high-volume problems. AJ joins Sam and Asad to reveal how he recently secured a nine-figure enterprise contract and why "boring" logistics tasks are the gateway to mass adoption of robots. But with mass adoption's opportunities, so too are there new risks. AJ shares that while physical safety is an important consideration, the cybersecurity risk of a networked robot workforce is what needs the most attention right now. This and a ton more in this week's episode of Topline with Sam Jacobs (CEO @ Pavilion) and Asad Zaman (CEO @ Sales Talent Agency). Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Chapters: 00:00 Teaser and Introduction to AJ Meyer 02:53 The Convergence of Physical and Digital AI 05:50 Safety Constraints and the "Acrobat" Robot Disaster 09:19 Mobile Manipulation vs. General Purpose Humanoids 12:47 Cybersecurity Risks in Connected Robot Networks 18:52 AI Surveillance and Authoritarian Risks 28:01 Debunking the Myth of Unskilled Labor 34:54 The Moving Goalposts of AGI 38:19 Solving the Open World Generalization Problem 42:09 Why Foundation Models Need Systems Engineering 48:23 Designing Business Models for Enterprise and Mid-Market 53:20 The Nine-Figure "ChatGPT Moment" for Robotics 58:14 Transferring SaaS Go-To-Market Skills to Hardware 01:03:45 Taste and Judgment as Career Differentiators 01:07:50 Hiring Needs and Closing Thoughts

When Vikki decided to rescue horses with no teeth, she didn't realize it would lead to opening a thriving feed and farm supply business. In this episode, Vikki and her husband Rob share how Topline Feed and Farm Supply started as a way to "supplement the horses" and evolved into a community hub in Tavistock, Ontario. From navigating the challenges of rural retail and competing with big-box stores to giving back through hospice visits and youth programs, this Ontario Made award-nominated business proves that passion, ADHD-fueled entrepreneurship, and a lot of hard work can build something special. Plus, we talk about the realities of running a brick-and-mortar store, the importance of doubling down on Canadian entrepreneurship, and why rescuing horses is way cooler than anyone expected.Find Topline feed here: https://www.toplinefeeds.com/homethank you to Haddas and Rebecca at Ontario made for connecting us with Vicki and Rob. https://supportontariomade.ca/Thank you to LGDF Wholesale for sponsoring this episode. https://www.lgdfwholesale.com/    

