Here's what actually happened.
Two founding seats told the way they'd be told in a discovery call — situation, complication, outcome — then the screenshots that back them, the Series A traction work, and the live walkthroughs. Every number is self-sourced and tied to a named account.
Sept 2024 — June 2025Apollo Labs (Apollo.io)
Founding Account Executive · Series D · $250M+ raised · 800+ employees · San Francisco
A PLG unicorn plateaued at $135M ARR asked whether outbound could be a real channel. Ten months later it was a $1M+ ARR business unit.
A $135M ARR unicorn with zero outbound muscle.
Apollo.io had scaled on a product-led motion and hit a ceiling. Eric Quanstrom — former CMO at CIENCE, brought on as VP of Apollo Labs — spun up Apollo Labs as an internal, AI-powered outbound division. I came in as the founding AE — blank page, full-cycle quota from day one.
- Plateaued at $135M ARR with PLG as the only proven channel
- A prior outbound attempt ("Project Apollo Automator") had already failed
- New division, no customers, no playbook, no territory
Inbound DNA can't be copy-pasted into outbound.
Everything that made Apollo good at PLG worked against a cold-start outbound motion. There was no ICP hypothesis to inherit, no qualification bar, no message that had ever landed cold — and the division had to dogfood Apollo.io's own platform while selling it.
- GTM org was inbound/PLG-heavy — outbound was unproven internally
- Past attempts lacked structure, strategy, and execution discipline
- Required cross-functional build with product + engineering
- Had to dogfood the platform we were selling, in public
0 → $1M+ ARR in under 10 months.
I architected and ran the full-cycle play: ICP, signal-based targeting, an autonomous outbound framework in Miro chaining meeting → no-show → hiring signal → web intent, and AI research embedded pre-call. Outbound became repeatable — and Apollo Labs is now the internal blueprint for autonomous GTM.
- $80K average ACV on 12-month commitments
- 32 meetings → 20 opps → 4 closed-won (20% close rate)
- Conversion lifted 10% → 22% with AI research + pre-call insight
- Scaled the team 2 → 10 with two direct reports
- Contributed to Apollo.io crossing the $150M ARR milestone
Jan 2024 — Aug 2024Swif.ai
Founding Account Executive (1099) · YC-backed · Seed · Pegasus Accelerator · Remote
A YC seed company with a founder-led motion and no repeatable sales system. I was the first and only quota carrier — and moved the company upmarket.
Founder-led sales, $35K ARR, and no system underneath it.
Swif.ai had a product and early believers but nothing repeatable. Deals closed because the founder was in the room. I joined as the first quota-carrying seller to turn that into a motion someone else could run.
- $35K ARR, all founder-sourced
- No ICP definition, no qualification framework, no outbound engine
- Sole seller — every stage of the funnel was mine
The deals we could win were too small to matter.
The existing motion pulled SMB buyers with short cycles and thin contracts — volume that could never compound into a Series A story. Fixing growth meant changing who we sold to, not just how many we emailed.
- SMB ACVs too low to build a durable revenue base
- No signal-based targeting — outbound was spray-and-pray
- Seed-stage constraints: no SDR support, no marketing air cover
- Mid-Market buyers demanded security and compliance answers we hadn't packaged
200% ARR growth and a company that now sells upmarket.
I rebuilt the motion from the ICP up: signal-based outbound, a real qualification bar, and Mid-Market packaging. ARR tripled, ACV more than tripled, and the pipeline carried recognizable logos — Patreon, TrustRadius, Salt Labs (acquired by Chime), Dots (YC).
- $35K → $110K ARR — 200% growth as sole seller
- $250K+ self-sourced outbound pipeline
- ACV up 250%+ by moving the ICP to Mid-Market
- 20–30% win rate sustained through the shift
- Left behind a repeatable motion, not a personality-dependent one
Proof of execution
Click any receipt to enlarge
3x Series A Traction Partner
$57M+ raised.
Three portfolio companies whose Series A raises followed the engagement window. Full career context lives on the living resume.
Rillet ERP
SMB / Mid-Market · via Apollo Labs
Full-cycle sales and GTM motion inside Apollo Labs. Built scalable AI-driven outbound frameworks that generated high-velocity, high-conviction pipeline into the finance ops persona.
Worked directly with
- —Founding Business Development Manager
- —Founding AE
$25M
Series A Raise
Led By
Sequoia Capital
May 28, 2025
Goodpath
Enterprise · via Apollo Labs
Full-cycle sales into HR benefits leaders on enterprise deals. Combined Apollo's AI research tooling with disciplined MEDDPICC qualification to keep top-of-funnel activity consistent and closable.
Worked directly with
- —Director of Growth & Marketing
- —Growth Marketing Analytics Manager
- —RevOps
$18M
Series A Raise
Led By
MassMutual Ventures
September 11, 2025
Overstory
Enterprise · via CIENCE
Owned top-of-funnel strategy and mid-market account management for a climate-tech Series A candidate. Renewed twice across a six-month engagement — the client re-signed based on enterprise pipeline performance, not projections.
Worked directly with
- —VP of Global Sales
- —Founding BDR
- —Marketing Manager
$14M
Series A Raise
Led By
B Capital
October 19, 2023
Same playbook. Different logos. Repeatable.
Contribution reflects pipeline and full-cycle revenue motion delivered during the engagement window; Series A outcomes reflect broader company execution.
Behind the build — live walkthroughs
The visual GTM command center that won PSL's SaaS pitch competition (1 of 17)
Judged by T.A. McCann, Managing Director of Pioneer Square Labs (Seattle's answer to Y Combinator). Intel-360 maps the entire buying committee, surfaces hidden stakeholder relationships, and identifies champions, blockers, and economic buyers — so AEs walk into every discovery call already knowing the room. What used to take 3 hours of manual research now takes 3 minutes.
Inside Apollo Labs: the AI outbound engine that took us $0 → $1M ARR
A behind-the-curtain walkthrough originally shared with SDR Leaders of USA. How I combined account scoring, Apollo's PowerUp AI research, and prompt-engineered LLM outputs to generate personalized subject lines, observations, problem statements, and CTAs — at scale, without SDR headcount.
How I scaled a pre-PMF YC startup 200% as the first commercial hire
Full rundown of the outbound engine, 5-stage qualification framework, and up-market pivot from $5K SMB to $15–25K Mid-Market — the motion that took SWIIF from $35K to $110K ARR and secured Patreon, TrustRadius, Dots, Salt Labs, and Mysa.
More walkthroughs dropping soon
Seen the proof. Want to talk?
Happy to walk through any deal above, share the playbook, or trade notes on your GTM motion.