Zeb Evans

Why San Francisco Still Holds the Startup Magic San Francisco’s fog isn’t just weather—it’s the veil over endless possibilities. Despite rising costs and remote work trends, the city’s ecosystem remains uniquely fertile for startups. It’s the palpable energy in coworking spaces, spontaneous coffee chats, and street-level networking that fosters serendipitous breakthroughs. Innovation thrives where diversity and disruption collide. The Bay Area’s rich blend of cultures, ideas, and risk-taking mentality fuels creativity in ways no algorithm can replicate. For every tech unicorn born here, countless smaller ventures quietly reshape industries and lives. Let’s not forget: that magic is built by the community—investors, mentors, engineers, and dreamers who believe in building the future together. #SanFranciscoStartups #InnovationCulture #TechEcosystem #StartupLife #EntrepreneurCommunity #SiliconValleyMagic #DiversityInTech #Collaboration

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Clay didn’t build a $100M SaaS business overnight. They followed a new GTM playbook most SaaS teams can replicate. Here’s what happened 👇 Clay spent ~5 years experimenting with product + positioning. Growth was modest. Messaging was broad. Adoption was uneven. Then came the pivot - the moat moment. Around 2022, Clay: • Narrowed its ICP to GTM teams • Rebuilt messaging around real workflows • Defined a new role: the GTM Engineer That identity change mattered more than any feature. From there, growth exploded — reportedly going from ~$1M ARR to ~$100M ARR in ~2 years. What Clay did differently (and what SaaS teams should learn): 1️⃣ Lead with identity, not features Clay didn’t sell “automation.” They sold a career advantage for GTM Engineers. 2️⃣ Build for outputs people want to share Workflows, dashboards, prospecting systems → users post them publicly. The product markets itself. 3️⃣ Use AI as real leverage Not “AI-powered” fluff. AI that removes hours of manual GTM work: research, enrichment, personalization. 4️⃣ Community > campaigns Creators, operators, and users became the distribution engine. Education beat ads. 5️⃣ PLG first, sales second Clay lands with one operator → expands across teams → scales enterprise. Bottom line: Clay won because they narrowed down a niche/ICP and aligned positioning + product + community — not because they outspent competitors. The pivot finds product–market fit. The moat forms when focus, workflows, and distribution compound. #GoToMarket #GTMStrategy #RevenueGrowth #ProductLedGrowth #RevOps #B2BSaaS

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➡️ Great GTM performance starts with alignment and ends with accountability. When we implement GTM controlling, it’s not just about dashboards and KPIs. It’s about structuring expectations across every role, every motion, and every segment. And then building systems that flag when something breaks out of that structure. Here’s how we do it: 1️⃣ We define expected behavior for each motion (AE, BDR, CS, etc.) 2️⃣ We build dashboards that track conversion rates, deal movement, time in stage, and last activity... 3️⃣ We set up escalation workflows, from IC to team lead to GTM leadership 4️⃣ We ensure RevOps owns the process, and CROs use the data to steer As a result: GTM teams operate with clarity, performance deviations are immediately visible, Sales excellence becomes a process. Performance management is about enabling trustworthy data, reliable forecasting, and real accountability across the org. What's your take on this? #GTM #PerformanceManagement #RevOps #SalesExcellence #RevenueGrowth #SaaS

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The real edge isn’t using new tools, it’s integrating them faster than anyone else. In this episode, Eric Jorgenson, CEO of Scribe Media, explains how top builders aren’t just “trying out” new tech; they’re rebuilding their workflows around it. Software engineers adopted Copilot and never looked back. Operators like John Divine weren’t just early adopters, they reorganized their teams around language models before most people even logged in. The biggest shift? Founders now see scale as the default, not the dream, because they’re working with tools that multiply their output. → How far have you restructured your organization to take advantage of what’s already here? #TechFluency #OperationalLeverage #WorkflowDesign #TheAIReport 

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You can buy clicks. You can’t buy trust. Most agencies chase new leads while at JellyLogic, 90% of our business comes from referrals. Why? Because we treat client success as the only real marketing channel. 📊 Our CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) consistently sits at 95%+. Not because everything is perfect, but because of how we handle the imperfect. - We’re transparent when things go wrong. - We educate clients, so decisions are data-driven, not blind trust. - We stay post-delivery — not just to support, but to ensure impact. And this creates a compounding loop: 👉 Delighted clients → Referrals → More delighted clients → Stronger brand equity. Here’s the truth most founders miss: Trust compounds faster than capital. You can always run ads and buy attention. But you can’t buy a client’s recommendation. That’s why we’ve made referrals our north star. Because when your customers become your sales team, you’ve built something bigger than growth — you’ve built trust at scale. #startupstories #CSAT #success

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The Builder, the Fixer, and the Scaler.. Before you start a search for your next Sales Leader, you need to answer one question honestly: Are you hiring a Builder, a Fixer, or a Scaler? And confusing them is one of the most expensive mistakes I see funds make repeatedly. Here's how to diagnose which one your portco actually needs: 1. The Builder The Builder's job is to find the pattern in early wins and turn it into a process. What they look like on the ground: They've done it before at a company that had nothing. They have opinions on how to build a territory, a comp plan, a playbook before anyone hands them one. 2. The Fixer The Fixer's job isn't to build something new. It's to figure out what's actually wrong and operate in the mess long enough to clean it up. What they look like in the room: They've inherited a org mid-collapse and stabilized it and comfortable not having answers on day one. They ask harder questions than most people are willing to answer. Now if you hire a Builder here, they might ignore what exists, start over, create new chaos inside old chaos. six months of motion with no real progress and the board starts asking questions. 3. The Scaler The Scaler's job is to operationalize and multiply. The playbook is written and their job is execution, coverage, and speed. What they look like in the room: They've taken a working system from a small team to a large one without breaking what made it work. they talk about ramp time, enablement, and forecast hygiene. If you hire the Scaler before the system is actually clean. they try to pour process onto a foundation that isn't solid. Things break faster than before and now you have a Scaler problem on top of the original problem. So, Before you touch a single resume: - Does a repeatable motion exist? - If yes, is it working or just creating noise? - How many leaders churned and what actually happened? - What's broken: pipeline, conversion, or both? The answers tell you the archetype. Then go find someone whose career has scar tissue that matches that exact environment.

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