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Do you feel you're giving everything to your agency and only getting exhaustion as a result? Agencies grow best when they're built around clarity, empathy, and self-awareness. Whether it's pricing, boundaries, team management, or AI, the common thread is intention. Today's featured guest understands that you don't need to hustle harder. You need to design smarter, around who you are, how you work best, and what kind of business you actually want to run. She'll share her perspective on agency growth, self-awareness, leadership, and how AI should actually be used inside a modern agency and provide a real look at what it takes to build an agency that's profitable, human, and sustainable without losing yourself in the process. Ingrid Schneider is the CEO and founder of Stay in Your Lane, a fractional CMO and franchise development agency, and Train in Your Lane, an AI education company helping teams build real AI intuition. What started as fractional work after being laid off during the pandemic has grown into a 16-person team running full marketing departments, launching brands, building LMS platforms, and training companies like Ben & Jerry's and Ace Hardware on how to actually use AI to solve problems. In this episode, we'll discuss: Going from survival mode to self-worth: pricing and confidence. How to set boundaries and protect your brain. Design an agency that energizes you, not drains you. Managing people, not just performance with a human-first approach. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio: If you're leveling up your team and your client experience, your site builder should keep up too. That's why successful agencies use Wix Studio — built to adapt the way your agency does: AI-powered site mapping, responsive design, flexible workflows, and scalable CMS tools so you spend less on plugins and more on growth. Ready to design faster and smarter? Go to wix.com/studio to get started. Building an Agency on Trust and Integrity Ingrid doesn't come from a tidy, linear career path. After being laid off as a CMO during the pandemic, she made the decision to not work for anyone else again. She started doing fractional CMO work to replace her salary, focusing on trust, authenticity, and doing the work well. What began as a solo operation three and a half years ago is now a full team serving a wide range of clients. Some rely on Ingrid's team to run their entire marketing department. Others bring them in for focused, fractional engagements. The growth didn't come from aggressive sales tactics—it came from being reliable, human, and honest about what they were good at. Learning Your Worth and Unlearning Survival Mode When Ingrid landed her first client, she charged $3,000 a month for two brands. And that client still complained about pricing. Like many agency owners, she was focused on replacing her salary, not building a business. Survival mode has a way of shrinking your sense of value. Learning her worth didn't come from a pricing spreadsheet. It came from personal work deconstructing old beliefs, recognizing her own capabilities, and understanding the impact she could have on others. Ingrid talks openly about how her upbringing and past experiences shaped her tendency to underprice herself and overextend. As her confidence grew, so did her standards. She began collecting people with grit, sometimes hiring for attitude over experience, and building a team she trusted deeply. The biggest lesson for her was: if you don't believe in your value, your pricing, and your agency, will reflect that. Preventing Agency Burnout: How to Set Boundaries Running a business can be incredibly stressful, which is why many owners can relate to being in fight or fly mode all the time. However, this is the worst thing for both your health and your business because chronic stress will affect your brain and get you to a point known as "flipping your lid." According to Ingrid, this term, which she learned from Dr. Daniel Siegel, describes what happens when stress pushes you into fight, flight, or freeze. Logic goes offline. Creativity disappears and everything feels harder. For agency owners, this shows up as exhaustion, impatience, and bad decisions, and healing will mean confronting the reality that you can't run a business well if your body and brain are in survival mode. In her case, Ingrid found healing by emphasizing boundaries as a leadership responsibility. Knowing where your value is best served, trusting your team, and recognizing when their lids are flipped allows you to lead with empathy instead of pressure. The agency doesn't need a burned-out hero. It needs a regulated, self-aware leader. Designing an Agency That Energizes You, Not Drains You This is a lesson that agency owners that currently feel miserable with their business and wanting to give up should learn. Drawing your boundaries will look different to everyone, but you can start by asking yourself what you want to do every day and what you never want to do again. Just draw a circle on a piece of paper and start writing. Inside: the work that gives you energy. Outside: everything that drains you. You'll see that most likely what you need is to redesign your agency around this. You can't be all things to all people. Agency that try usually end up miserable and unprofitable. Wins and losses both matter, but only if you're paying attention to what they're teaching you. Topline revenue means nothing if you hate how you're earning it. Sustainable growth comes from aligning what's good for the business with what actually fills your cup. That alignment is what keeps agencies alive long-term. Managing People, Not Just Performance with a Human-First Approach As an empath, Ingrid leads with a people-first approach rooted in Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI). When something goes wrong, she looks at three things in order: herself, the system, and then the person. Are expectations clear? Do they have the resources they need? Is she showing up with patience? Perfectionism isn't the goal in her agency because perfection is stressful, unrealistic, and unnecessary. Instead, the focus is on doing really good work while protecting the team's mental energy. This is where AI comes in, not as a shortcut for thinking, but as a way to remove the minutia that burns people out. This has been the case for Ingrid, who enjoys managing people. If this is not your case, then focus on hiring people who can manage themselves. But remember you have to learn to let go if you want a self-managing team. There are countless ways to reach the same outcome and speed isn't always the metric that matters most. Sometimes the "slow" work produces the best results. Using AI to Empower Teams, Not Create More Noise Ingrid's approach focuses on education and the fact that everyone should be training their AI intuition to be able to understand how an AI tool works and how it could help them. She trained her own intuition by changing her social media algorithms to feed her AI micro-learnings. From there, it became about application: looking at every agency task and asking, Can AI help solve this better? Her team runs weekly "show and tell" sessions where they demo how they used AI to solve real problems. There's also an AI policy but it's framed as a permission slip, not a rulebook. Team members can experiment with tools on a company card, and if they prove value, the agency commits. The bigger point is this: if you're not empowering your team to use AI thoughtfully, you're holding them back. This isn't about pumping out more content—it's about freeing up human brains to do the work that actually matters. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

Join Strides with Amelia: https://amelianewcombdressage.com/strides/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_campaign=Strides+2026 enrollment closes Wednesday Jan 7th @11.59pm PTWatch the Replays: https://amelianewcombdressage.com/bootcamp-replay/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_campaign=Strides+2026 replays expire Wednesday Jan 7th @11.59pm PT

The Topline team interview Ethan Smith, founder of Graphite, an San Fransico-based growth and SEO agency with clients like Notion, Webflow and Rippling. As well as Rahul Jain from Noble, a consultant who writes and speaks about AI. Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Host Introductions 00:41 How Well Do You Know AI Search? 08:14 SEO vs. AI: The Changing Landscape 13:42 The Role of PR in AI Search 14:46 Get Cited By THESE Websites 18:13 SEO Strategies in the AI Era 25:07 Is SEO Actually Dead? 33:16 HubSpot's Message to The Market 34:27 SEO Evolution and Traffic Trends 34:54 The Future of Search and LLMs 36:34 Signs You Have The Wrong Product 40:01 Scaling AI Search Content 46:38 The Role of PR and AI in Marketing 01:01:42 What Have You Learned?  

