The GTMnow Podcast

NEW: @Paul Fipps (President of Global Customer Operations at @ServiceNow) joins GTMnow to break down how ServiceNow built the customer engine behind $10B+ in revenue and 20%+ growth for five consecutive years.

From CIO at Under Armour overseeing a 300 million-member connected fitness ecosystem, to now leading global sales, customer success, field marketing, and partners at one of the most disciplined GTM organizations in enterprise software, Paul has seen what it takes to scale from both sides of the table.

In this conversation, you'll learn:
- Why complacency is a bigger threat than competition at scale
- How to detect churn long before it shows up in a report
- What a CIO cancelling 900 AI pilots tells you about where enterprise AI is actually headed
- How ServiceNow unified sales, customer success, field marketing, and partners into one GTM motion so customers never feel the org chart
- Why ServiceNow monitors customer health daily — and what signals their teams actually track
- How community became a core GTM advantage, not just a marketing channel
- How ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower governs agents across the enterprise stack
- Inside “Now on Now”: how ServiceNow generated $335M in annualized AI productivity gains using its own platform
- How integrating Claude into the GTM workflow cut account planning from days to minutes
- What DTC product thinking from Under Armour unlocked in enterprise GTM
- How ServiceNow shifted from 6-month product releases to monthly innovation cycles
- Paul’s advice for building a world-class GTM organization: put the best people in the right seats

Guest links:
Guest - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulfipps/
Guest company - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/servicenow/
Guest company website: https://www.servicenow.com/
Host links:
Sophie Buonassisi - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/
Sophie Buonassisi - X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Sponsors:
HockeyStack - the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale. Learn more at https://www.hockeystack.com/
Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/
Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:
00:00 – How ServiceNow built one of the most disciplined GTM engines in enterprise software01:22 – 80B workflows, $10B+ revenue: what gets harder and easier at scale02:05 – Why complacency is the real threat at scale05:49 – Why ServiceNow unified sales, customer success, field marketing, and partners under one motion06:49 – The post-sale handoff problem: signing on Friday, new team showing up Monday08:22 – How to spot churn before it shows up in a report09:55 – How often ServiceNow teams check customer health12:25 – If you took away the dashboards, how would you know a customer is truly winning?15:35 – Why Paul blocks calendar time every week for direct customer conversations (and responds within 24 hours)17:53 – From Under Armour to ServiceNow: what DTC product thinking unlocks in enterprise B2B21:06 – The personalization gap in B2B enterprise software and how ServiceNow is closing it25:18 – The CIO with 900 AI pilots who cancelled every single one26:03 – How embedding agentic AI inside existing workflows drives measurable ROI32:39 – "Now on Now": $335M in productivity gains running on their own platform34:18 – Integrating Claude into the GTM motion for all 10,000 go-to-market team members36:44 – The AI control tower: governing every agent across the entire enterprise39:15 – Paul's one piece of advice for every GTM leader: get the best people in the right seats40:21 – The book that shaped Paul's career: Execution by Bossidy & Charan
For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]
GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

Brett Queener (Partner at Bonfire Ventures) joins GTMnow to share what three decades across Siebel, early Salesforce, co-founding, and seed-stage investing has taught him about what actually wins now that software is cheaper and faster than he ever imagined.

Brett was one of the earliest GTM hires at Salesforce when it had seven employees. He helped build the go-to-market playbook that defined a generation of SaaS: enterprise segmentation, sales motion design, product marketing, the whole works. He then co-founded SmartRecruiters, angel invested in companies like Outreach and Pando, and eventually joined Bonfire Ventures as a Partner to do early-stage investing the way he thinks it should be done: hands-on, operator-led, and built around founders who are ruthless about execution.

Guest links:
Brett Queener - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettqueener/Bonfire Ventures - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bonfire-ventures/Guest company website: https://www.bonfirevc.com/Host links:Max - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler/Max - X: https://x.com/HackItMaxPaul - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving/Paul - X: https://x.com/PaulGTMNewsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com
Brought to you by: AngelList
From starting as a small, operator-led rolling fund, to evolving to an institutional platform, AngelList has been a core partner in every phase of GTMfund’s growth. Their software-first fund admin infrastructure allowed us to scale without sacrificing agility — from onboarding hundreds of LPs seamlessly to handling compliance, capital calls, and reporting as our fund size evolved.

