GTM 89: Bundling the GTM Stack, Secrets of Winning Investors & Landing Key Hires with Daniel Ruiz

The GTM Podcast

Daniel Ruiz has spent his career driving growth at high-velocity startups, serving as an early employee at multiple YC companies before co-founding Synch. As CEO, he has successfully raised funding from top investors like Haystack and Jack Altman in a challenging market. With Synch, Daniel is on a mission to streamline the go-to-market tech stack, helping revenue teams spend less time on sales ops and more time actually selling. He brings hard-won insights on leveraging investors, landing crucial first hires, and scaling with in-person sales. Most importantly, Daniel is a founder who leads from the front, always eager to hop on a plane to close a big deal.
Discussed in this Episode:

• The shifting landscape of bundling vs unbundling in the go-to-market tech stack.
• Key lessons and tactics from Daniel's successful fundraising process.
• Extracting maximum value from VCs by making specific requests and following up.
• Why in-person sales and remote work philosophies are crucial considerations for startups.
• The misguided belief that "outbound is dead" and what's working in outbound sales.
• How to find and land a critical first sales hire as an early-stage startup.
• The power of "fake travel plans" for accelerating growth through in-person sales.

Highlights:
(04:10) - Bundling vs unbundling in the go-to-market tech stack.
(08:36) - Daniel's fundraising process and lessons learned.
(13:39) - Extracting value from investors.
(17:57) - Daniel's "lightbulb moment" on leveraging investors.
(21:10) - In-person meetings and building trust with investors.
(24:35) - Synch's in-person vs remote work philosophy.
(29:52) - When to let go of sales as a founder.
(32:48) - Finding the right first sales hire.
(36:52) - One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Daniel thinks is bull$***
(41:14) - One thing that is working for Daniel in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (Daniel Ruiz):

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-ruiz-a73818aa/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
• Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsors:

• Brought to you by Pocus. Pocus turns data into revenue. Combine all product usage and intent signals your team needs to prioritize the best opportunities and take quick action. Pocus helps you build pipeline based on real buying signals, not your team’s best guess (whether it’s landing new logos or expanding existing ones). With Pocus, go-to-market teams at Asana, Canva, Miro, and Loom save 10+ hours a week digging through data to find and close deals with confidence. Create focus for your team with

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with well-known tech executive, VC, and founders - the expert operators in the trenches who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories, revealing expert insights around what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.
This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of VC firm GTMfund - sharing insight on go-to-market from working with hundreds of portfolio companies backed by over 350 of the best go-to-market executives.
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