We ran a comprehensive model to predict how many layoffs may happen in 2026. To see our math, and try to predict what's next, tune into this full episode of Topline.    Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!   Chapters: 00:43 Show intro & what we're covering today 01:31 Setting the stage: big layoffs & what's coming 01:54 Quiz Pro Quo: the tech ecosystem trivia segment 05:37 Why layoffs are happening in a strong market 10:07 What "AI" actually means 11:28 The Twitter/X effect & middle-management reductions 14:31 AI vs. inefficiency cuts: spectrum check 20:13 Where AI is replacing jobs today 22:13 Executive hiring vs. junior hiring shifts 26:03 Big Tech's speed, efficiency & fewer layers strategy 37:33 The new sales productivity curve 49:03 How to protect your career in an AI world  

Episode 403 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Nick Ornitz and Shannon Kay, Co-Founders of Topline Pro. Make something people want is the motto behind Y Combinator. It sounds simple, yet so many founders miss this fundamental requirement. Topline Pro is a perfect case study in getting it right. They didn't fall victim to early false positives; instead, they listened, experimented, and successfully pivoted to solve a true, massive problem for an underserved market. Topline Pro is building AI that empowers local home service pros to grow and scale their businesses. They provide a critical platform to help with the marketing, sales, and operations of running a business in the trades, allowing these business owners to focus on their craft. The company recently announced a $27M Series B funding round led by Northzone, with new participation from Tactile Ventures, and Industry Ventures, alongside continued support from existing investors Forerunner Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, TMV, Flybridge, and BBG Ventures. In this interview, we dive into: * The inspirational backstory of Nick and Shannon and how they decided to build a company together after meeting at HBS. * Their initial concept called Dwelling, the "false positive" they experienced, and the strategic pivot. * Their time at Y Combinator and how early access to GPT opened their eyes to the potential of AI. * The value that Topline Pro is providing customers and the exciting opportunities ahead following their Series B. * Growth plans, hiring goals, and the culture they're building at Topline Pro. * Advice for non-AI native companies that are starting to build out their own AI strategy. * And so much more! Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

The biggest AI companies in the world have made some bold statements about their priorities, but their actions haven't always lined up.   Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!   Chapters: 00:00 Welcome Back to Topline 00:52 How Well Do You Know The AI Bubble? 12:48 AI's Job Market Collapse? 15:19 Anthropic's Controversial Funding 30:25 Where is Funding Going? 47:38 How Should We Invest in AI? 59:39 Lessons and Reflections from 2025  

The Topline crew, joined my Kyle Norton from the Revenue Leadership Podcast, look at the newest ChatGPT usage data. This is getting unhealthy   Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast.   Chapters: 00:00 AI's Personal Health Impact  00:37 Intro & Today's Three Topics  01:38 ChatGPT Usage Study Overview  02:34 Non-Work Usage Surges to 73%  05:05 Writing Beats Search for Work  06:00 Companionship & Personal Advice Use Cases  10:57 Switching Tools vs Staying Put  19:10 Centralizing AI Workflows & Infrastructure  21:01 Phone-First Sales Tech Stack  23:32 Reading Our Last 13 ChatGPT Chats  27:08 AI for Health: Power & Risks  32:17 Vibe Coding Traffic Slide  36:13 Vibe Coding's Audience & Use Cases 40:21 Trust Gap & Product Focus  42:51 Leading Through Momentum Slowdowns  50:11 Europe's Startup Problem  51:28 Firing Laws, Risk & Funding Gaps    

In this conversation hosted by Nancy Mendelson, hospitality marketing veteran Victoria Feldman de Falco, principal and co-founder of Redpoint, shares how marketing, PR, and operations teams can work together to drive topline growth in hospitality. Drawing from more than four decades of experience leading bold, award-winning campaigns, Vickie explains why communications shouldn't operate in silos — and how general managers play a crucial role in aligning strategy across the business.You'll hear stories that bring this to life, from creative campaigns like Cyber Monday for Hotels and Baggage Buyback to the operational realities that make or break great ideas. The conversation highlights how risk tolerance, collaboration, and clear communication can turn marketing initiatives into lasting brand value — and why PR deserves protection, not cuts, when budgets tighten.If you're focused on performance and looking for ways to strengthen collaboration across your hospitality teams, this episode delivers both perspective and practical examples you can put to work right now.Read the article on hertelier: Hospitality PR in an AI World: Victoria Feldman de Falco on Ideas, Credibility, and Risk-Taking A few more resources: If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free. Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram. If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together. If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve! Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

The Topline crew breaks down the fastest growing startups of 2025.   Chapters: 02:20 Welcome to Top Line  02:57 Discussion on AI Company Investments  08:47 Fastest to $10 Million in Revenue  09:53 Debate on AI Market Sustainability  15:58 AI's Impact on Business Strategies 29:58 Fastest to $50 Million in Revenue  33:16 PLG vs. Sales-Led Growth  34:08 Choosing the Right Business Model 37:03 Fastest to $100 Million in Revenue  38:07 Revenue Milestones and AI Companies  42:00 Challenges with AI Accuracy  45:35 Fastest to $500 Million  50:29 Fastest to $1 Billion, $5 Billion, $10 Billion  56:37 Final Thoughts and Investment Picks   Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Wednesday.  Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!

