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The GTMnow Podcast

The GTMnow Podcast

GTMnow 638 Episodes Jul 22, 2026

The GTMnow Podcast features interviews with well-known tech executives, VCs, and founders who share their experiences and insights on go-to-market strategies. Hosted by Sophie Buonassisi, each episode delves into the successes and failures of building fast-growing software companies. The podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of GTMfund, an early-stage VC fund investing in B2B SaaS companies. Listeners gain practical advice from industry leaders at companies like DocuSign, Salesforce, and LinkedIn.

Episodes

Inside Merge: The $75M Bet on Open Source AI (Powering OpenAI, Netflix & Uber) | Shensi Ding, CEO
Inside Merge: The $75M Bet on Open Source AI (Powering OpenAI, Netflix & Uber) | Shensi Ding, CEO Jul 22, 2026 2838 The Co-Founder & CEO of Merge joins GTMnow to break down how she built a company that now powers integrations for OpenAI, Perplexity, Netflix, Uber, Mistral, and enterprise logos like Mastercard, JP Morgan, and Amex, backed by $75M from Accel and NEA.Shensi gets tactical on the GTM decisions behind that growth: why she went enterprise-first into greenfield, why she's now layering a self-s
The Blueprint for a High-Performing Sales Team | Brian Le, Notion
The Blueprint for a High-Performing Sales Team | Brian Le, Notion Jul 9, 2026 2754 Are your sales compensation plans driving the right behaviors or causing your best reps to quit? In this episode of GTMnow, Brian Le (Global Sales Compensation Partner at Notion) breaks down how to build a scalable sales comp operating system.Brian shares his firsthand experience scaling Notion's sales comp from 80 to over 400 employees and explains why trust is the ultimate currency in reven
VC: How a 2-Person Fund Runs Like a Startup (Memos, KPIs, R&D) | Vanessa Larco, Premise (ex-NEA)
VC: How a 2-Person Fund Runs Like a Startup (Memos, KPIs, R&D) | Vanessa Larco, Premise (ex-NEA) Jul 8, 2026 2930 "Investing in companies that OpenAI won't kill." That's Vanessa Larco's thesis, and in this VC bonus episode of GTMnow she breaks down exactly how she decides what survives. Vanessa, founder and GP at Premise (formerly a longtime partner at NEA, where she backed Robinhood from seed to IPO), joins Max to get into the nitty gritty of how AI is rewriting venture, distribution
Why a $1.2B exit felt like his biggest failure, and the customer-obsession thesis behind Agency
Why a $1.2B exit felt like his biggest failure, and the customer-obsession thesis behind Agency Jul 2, 2026 3171 A $1.2 billion exit is the dream. Elias Torres calls it his biggest failure. The Drift co-founder joins Sophie Buonassisi on GTMnow to unpack why the headline number felt hollow, what he learned in the quiet stretch afterward, and why he jumped straight back in to build Agency, an AI company that runs your entire customer organization.Elias gets honest about identity after the exit, the difference
From DeepMind to 200 Customers in 20 Countries: Building the Execution Layer for Sales | Adam Liska, CEO of Airspeed
From DeepMind to 200 Customers in 20 Countries: Building the Execution Layer for Sales | Adam Liska, CEO of Airspeed Jun 25, 2026 1942 The single most expensive sentence in sales is "I'll follow up on that." Adam Liska joins Sophie Buonassisi on GTMnow to break down the "execution gap," the space between knowing what to do in a deal and actually doing it, and why that gap is where most pipeline quietly dies.Adam left DeepMind's Gemini team in 2022, pre-ChatGPT, to build a native revenue execution pla
VC: How Benchmark Picks AI Winners - Max 10 Bets a Year, 5 Partners | Chetan Puttagunta (GP)
