The GTM Engineering Newsletter

The current era of GTM already feels like it’s getting old. The new one is going to be even more exciting. Every component of GTM will be engineered to be a learning loop that self optimizes with agents. Landing page example in 🧵

Claude Code editing complex UIs is wild. Amazing paradigm shift for longtime terminal users like me (example with Clay. Also loving this with Figma)

@retttx Monetize Later

"what's the worst software you've ever used" - any software/vendor procurement portal by a mile

"Want to be great at sales in the Age of AI? It's not enough to just be a 'people person' anymore. You have to be a true expert in the agent and the product. Customers need sales execs to be mini-FDEs. Or they don't provide any value anymore." with @lennysan

Jamie Dimon and JPM have been way ahead for quite some time "There will be a wide variety of AI models — open and closed, large and small — and no single tool will dominate." they know about costs and control

@retttx So much fomo.

I stuck around for a while after my talk and wow - what these devs are doing with LLMs is diabolical. Looping the agent for hours, flushing the context each time, computer use where the agent generates playwright code for every webpage, training on ripgrep.. LLMs are built for software engineers the rest of us are truly bystanders.

There are two kinds of FDEs - forward deployed engineers And Forward Deployed Extractors Extracting context, knowledge and know how Just make sure you distinguish between the two!

Building a $1M/yr AI GTM Agency is simpler than you think. I've led 300+ discovery calls at Clay. These are the 10 use cases every high-growth tech company will pay for right now: 1. CRM enrichment 2. TAM sourcing 3. Automated inbound 4. AI outbound 5. Account research & scoring 6. Signals & intent driven workflows 7. Account Based Marketing 8. GTM co-pilots 9. Just in time rep enablement 10. Data analysis (like reverse engineering signals on closed won opps) Don’t overcomplicate it. You don’t need to try to rebuild Clay with Claude. Or, build a workflow that connects 20 different tools like those viral infographics. Ultimately, every company is aiming to increase pipeline, revenue or rep productivity. Clay is the infrastructure to build those workflows. They’re all in high demand. And the approach for each is relatively the same. It requires customization of prompts, logic, ICP, and combination of data providers. This means you could have a set of fairly repeatable menu items a customer can choose from. I’ve seen 3x Claygencies acquried this year already. Dozens more with customers paying $12-20k/month retainers. A lot of companies still need help. Sell the basics first.

@retttx @aiDotEngineer @swyx He’s back!!! Let’s go

Stoked for my GTME talk at @aiDotEngineer tm. One shotting the remaining bits on the plane rn. Super appreciate @swyx for the opp!!

@axtalks What’s the breakout of mtgs by phone vs email that you’re seeing?

our cold callers make 200 dials each per day that's what real volume looks like if you don't have enough leads to keep one caller busy you don't need a team yet you need more outreach

@kseniam0s Engineering growth systems

What GTM stage are you at?

@NickAbraham12 There’s so many tangential automation use cases you can swap in: - Rep workflows - Automating inbound - CRM enrichment - Building agents - Programmatic landing pages - TAM sourcing - Account scoring - Etc.

How you know summer is here as a lead gen agency: - More clients requesting to pause - Reply rate goes down - One-off client requests down Enjoy, if you can.

@realbrucemartin I’ve just been defaulting to GoDaddy. Are there significant benefits depending on where you choose? Never really thought about it

GTM Engineers: which is the best place to buy a domain? - GoDaddy - Hostinger - Cloudflare - Namecheap - Porkbun - Spaceship

@businessbarista We’re doing this at Clay. 8 YouTube shows launching and turning the newsletter into one too.

Hot take: companies should turn their employees into influencers. It's a win-win: - Makes employees more marketable in their careers - Builds trusted distribution for your company, which drives sales, hiring, and partnerships How to do it well: - Incentivize employees to post via social currency & financial upside - Remove friction to create (while having a full-time job) via agentic workflows or dedicated production/editing hires How we're doing it at @tenex_labs: 1) I built a directory of skills, called the Content Machine, that helps employees go from blank page to published non-slop content in 15 minutes. Will be breaking it down with @clairevo tmrw. 2) We launched the Tenex Creator Cup today. Feel free to copy the format: What it is: A monthlong challenge to get us all posting. You don’t need an audience to win. You just need to show up. How to play: Post on social (LinkedIn or X). Every time you post, drop the link in #replyguys. That’s it. That link is how you get scored, how teammates find your post to support it, and how you get entered for prizes. How points work: - Post of the day: 10 pts (one counts per day, so no spamming) - Genuinely engaging with a teammate’s post (real comment or repost, not "cool" or "great post"): 3 pts, up to 5/day - “Editor’s Pick”: best post we spotlight each week: +50 pts Reach and follower count don’t earn points. Showing up and supporting each other does. Weekly games: a new theme and a new winner every week Week 1 · Full House—the whole team’s going for one goal together. The game: if at least 70% of us post on social at least once this week, we unlock the week 1 prize—and everyone who posted gets entered into a draw to win it. Week 2 · Show Your Work—best build-in-public post. Team votes. Week 3 · Hot Take—best-performing opinion post by engagement rate, so audience size doesn’t decide it. Week 4 · Tell the Story—best narrative/long-form post. Team vote + founder pick. Each week has its own prize. The metric changes weekly on purpose, so it’s never the same person winning. Monthlong games: 1) Points Leader—most total points across the month. 2) The Breakout—biggest growth from where you started. Snap a screenshot of your follower + engagement numbers at kickoff, another at the end. Going from 200 to 900 engaged followers can beat someone who started at 8k. This is the one we most want to reward. 3) The Streak Raffle—post at least twice a week, every week, and earn a raffle ticket each week (up to 4 total raffle tickets). We draw winners live at the finale. Pure luck—you just have to keep showing up. Two rules: Posts have to be real and sound like you. On-brand, substantive, your actual voice. One-line filler and generic AI-written posts don’t count. FAQs: • Why does it make sense for you to help employees become more marketable and get poached? 3 reasons: - Helping your employees drive trusted distribution makes you a more marketable employer and drives far more candidates than employee attrition - By having an always-on employee content motion, you'll have a farm system of up-and-coming creators even as folks leave - Most employers won't invest in this capability, which will drive retention for employees who value the investment you're making in their audience-building • How do you deal with employees saying something they shouldn't say? - Be clear about what employees should and shouldn't say. I.e. at Tenex, the team knows never to mention clients or identifying information about clients unless they've provided explicit approval. - If you're a bigger company, you likely have a compliance department. Allocating a light compliance review, if necessary, to this program is net worth it. How do you keep employees focused on their FT job, while also doing this? - It's pretty simple. Tell them that their day-to-day responsibilities always come first and make sure their compensation reflects what you want them to prioritize. High agency people are capable of handling multiple priorities and executing at a high-level. You don't need to baby people. How do you measure the impact of the program? - Awareness: lift in website traffic and social impressions - Impact: lift in job applicants and inbound leads ideally with attribution to referrals, social, or tenex employee

This is just 1 of my predictions and I share 30 other insights on the latest post: open.substack.com/pub/gtmedownlo…

Now think about all of the components of GTM and applying the same autonomous process

The current era of GTM already feels like it’s getting old. The new one is going to be even more exciting. Every component of GTM will be engineered to be a learning loop that self optimizes with agents. Landing page example in 🧵