We studied Palantir for 200+ hours to understand how its stock keeps growing, how the company handles sales and marketing, and to understand why it's such a cultural phenomenon. Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Palantir's Enigmatic CEO 00:53 Welcome to Top Line 03:39 Diving into Palantir's Business 09:52 Palantir's Government and Commercial Ventures 22:41 The Role of Sales in Palantir's Success 32:33 Sales Culture and Treatment 34:00 The Role of Salespeople in Product-Led Companies 35:01 Challenges and Opportunities in Sales 38:12 Palantir's Go-To-Market Strategy 45:06 Salesforce vs. Palantir: Market Cap Battle 46:33 HubSpot's Potential and Challenges 55:29 AI Predictions and Impact on Business 59:17 AI in Personal and Professional Life 01:03:58 Conclusion and Final Thoughts  

AJ Bruno, the CEO of $21M SaaS startup Quota Path, explains his company-wide experiment to make all of his employees vibe code. The results were shocking.   Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!   Chapters: 00:00 The Future of AI in Startups  00:52 Introduction to Top Line  05:08 Vibe Coding Fridays Explained  13:32 The Impact of AI on Company Culture  29:57 The Role of Managers in Modern Companies 33:36 Challenging Traditional Management Practices 34:13 The Role of Senior Managers and Getting Hands Dirty 35:38 The Value of Middle Management 45:54 The Impact of AI on Management Roles 52:20 The Bubble of AI Revenue Reporting 1:00:58 Predictions for the Future of Labor  

Jesse Zhang is the CEO of Decagon, the $1.5B startup creating AI agents to transform customer service. Jesse talks to us about the future of AI agents, the limits of automation, and the AI startup landscape.  Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! 0:00 Meet Jesse 4:19 Are We in a Bubble? 10:50 AI Implementation Challenges and Use Cases 16:07 Selling AI to Enterprise 27:02 Model Capabilities and Business Logic 37:11 Business Model and Pricing Strategy  48:09 Competition and Company Culture  56:56 Building and Scaling the Company  

In this episode of Topline, hosts Sam Jacobs, Asad Zaman, and AJ Bruno dive into the question of whether we're currently in an AI bubble. We talk through key data points on valuations, venture capital's dry powder, and $3 trillion in projected data center investments. Is AI unsustainable hype, true long-term growth, or both at the same time? Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! 00:00 The AI Bubble + Banter 04:56 Deep Dive into AI Investments 08:18 Defining and Understanding Market Bubbles 21:16 The Role of CEOs and Operators in AI 25:16 Future of AI and Market Predictions 38:31 AI Has a Marketing Problem 38:56 The Bubble and Big Tech 42:41 Valuation Trends in Startups 48:45 Bridge Rounds and Investor Strategies 53:22 AI Performance Metrics 01:04:04 Concluding Thoughts and Random Questions

We ran the biggest public study on YC company's successes and failures in history. This is what we learned about the most prolific startup incubator in history.    Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday and Thursday.   Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket.   Subscribe to Topline Newsletter.   Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech.   Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!   (00:00) - The Biggest Study on YC (00:40) - Personal Updates and Banter (03:47) - What Is Y Combinator? (04:24) - Our Research's Findings (06:26) - Advantages of Joining YC (10:40) - Challenges and Criticisms of YC (14:34) - Personal Experiences and Insights (29:47) - YC's Branding and Marketing Power (30:31) - YC's Expansion and Its Impact (31:16) - The Value of YC's Brand (34:04) - Dilution and Founders' Naivety (36:04) - Branding Lessons from YC (37:44) - Challenges and Opportunities for YC (46:17) - Chat GPT-5: Initial Impressions (50:31) - AI Companies and Market Dynamics (56:23) - Concluding Thoughts and Wins  

AJ Bruno is the founder and CEO of QuotaPath, a leading sales compensation management platform that has secured significant investments, including a $41 million Series B. Serving roughly 1,000 customers, QuotaPath helps organizations align company goals with incentive plans to drive winning sales behaviors.Before QuotaPath, AJ co-founded TrendKite, which was acquired by Cision for $225 million in 2019. He also co-hosts Topline, a podcast on revenue growth and sales leadership.In this episode, AJ shares the stories behind launching TrendKite and QuotaPath, his passion for flying, and his perspective on integrating AI into workflows as a founder. He reflects on his days as a Penn State student, studying abroad in Italy, his first job at Meltwater, and how a terrible boss inspired him to start his first company.Later in the episode, recent Penn State grad Paul Allen joins the conversation. A participant in the Invent Penn State Summer Founders Program, Paul asks AJ for advice on raising venture capital, making first hires, and navigating the challenges of early-stage entrepreneurship.Episode Chapters02:13 - 07:06 Growing up in Pittsburgh, acting and flying07:06 - 12:17 Choosing Penn State, squash club, studying abroad12:17 - 15:38 First entrepreneurial venture at Penn State15:38 - 22:48 First job in sales, advice to students and parents22:48 - 29:15 Terrible boss as a catalyst for TrendKite29:15 - 33:02 The problem that inspired the launch of QuotaPath33:02 - 40:33 Navigating AI and future of QuotaPath40:33 - 43:51 The crazy story that led to AJ launching a podcast43:51 - 45:24 Rapid Fire Insights45:24 - 55:20 Recent student Paul Allen interviews AJAbout AJ BrunoAJ Bruno is founder and CEO of QuotaPath. He graduated from the Penn State Schreyer Honors College with a bachelor's degree in economics from the Smeal College of Business in 2007.About Paul AllenPaul is a spring 2025 graduate of the Penn State College of Engineering. He completed the 2025 Invent Penn State Summer Founders Program with his startup, Reflex Technologies. Reflex is building a wearable electromyography (EMG) sensor that provides real-time muscle activation and fatigue insights to athletes and trainers. The Dare to Disrupt podcast is made possible by the generous support of the Penn State Smeal College of Business.