As we expanded from Fund I to Fund II, AngelList took care of the back-office operations, allowing us to stay focused on what matters most: investing in world-class founders and building the strongest go-to-market network in venture.
They’ve scaled with us across funds and into the future.
If your fund is growing in size or complexity, check them out at https://angellist.com/gtmfund.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/
Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:
00:00 – Brett's career: Siebel, Salesforce employee #7, co-founder, angel investor, seed-stage VC06:58 – The big shift: from passive CRUD apps to agentic software that does the work for you08:07 – "Failing upwards" and what the fastest-growing companies taught Brett about investing in people10:58 – Why Brett moved into VC: 25 years of operators whose collective worth hit $25B16:50 – What Brett looks for in founders now and how it's changed over 6-7 years18:05 – Why anybody can build anything: Brett builds a fully functional travel app in 15 minutes19:20 – The last remaining moat in software26:20 – The real threat to Salesforce and HubSpot and why their ecosystem might be the boat anchor34:20 – How the entire GTM motion changes when the product does the job instead of just enabling it38:30 – Why communicating the right problem to the right ICP hasn't changed in 30 years39:20 – Deploy first, close later40:20 – Why face-to-face matters more now, not less41:00 – Why events are driving 75%+ of pipeline at Brett's early-stage portfolio companies42:10 – Pricing and packaging: the most important GTM lever nobody talks about enough46:35 – The death of the smooth-talking GTM leader47:25 – What happens to VC when software is no longer scarce to build52:00 – Why vertical software wins in the AI era: context, workflow, and the non-tech buyer55:20 – The rep who drove 65 miles to drop off donuts and closed an $80K deal
For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]
GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

Dan Wright (Co-founder & CEO of Armada) joins GTMnow to unpack what it actually takes to bring AI infrastructure to the places the cloud was never built to reach.

The cloud covers about 30% of the world. The other 70% (think: oil rigs, the Arctic tundra, military ships, remote mines) is where some of the most critical decisions happen, making latency a life-or-death and billions of dollars difference. Armada is building the infrastructure for that part of the world: modular, ruggedized AI data centers that go to the data, instead of the other way around.

From the first offshore edge computing deployment with the US Navy, to cutting avalanche response times in Alaska from over a day to real time, to sovereign AI installations in Saudi Arabia with Aramco and Microsoft, Armada is redefining what operating at the edge even means.

In this episode, we cover:
- Why cloud infrastructure was built for a pre-AI world and what that gap costs
- How Starlink turned every remote location into a potential AI cluster
- What "distributed intelligence" means and why it's the founding principle behind Armada
- The global race for AI sovereignty and why modular compute is the linchpin
- How Armada goes to market when a product demo involves shipping a 40-foot container to a desert (yes, really)
- Why customer champions are better than any sales rep
- The Microsoft partnership and how Armada extends Azure to places Azure could never go on its own
- Category creation lessons from building a company before the market had a name for the industry
- What's next: SpaceX, sovereign AI, and why Dan thinks humans are on the moon in two years (yes, REALLY)

Guest links:
Dan Wright - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wrightdh/, h
Dan Wright - X: https://x.com/danwrightSF
Armada - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/armadaai/
Armada - Website: https://www.armada.ai/

Host links:
Sophie Buonassisi - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/
Sophie Buonassisi - X: https://x.com/sophiebuona
Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Sponsors:
HockeyStack - the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale. Learn more at https://www.hockeystack.com/
Nooks - the AI workspace for outbound teams, where AI agents handle prospecting, research, and sequencing so reps can focus on conversations. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/
Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:
00:00 – Why the cloud only reaches 30% of the world and what Armada actually builds
03:11 – From Saudi Arabia to the Arctic: recent deployments that redefine the edge
04:12 – AI's physics problem: why distance from data breaks everything
05:31 – How Starlink turned every remote location into a potential AI cluster
07:14 – What distributed intelligence means and why it's Armada's founding principle
08:14 – The global AI race: sovereign compute as a national security strategy
09:00 – The Genesis Mission, the White House, and Davos: why sovereign AI is mainstream
12:49 – GTM for a hardware company when the demo involves shipping a 40-foot container
15:18 – Why Armada's customers do the selling for them (and do a better job than some reps)
17:35 – The Microsoft partnership and extending Azure to the places it can't reach on its own
18:51 – Category creation: the lesson Dan learned about specificity and business value
21:02 – What's next for Armada, SpaceX, and why Dan thinks we're two years from the moon
25:34 – The founder advice Dan wishes more people took seriously

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

NEW: @Sheila Vashee (CMO of @Figma) joins GTMnow to share how she thinks about brand building across every stage. From selling brownies at age eight, to second marketing hire at Dropbox scaling to $1B+ in annualized revenue, to now leading marketing at one of the most beloved software brands in the world, Sheila has seen it all.