VC: How Benchmark Picks AI Winners - Max 10 Bets a Year, 5 Partners | Chetan Puttagunta (GP) Jun 24, 2026 3564 Benchmark's Chetan breaks down why the path from $0 to $100M has collapsed from five years to under two, and the one thing that is actually getting harder in the AI era: reaching your first million in revenue. In this VC bonus edition of the GTM Now Podcast, he sits down with Sophie Buonassisi to unpack how AI native companies are compressing 180 day sales cycles into 30 days, why direct sale
Ads in ChatGPT Are Coming. What B2B Marketers Should Do Right Now | Keith Delany, CEO Primer
Ads in ChatGPT Are Coming. What B2B Marketers Should Do Right Now | Keith Delany, CEO Primer Jun 17, 2026 2743 LinkedIn CPMs just hit $800. AI is flooding every channel with content. Outbound is dying. So where should B2B marketers actually spend their ad budget right now?Keith Putnam-Delaney, co-founder & CEO of Primer, joins Sophie to break down the complete state of B2B paid advertising, what's broken, what's working, and where the real opportunities are hiding in 2025.What you'll lea
He's Seen 300+ Sales Comp Plans. 90% Make the Same Mistake | Siva Rajamani (Everstage CEO)
He's Seen 300+ Sales Comp Plans. 90% Make the Same Mistake | Siva Rajamani (Everstage CEO) Jun 15, 2026 3442 Most sales comp plans are quietly broken, and the people running them have no idea. Siva Rajamani, CEO of Everstage, has visibility into 300+ enterprise comp plans, and he says 90% of companies make the same mistakes. In this episode he breaks down what's going wrong, how to spot it, and what a comp plan that actually drives revenue looks like.Siva explains why sales compensation is not a bac
"We Don't Fund Good Companies" : A $1.5B VC Explains Why | Ben Lerer, Lerer Hippeau
"We Don't Fund Good Companies" : A $1.5B VC Explains Why | Ben Lerer, Lerer Hippeau Jun 9, 2026 3346 Ben Lerer, Managing Partner and Founder of Lerer Hippeau, has built one of New York's most influential early-stage venture firms across nine funds and nearly $1.5B in AUM. In this VC edition of the GTMnow podcast, Ben sits down with Max and Paul to unpack how he actually picks founders, why he wants to be the "worst investor" at his own fund, and the contrarian belief that backing g
How Esper Is Building the Operating System for Government Policy | Maleka Momand
How Esper Is Building the Operating System for Government Policy | Maleka Momand Jun 4, 2026 1869 Maleka Momand, co-founder and CEO of Esper, joins Sophie Buonassisi on GTMnow to break down what it actually takes to build and sell software to government. Esper is the operating system for government policy, serving as the system of record for the regulation and internal policy that shapes daily life, from NYPD procedures to nurse practitioner licensing in rural Tennessee.Maleka shares hard-won
How He Built a $250M Company With Zero Employees | Ben Cera, Polsia
How He Built a $250M Company With Zero Employees | Ben Cera, Polsia May 29, 2026 3044 One Person, $10M+ ARR, $30M Raised: How Ben Cera Built Polsia (AI Operating System) SoloBen Cera, founder of Polsia, just raised $30M at a $250M valuation while running the entire company alone. His AI agent handles his emails, manages customer support, even led his fundraising calls. This is what a solo founder with an AI operating system looks like at scale.Polsia is an AI operating system that
The $575B AI Bet (Biggest Since the World Wars) and the New Two-Buyer Reality in Software | Tomasz Tunguz, Theory Ventures
The $575B AI Bet (Biggest Since the World Wars) and the New Two-Buyer Reality in Software | Tomasz Tunguz, Theory Ventures May 26, 2026 2098 AI Infrastructure Spending is Insane: Hyperscalers Betting $575B on the Data Center Race | Tomasz TunguzThis year's data center infrastructure spending will be the 5th largest infrastructure project in history (bigger than everything except railroads and the two world wars). Tomasz Tunguz breaks down what nobody appreciates about the scale of the AI boom.Tomasz Tunguz, General Partner at Theo

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