3 multi-millionaire founders give their practical insights on how to prepare for the rise of AGI and super intelligence. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket.  Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today.  Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! This episode is sponsored by UserEvidence. Want to know what actually moves the needle on trust? Download The Evidence Gap, a data-backed report on the customer proof that drives real results. Get it now at userevidence.com/evidence. Key chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (00:38) - Podcast Welcome and Host Introductions (00:48) - Episode Overview and Topics (01:39) - Personal Updates and Anecdotes (05:57) - AGI and Super Intelligence Are (maybe) Here (10:58) - AI's Impact on Business and Employment (14:17) - Is It Overhyped? (26:23) - Future of Middle Management (31:09) - Where Will AI Fit In? (38:14) - We're Robbing Young People (39:02) - The Grind Score: Measuring Work-Life Balance (42:36) - The Future of Work and AI's Impact (50:21) - Go-To-Market Tech Landscape and Consolidations (01:02:12) - Listener Question: Moving to Philadelphia

Bryan Murphy, CEO of Smartling, confronts a $40 billion industry stuck in the slow lane, the world of translation. Most companies still handle translations like it's 1999: manual, expensive, and painfully slow. Bryan saw AI as the game changer that could rewrite the rules, but integrating it wasn't a walk in the park. He shares how Smartling harnessed AI to not just cut costs and speed up translation but to finally boost quality close to human-level precision without losing control over brand voice or nuance. Yet, making this leap meant upheaval: reorganizing teams, hiring AI experts, and establishing ruthless R&D discipline to separate winning ideas from distractions. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Key chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Bryan Murphy and Defining the Translation Challenge (02:30) - The Hidden $40B Translation Market and Its Untapped Potential (04:00) - The Evolution of Translation Services: From Manual to AI-Driven Automation (06:00) - Early AI in Translation: Faster and Cheaper, But Not Yet Better (08:00) - Defining Quality: The MQM Standard and Bridging AI-Human Gaps (09:20) - Human-in-the-Loop AI: Boosting Translator Productivity Tenfold (10:30) - Full AI Translation Approaching Human Grade: The Game Changer (11:45) - The Future Mix: Human Expertise vs. Automated Scale in AI Translation (13:00) - Unlocking Market Expansion Through Improved SEO and Digital Footprint (15:00) - The Moment of Truth: Recognizing GPT's Impact and Rolling Out Rapid Innovation (16:30) - Founder's Speed: Breaking Plans and Aligning Teams for Urgent AI Adoption (18:00) - Overcoming Organizational Challenges: From Excitement to Structured Execution (20:00) - R&D Reimagined: Timeboxing Experiments With Clear Metrics to Avoid Spinning Wheels (22:00) - The Discipline of “Customer-First” in AI Development and Roadmapping (24:00) - Leadership Lessons: Listening Without Losing Vision Amidst Painful Change (26:00) - Winning Customer Trust: Betting On Proofs of Concept Against Skeptics (28:00) - Personal Insights: Favorite Leadership Books and the Role of Intellectual Curiosity (29:30) - Staying Sharp: Daily Reading and Customer Conversations as Strategic Tools (31:00) - Managing Stress and Longevity: The Art of Mental Compartmentalization for Founders (32:30) - Final Thoughts: The Unseen Power of Humility in Leadership and Continual Learning (33:00) - Wrap-up and Invitation to Follow Smartling's AI-Empowered Evolution

