Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.
Some growth lessons expire. Others stand the test of time.
Jeff Perry, Chief Revenue Officer at Carta for more than six years, proves it. After helping Oracle absorb Sun Microsystems in a $7.4B acquisition and later scaling Carta’s revenue from $20M to $450M, Jeff has seen every kind of market cycle, product pivot, and team evolution.
From that, he’s learned that the best growth strategies aren’t new. They’re timeless.
This edition breaks down 8 timeless principles every founder, CRO, and sales leader can use to build durable growth.
Recommendations
ZoomInfo’s GTM25 virtual conference on May 7th.
The future of GTM is AI-powered. Join us and thousands of revenue leaders at ZoomInfo’s GTM25 virtual conference on May 7th to explore how high-performing teams are leveraging Go-to-Market Intelligence and AI to fuel their GTM strategies that help top teams crush their revenue goals. You’ll hear from industry experts, connect with peers, and learn about the latest AI advancements. Beyond insights, you’ll walk away with proven AI tactics that you can directly implement for your GTM team.
Save Your Spot – see you (virtually) there!
1. Don’t be the hero, be the quarterback
“You don’t have to be the hero. Be the quarterback of the deal.”
Top sellers (and CROs) aren’t trying to win alone. They orchestrate deals, bringing in execs, solution engineers, and cross-functional allies.
Quarterbacking isn’t optional if you want scalable, repeatable revenue. Great reps know when to lead, and when to pass.
2. Diagnose before you design
“Great CROs don’t bring playbooks. They build them.”
Jeff didn’t try to copy Oracle or DocuSign playbooks at Carta. He studied what Carta specifically needed – fixing broken lead routing, segmenting sellers by skill, and rethinking post-sale experience.
Diagnose, then design the solution.
3. Treat performance management as a growth muscle
“Not every PIP is an ending. Sometimes it’s the start of a breakout.”
Two of Carta’s top performers today were nearly let go early in their careers. Instead of ejecting them, leadership focused on diagnosing system problems (like poor lead routing) and doubling down on coaching.
Performance management isn’t about fear, it’s about unlocking potential.
4. Relationships > Automation (now more than ever)
“Pick up the phone. Be human. It’s still the ultimate differentiator.”
In a world obsessed with AI automation, nothing replaces real relationships.
Every customer interaction is a chance to build trust, deliver value, and create loyalty that no automation can replicate.
5. Invest in technical excellence early
“Solutions engineers are your secret weapon as complexity grows.”
Carta’s move into fund administration and private equity made technical expertise non-negotiable. Standing up a strong solutions engineering function became critical to navigating larger, more complex deals.
Scaling without technical depth leads to slow deals and lost trust.
6. Make onboarding a growth weapon
“Your GTM is only as good as your post-sale experience.”
Carta’s customer onboarding didn’t just reduce churn, it became a flywheel for expansion, referrals, and upsell across PE and VC networks. Flawless implementations earned trust (and more logos).
Think of onboarding as revenue activation.
7. Fix systems before you blame people
“Infra problems often look like people problems.”
Early on, broken lead routing made it seem like top reps were underperforming. It wasn’t a talent issue, it was a structural one. Fixing the system unlocked immediate lift.
Before you replace people, replace bad systems.
8. Design around how customers want to buy, not how you want to sell
“Internal convenience should never beat customer experience.”
At Carta, Jeff’s teams weren’t organized by internal ops logic. They were designed around natural customer buying journeys: corporations, fund admin clients, private equity firms. Sales, marketing, and CS aligned to serve them, not just quota math.
Growth gets easier when your org chart mirrors your customers’ paths.
Tag GTMnow so we can see your takeaways and help amplify them.
More for your eardrums
Harmony Anderson is an entrepreneurial marketing leader with deep expertise in building global GTM strategies at growth startups. She is currently the VP of Growth and Marketing at Superhuman, the most productive email app ever made for teams. She has also led high-performing teams at Armada, Engine, Outreach, and ThousandEyes.
GTM 143: Why Most AI Messaging Fails and How to Actually Stand Out in a Crowded Market | Harmony Anderson
Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”
Startup to watch
Writer – CEO May Habib is making bold moves, recently featured on the cover of Forbes for helping companies save millions in labor costs with AI. The company has opened four new offices and plans to grow the team to 600. Investors call her “the time traveler” and it’s easy to see why.
More for your eyeballs
How AI is rewriting the sales leader playbook. In this inaugural podcast episode, sales leader KD breaks down the impact AI is having on frontline sales management.
Punch above your weight with organic content. Not just self-produced content, we’re seeing more and more companies leaning into influencer and ecosystem strategies for organic reach. Here you have the potential to compete with bigger companies, without the big dollars.
Hottest GTM jobs of the week
- Marketing & Events Associate at GTMfund (Vancouver, CAN) – come join the team behind this newsletter!
- Product Marketing Manager at Northbeam (Remote – US)
- Growth Marketing Lead at Mutiny (New York)
- Senior Director, Acquisition Marketing at Writer (Hybrid)
- San Francisco
- New York
- Strategic Venture Capital Partnerships Manager at Vanta (San Francisco – Hybrid)
- Customer Success Manager at Closinglock (Austin)
See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.
If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.
GTM industry events
Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:
- Web Summit: May 27-30, 2025 (Vancouver, CAN)
- Pavilion CRO Summit: June 3, 2025 (Denver, CO)
- GTMfund AGM: June 5-6, 2025 (NYC, NY)
- GTMfund Dinner: June 11, 2025 (London, UK)
- SaaStr Annual: May 13-15 (San Francisco, CA)
- Pavilion GTM Summit: September 23-25, 2025 (Washington, DC)
This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).
The post Timeless growth principles that scaled $20M to $450M appeared first on GTMnow.