In this conversation, you’ll learn what brand actually means (hint: it's not your logo), how PLG companies make the leap to enterprise, why being obsessively close to your customers is a compounding advantage, and how AI is reshaping the marketing playbook without replacing the human craft that sets great brands apart.

Guest links:- Guest - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilavashee/
- Guest company - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/figma/
- Guest company website: https://www.figma.com/

Host links:
- Sophie Buonassisi - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/
- Sophie Buonassisi - X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
- Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Sponsors:
- HockeyStack - the AI platform that unifies GTM data to help teams convert, expand, and scale. Learn more at https://www.hockeystack.com/
- Granola - the AI notepad that turns meetings into action by capturing context, decisions, and next steps automatically. Head to https://www.granola.ai/gtmfund  and get three months free with the code GTMFUND.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:
00:00 – The brownie stand: why brand building started at age eight
03:55 – How Sheila defines brand: it's what people say when you're not in the room
05:08 – Joining Dropbox as the second marketing hire
06:07 – Space Race: the campaign that defined Dropbox's early strategy
06:56 – What consumer marketing taught her about driving revenue
08:29 – Measuring brand ROI through match market testing
09:15 – How Figma thinks about brand building at a macro level
11:21 – The PLG-to-enterprise equation: what Figma did early that Dropbox waited too long on
15:02 – Why building the enterprise team is both operational and optical
17:12 – How Figma ingests customer feedback at scale
18:26 – AI at Figma: enabling human creativity, not replacing it
21:13 – What the venture side taught her about staying sharp as an operator
22:33 – Why the shift from SEO to GEO is inevitable and what to do about it
23:24 – Why Reddit is back and social is a core growth lever
24:51 – The mentors that changed her trajectory
28:59 – One piece of advice: make good $h!t

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

Bill Binch (Operating Partner at Battery Ventures) joins GTMnow to share the operational frameworks he's built across 116 quarters on quota, and what actually changes when you move from driving revenue to advising an entire portfolio.

Before Battery, Bill was employee #16 at Marketo, where he led sales from zero revenue through IPO and a Vista Equity acquisition. He then served as CRO at Pendo, helping scale ARR to nearly $100M in only three years. His career spans some of the most defining sales organizations in enterprise software, from Oracle to PeopleSoft.

- Bill Binch - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-binch-302a4a2/,
- Battery Ventures - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/battery-ventures/
- Battery Ventures website: https://www.battery.com/

Host links:
- Max - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler/
- Max - X: https://x.com/HackItMax
- Paul - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving/
- Paul - X: https://x.com/PaulGTM
- Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Brought to you by: AngelList
From starting as a small, operator-led rolling fund, to evolving to an institutional platform, AngelList has been a core partner in every phase of GTMfund’s growth. Their software-first fund admin infrastructure allowed us to scale without sacrificing agility — from onboarding hundreds of LPs seamlessly to handling compliance, capital calls, and reporting as our fund size evolved.

As we expanded from Fund I to Fund II, AngelList took care of the back-office operations, allowing us to stay focused on what matters most: investing in world-class founders and building the strongest go-to-market network in venture.

They’ve scaled with us across funds and into the future.
If your fund is growing in size or complexity, check them out at https://angellist.com/gtmfund.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/

Highlights:
00:00 – Bill's career path: Oracle, Marketo employee #16, Pendo CRO, and choosing Arizona over tech hubs
15:01 – Battery's approach: why there's no one-size-fits-all playbook
19:56 – Outreach's accidental sales experiment: remote vs. in-person results
21:23 – What nobody tells you about the transition from CRO to operating partner
23:01 – Gold watch and slippers? Why operating partner is not a retirement plan
27:15 – Three audiences: prospective investments, portfolio companies, and Battery internal
31:42 – Investing in GTM tech: why Battery went 7 years between bets
34:44 – The Phil Fernandez warning: "your hand is on the wheel, now you're a passenger"
36:44 – Why every forecast should start with "my quota is" not "my forecast is"
38:33 – The metric most companies miss: plan vs. planned quota vs. actual quota deployed
40:05 – The mojo metric: 6 daily pipeline inputs that tell you everything
43:16 – Helping technical founders sell: the one-eyed man in the land of the blind
48:04 – Advice for operators who want to move into an operating partner role
51:03 – The sales and marketing dance: what real GTM alignment sounds like in a board room

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/