If you could transform yourself into a “Superhuman Founder” with Ai – doubling your revenue, multiplying your impact, and automating the work of an entire team – would you do it?In this brand-new episode, I'm sharing my Four Quadrants of Ai framework – straight from the Ai Accelerator Live event.You'll hear exactly how I (and our $250K+ clients) are using Super Agents to:Give you superpowers you didn't think were possibleBuild a one-person marketing team that creates brand-level content at scaleLand customers, investors, and speaking gigs – on demandAutomate entire systems so your business runs 24/7 without you babysitting itI'll walk you through the real tools, prompts, and workflows I use in my own companies – plus jaw-dropping case studies, including how we:Built a custom app in an afternoon (no code!)Turned raw YouTube videos into fully formatted installation manuals in minutesFound investor leads, wrote outreach copy, and booked platform appearances – automaticallyWhether you're a founder, consultant, or investor, this episode will change the way you think about Ai forever.KEY INSIGHTS & TAKEAWAYS:The Four Quadrants of Ai Upgrade yourself, your brand, your team, and your top-line revenue using a repeatable framework you can implement this week.Super Agents = Game ChangerThese aren't “just” ChatGPT – they think ahead, make plans, and execute complex workflows without handholding.Your Ai Superpowers Leverage the MAC Method (Mentor, Assistant, Critic) to teach, execute, and improve any business process – fast.The One-Person Marketing TeamHow to produce high-quality video, audio, and written content – without hiring 10 people.Closing Big Deals, FasterFind investors, dream clients, and speaking gigs – then personalize outreach at scale.Automation & ScaleBuild systems that work 24/7 so you can stop being the bottleneck in your own business.Why You Have 18–36 Months If you're not implementing Ai now, your competitors will – and they'll outperform and outcompete you.TIME STAMPS:[00:00:00] Welcome to the Four Quadrants of Ai  The big promise: upgrade yourself, your brand, your team, and your revenue using Ai.[00:02:31] What Are “Super Agents”? Why they're different from ChatGPT and how they plan, think, and execute at a higher level.[00:07:46] My Personal Ai Stack The exact order and tools I use daily, and how I decide which Ai to use for which job.[00:13:20] Quadrant 1 – Your Ai Superpowers How to get your time back, increase productivity, and expand your capabilities – without hiring.[00:36:58] Quadrant 2 – The One-Person Marketing Team Case study: turning raw video into a polished installation manual in minutes.[00:51:33] Quadrant 3 – Closing Big Deals Faster Finding 100+ ideal leads or investors – and writing custom outreach in minutes.[00:57:01] Quadrant 4 – Automation & Scale Building a no-code app prototype in an afternoon.[01:05:45] Biggest Lessons from Ai Accelerator Live Why workshops + collaboration create breakthroughs faster than solo learning.[01:16:29] How to Get Involved Details on the next Ai Accelerator Live and how to join the VIP experience.If you're serious about future-proofing your business, this is your roadmap to becoming the most valuable person in the room – no matter where you go.PS – Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help: Get a ticket to my next Ai Accelerator Live event here (Use Code > BIRD500 < ) – www.AiAccelerator.com/LiveWatch the video recording of this episode - PLUS get a bonus implementation guide: www.AiAccelerator.com/AiWorkshop Join me for a Cup of Coffee at my Digital Cafe and discover your next big opportunity. This is where we can meet:www.MikeKoenigs.com/1kCoffeeCA

Sam Jacobs, Asad Zaman, and AJ Bruno and CEOs who are fundamentally changing how they are hiring and firing because of AI. These are the jobs that will and won't exist in the next 12 months, and our real-world insights on what CEOs are looking for out of their talent base.    Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday.   Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket.   Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today.   Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader.   You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!   This episode is sponsored by UserEvidence. Want to know what actually moves the needle on trust? Download The Evidence Gap, a data-backed report on the customer proof that drives real results. Get it now at userevidence.com/evidence.   Key chapters: (00:00) - Winners and Losers in AI (00:38) - The White Collar Bloodbath (03:30) - These 3 Jobs Won't Exist (25:10) - These 3 Jobs WILL Exist (& bets we're making) (42:50) - Jobs & People We're Hiring Right Now (59:05) - What is Surprising About Your Life Today?

Nobody told startup founders building credibility felt this messy. Evan Huck, CEO and co-founder at UserEvidence (ex-SurveyMonkey, TechValidate), pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to turn verified customer proof into actual demand. Forget the fairytales: from wrestling with cold starts in outbound sales to playing the long game with brand, Evan's war stories are pure fuel for GTM teams tired of overnight success myths. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Key chapters: (00:00) - Kicking Off with Evan Huck's Unfiltered Startup Journey (02:00) - From Jackson Hole to the Boardroom—Finding Balance at Altitude (03:25) - Scaling Amid the Chaos: Inside User Evidence's Wild Year (04:31) - Ground Up: Sales Chops from SDR to CEO (05:30) - When to Cash Big Checks: The Secret Life of Enterprise AEs (06:54) - Startup Beginnings During Lockdown: Why Evan Built in 2020 (07:54) - Betting It All on Brand: Lessons from the Sweat Equity of Positioning (09:31) - Eight Quarters of Crickets: What Brand Investments Really Look Like (10:38) - Beyond Quick Hits: Convincing Investors Brand Pays (11:13) - Narrow the Bullseye: How ICP Discipline Elevated Growth (12:30) - Cracking the Enterprise: Creative Tactics That Actually Work (13:51) - CEO Hustle: Late Night DMs That Drove Real Results (14:59) - Slack Communities: Where Startup Deals and Credibility Are Born (16:00) - Talent Magnetism: Building Teams That Actually Like Each Other (18:00) - Smart Hires, Right Sequence: Why Product Marketing Came First (19:14) - Customers as Growth Catalysts: The Power of Advocacy (20:39) - Leadership Style: Why “Chill, Humble” Beats High Drama (22:07) - Book Rec for Founders: Patagonia's Blueprint for Sustainable Culture (22:43) - Wrapping Up: Truths, Tactics, and Takeaways for GTM Leaders

What if AI made switching platforms effortless—and what would that mean for SaaS? This week on Topline, Sam Jacobs, Asad Zaman, and AJ Bruno unpack the latest headlines around Databricks, Snowflake, and Ramp to explore whether AI is truly shifting the foundations of enterprise software. They debate the reality behind “vibe coding,” question whether AI is actually boosting productivity (or just slowing us down), and discuss why so much of today's AGI conversation feels overhyped. Plus: the rise of nano agents, the illusion of developer efficiency, and what jobs might look like in 2030.   Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday.   Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket.   Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today.   Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader.   You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!   This episode is sponsored by UserEvidence. Want to know what actually moves the needle on trust? Download The Evidence Gap, a data-backed report on the customer proof that drives real results. Get it now at userevidence.com/evidence.   Key Chapters: (00:00) - Welcome and Introductions  (02:00) - The Retreat Recap and Business Decisions  (04:30) - The Vanishing Switching Costs in SaaS and Cloud  (07:00) - Skepticism Around Kubernetes and Cloud Portability  (09:00) - Middle Market and SMB: Where AI-Enabled Switching Gains Traction  (12:00) - The Paradox of Switching Costs and Enterprise Inertia  (15:00) - The Ramp Phenomenon: Outpacing Incumbents with AI-Driven Finance  (18:00) - Future of Finance Teams: Human + AI Agents Collaboration  (22:00) - The Challenge of AI Hallucinations and Model Reliability  (26:00) - The Reality Check: AI Tools Slowing Developers Down  (29:30) - The Evolving Role of QA: More Fun or More Tedious?  (34:30) - Vibe Coding: Promise, Reality, and Use Case Limitations  (38:30) - Centralized AI Agents vs. Specialized Nano Agents  (42:30) - Envisioning 2030 Businesses: AI's True Impact Unfolds  (45:30) - Defining General and Super Intelligence: Myth vs. Reality  (50:30) - The AI Singularity and Moral Frameworks: Can Machines Learn Ethics?  (54:30) - The Grains of Sand, Rubik's Cube Permutations, and AI Complexity  (57:30) - Lighthearted Hot Takes: WNBA Enjoyment & Infinity Skepticism  (59:00) - Shoutouts to Masterminds, Meals, and Podcasts  (01:02:30) - Parting Thoughts on AI Adoption and CTAs for Listeners

Public SaaS companies are growing faster—but private equity–backed SaaS companies are doing it more profitably. In this episode, AJ and Asad dig into new data from David Spitz comparing ARR growth and EBITDA margins across both groups, and debate what's really driving the difference: lower R&D spend, selection bias, or superior go-to-market execution. They also unpack the implications of long CAC paybacks, PE-style operational rigor, and whether most founders truly understand the capital partners they're signing up with. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! This episode is sponsored by UserEvidence. Want to know what actually moves the needle on trust? Download The Evidence Gap, a data-backed report on the customer proof that drives real results. Get it now at userevidence.com/evidence.  Key Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Topline Podcast and Episode Overview (02:42) - Exploring SaaS Growth Metrics and Margins (05:29) - The Role of R&D in SaaS Companies (08:32) - Understanding CAC and Payback Periods (11:22) - Cohort Analysis and Its Importance (14:34) - Navigating Board Dynamics and CEO Challenges (17:26) - The Importance of Understanding Investors (20:39) - Lessons from Previous Funding Rounds (23:34) - Market Dynamics and Founder Challenges (26:25) - The Impact of Market Conditions on Founders (29:39) - Acquisition Strategies and Long-Term Vision (32:34) - The Future of LinkedIn and Social Networks (35:42) - Conclusion and Key Takeaways (36:10) - The Evolution of LinkedIn and Market Dynamics (38:30) - Challenges in Product Market Fit and Email Cadences (40:45) - The Challenger Sale: Relevance and Misconceptions (46:40) - AI's Impact on Sales Methodologies and Market Dynamics (53:38) - Defining Intelligence in AI and Its Implications (01:02:00) - Best Practices for Using AI Effectively  

Windsurf grew fast, hit $82M in ARR, and was nearly acquired by OpenAI for $3 billion—until the deal collapsed. Google stepped in with a $2.4 billion offer, but only for 40 engineers.  In this episode, Sam, Asad, and AJ are joined by Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta, to break down what really happened and what this deal signals for the future of startup M&A. They explore how acqui-hires are evolving into talent-first extractions, what founders owe their teams in billion-dollar outcomes, and why equity might not mean what employees think it does. The crew also debates whether enterprise revenue is still reliable in AI startups, how employees can protect themselves in a shifting market, and whether we're already deep in another bubble. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! This episode is sponsored by UserEvidence. Want to know what actually moves the needle on trust? Download The Evidence Gap, a data-backed report on the customer proof that drives real results. Get it now at userevidence.com/evidence. Key chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Topline Podcast (00:47) - The Windsurf Acquisition and Its Implications (12:39) - The State of Startups and Market Dynamics (23:55) - Employee Impact and Corporate Responsibility (36:08) - The Future of Startup Employment and Negotiation (46:04) - Venture Capital Trends and Market Outlook  

This week on Topline, Sam Jacobs, Asad Zaman, and AJ Bruno dive into how AI-native companies are reorganizing go-to-market teams—with more investment in RevOps and post-sales, fewer traditional marketers, and agent-led outbound replacing SDRs. They break down new data from Iconiq, unpack Figma's S-1 through the lens of revenue quality, and explore what makes these orgs structurally different. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! This episode is sponsored by UserEvidence. Want to know what actually moves the needle on trust? Download The Evidence Gap, a data-backed report on the customer proof that drives real results. Get it now at userevidence.com/evidence. Key chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Topline Podcast (01:44) - Social Media Attacks and Community Dynamics (10:08) - AI Native Companies vs Non-Native Companies (12:58) - Insights from Iconic Data on Go-To-Market Strategies (37:16) - Figma's S1 and Revenue Retention Metrics (53:02) - The Talent War: Meta vs OpenAI  

Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman unpack what it means to lead through uncertainty in a time of rapid change. They reflect on Q2 wins, the emotional cost of ambition, and why founders are feeling more anxious than ever. From letting go of the SaaS playbook to adapting in real time, they explore how AI is reshaping leadership, team culture, and what “good” revenue looks like. Plus: the decline of CS, the rise of forward-deployed engineers, and how to build when nothing feels stable. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! This episode is sponsored by UserEvidence. Want to know what actually moves the needle on trust? Download The Evidence Gap, a data-backed report on the customer proof that drives real results. Get it now at userevidence.com/evidence. Key chapters: (00:00) - Welcome and Pulse Check (01:14) - Celebrating Q2 Successes (02:57) - Navigating Business Transitions (03:59) - Hitting Numbers and Investing for Growth (04:47) - The Stress of Numbers and Daily Anxiety (05:47) - Balancing Ambition with Gratitude (07:00) - The Power of Pattern Interrupts and Support (07:38) - Is Ambition Always Dissatisfaction? (09:00) - Finding Fulfillment in the Journey (13:12) - The Beauty of Risk and Uncertainty (15:00) - The Astrologer and Fate vs. Free Will (23:00) - Charting the Uncertain Second Half (34:00) - Culture Change and Organizational Agility (43:28) - The Rise of Forward Deployed Engineers & Services Revenue (54:00) - The Future of Customer Success and Bearishness on Job Markets  

AI-native startups are outpacing legacy SaaS companies across every metric—growth, product velocity, and market attention. In this episode, Sam, Asad, and AJ unpack why the GTM landscape is shifting fast. They dive into the resurgence of IPOs, the rise of rollups, and the cultural edge AI-first teams have when it comes to speed, experimentation, and brand building.   Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday.   Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket.   Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today.   Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader.   You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast!   Key chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (01:43) - Market Overview and Current Trends (05:52) - The Impact of AI on Business Dynamics (11:37) - Navigating the Challenges of SaaS vs AI Companies (17:25) - M&A Activity and IPO Market Insights (23:25) - Cultural Shifts in Tech Companies (29:23) - The Role of Social Media in Modern Marketing (35:33) - The Future of Go-to-Market Strategies (41:19) - Final Thoughts and Reflections

Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Key chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (01:15) - The Evolution of Handraise and Its Technology (08:46) - Challenges in Building Handraise (11:56) - Targeting Enterprise Accounts (15:17) - AI's Impact on Product Development (19:02) - Navigating Market Dynamics (22:43) - Building a Sustainable Business Model (26:00) - Inspirations and Recommendations

Apollo co-founder and CEO Tim Zheng reveals the pivot that rescued his company from a 2:1 CAC payback ratio. This episode breaks down how Apollo transformed from a struggling $10K ACV sales-led model to $150M+ ARR by reducing prices to $99/mo and going all in on PLG. Tim dives into why over 50% of Apollo's code is now written by AI, the challenge of finding executives who can scale across multiple growth stages, and how Apollo plans to break through the billion-dollar barrier that has proven elusive for many go-to-market tech companies. Thanks for tuning in! New episodes of Topline drop every Sunday and Thursday. Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Elevate your 2026 strategy and join us from September 23 to 25 in Washington, D.C. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Stay ahead with the latest industry developments and emerging go-to-market trends with Topline Newsletter by Asad Zaman. Subscribe today. Tune in to The Revenue Leadership Podcast every Wednesday, where host Kyle Norton talks with real revenue operators and dives deep into what it takes to succeed as a modern revenue leader. You're invited! Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders, share insights, and keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Key chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Topline Podcast and Guest Tim Zheng (04:06) - Market Dynamics and Sales Funnel Insights (09:47) - Transitioning from Sales-Led to Product-Led Growth (12:34) - Re-architecting Business Models for Efficiency (15:20) - Integrating Sales-Led and Product-Led Strategies (17:14) - Challenges in Scaling Go-to-Market Tech (20:08) - Data as a Competitive Advantage (23:48) - Organizational Design and Cultural Shifts (27:31) - Implementing AI in Product Development (35:01) - Leveraging AI for Go-to-Market Efficiency (40:16) - Understanding User Needs and Empathy in Product Development