September 9, 2025 • 27 mins
Ghazi Masood is the Chief Revenue Officer at Retool, where he leads the go-to-market engine for the low-code developer platform. Previously he served as SVP & GM, Americas at Auth0 after leadership roles at Microsoft, Oracle, Polycom, and Nintex K2, and he advises several high-growth startups on GTM. A field-first operator, Ghazi specializes in layering sales onto product-led motions and building enterprise upgrade paths without breaking self-serve growth.
Discussed in this episode
- The moment inbound stops being enough—and how to size the outbound gap
- Why to bifurcate SDRs (inbound vs. outbound) and how to define lead sources
- Profiling inbound (more technical, SE-adjacent) vs. outbound (AE-track) talent
- Structuring self-serve as a permanent home vs. a stepping stone to enterprise
- “Ungate to upgrade”: using sustained overage/feature use as a right-sizing trigger
- Pricing & packaging that pulls larger accounts to annual, committed plans
- The “GTM engineer” model for AI-native, high-velocity companies
- Hiring pace, capacity planning, and the leadership principles that scale
Episode highlights
00:00 — Inbound eventually caps out; annual planning exposes the pipeline gap that outbound must fill.
00:45 — What it really takes to add sales to a product-led motion—without breaking PLG.
03:23 — First move: bifurcate SDR into dedicated inbound and outbound to drive focus and outcomes.
04:18 — Nail definitions with Marketing: what counts as inbound vs. outbound (e.g., events ≠ inbound).
06:37 — Decide the role of self-serve: permanent home for some segments vs. stepping stone to enterprise.
09:41 — Ungated features as signals: after ~3 months of sustained overage/premium use, “right-size” the plan.
12:09 — Why frictionless adoption beats hard gates—and how clear web docs make the convo non-adversarial.
15:10 — When to move from pay-as-you-go to annual: sophistication and committed usage, not arbitrary timing.
18:51 — Enter the “GTM engineer”: one person spans SDR → SE → AE → AM to capture massive inbound demand.
25:36 — Frameworks that still work: MEDD(P)ICC and Solution Selling 2.0 for complex, multi-product deals.
Sponsor – Pursuit
The best talent isn’t actively job hunting. Pursuit helps companies hire elite go-to-market talent on a non-retainer basis. As a key GTMfund partner, they equip sales and marketing teams with top performers.
If you’re hiring for sales or marketing roles, reach out to Pursuit at pursuitsalessolutions.com/gtm or message a GTMfund team member.
Guest links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghazi-masood-09195a2
- Company: https://retool.com
Host links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi
- X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
- Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com
The GTMnow Podcast
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Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ghazi Masood (00:00):
As businesses grow and evolve, we'll come to a
point and say, hey, inbound isjust not going to be enough, we
need to go supplement inbound.
Without bound.
We would not gate anything.
We would basically allowcustomers to use anything they
actually wanted.
But we clearly had definitionsand documentation.
If there's like three months ofuse of something they're not
licensed for, they're probablygoing to get a call from someone
(00:22):
in sales to kind of right-sizethem into the plan.
Sophie Buonassisi (00:45):
This episode breaks down what it takes to
layer sales onto a product-ledmotion to win.
Ghazi Masood, who helped scaleAuth0 and Retool, shares lessons
from companies that grew fromself-serve to sales-assisted.
You'll learn how to build ahybrid motion that works without
breaking what's working, whento bifurcate your SDR team, and
how to design pricing andpackaging that drives enterprise
upgrades.
(01:05):
If you're navigating the shiftfrom PLG product-led growth to
hybrid sales, this episode is atactical blueprint.
All right, let's get into it,ghazi welcome to the podcast.
Ghazi Masood (01:15):
Thank you, sophie, good to see you.
Sophie Buonassisi (01:16):
Great to see you too, and I want to dive
right in because you've seen twobreakout companies go from
self-serve growth to addingsales.
What were the earliest signsthat it was time to make that
shift?
Ghazi Masood (01:29):
Yeah, no, super, super interesting.
Yeah, I've been at a lot ofdifferent companies out there
and most recently a lot of PLGcompanies that kind of gravitate
and kind of go through thisproblem and question.
And you know like my thoughtprocess on this is, as
businesses grow and evolve,companies usually get to a point
where you have to figure outthat you need to supplement
pipeline and you can no longerjust rely on inbound pipeline to
(01:51):
satisfy your overall pipelineneeds.
And this kind of just makes thecase for outbound and SLG more
prevalent and it becomes evenmore apparent as you do like
annual planning and reallyreally determine which our ARR
needs are, You'll come to apoint and say, hey, inbound is
just not going to be enough, weneed to go supplement inbound
without bound.
Sophie Buonassisi (02:10):
Makes sense and for you yourself you've worn
those shoes At Auth0, at Retoolhow did you convince the team
that it was time to changecourse?
Ghazi Masood (02:20):
Yeah, I mean, usually there's not really a
whole lot of convincing to do.
It becomes pretty apparent andobvious that we need to bring
more pipeline into the businessto support the ARR needs, right?
You know, as everyone knows,when you get into an annual
planning process you determineand set the growth rate of what
you want to grow by whether it's30, 40% or north of that and
(02:41):
you kind of do the top down andthe bottoms up plan and as part
of that process you'll come to apoint where you'll see that
inbound is just not going to beenough.
So there really isn't a wholelot of convincing to do.
It just kind of makes thingsmore apparent and you kind of go
out and embark on that journey.
Sophie Buonassisi (02:58):
And the state that we find most companies are
in is they've always got theireyes on SLG.
Like you said, it is a littlebit more obvious, but it's also
the path to enterprise, tobigger contracts, larger ACVs.
So it is usually something thatis desired.
But let's say a company ismaking that transition,
everyone's on board.
You have a need to convincethem.
They're already on board.
(03:19):
What's the first thing that youchange in your go-to-market
motion?
Ghazi Masood (03:23):
Yeah.
So kind of just going back tomy history at Auth0 and Retool,
you know.
So the first thing we did soinitially, when companies are
small and you have an SDR team,you usually have hybrid
individuals where you have SDRsthat do both inbound and
outbound, and that's usuallysufficient for a period of time.
But when you really really wantto start doubling down and
start driving towards a focusedapproach, the first thing we did
(03:46):
is we bifurcated our SVR teamand we basically had inbound
dedicated folks and then folkswho would be dedicated to
outbound.
We found over time that youknow, you just need the focus.
You just need the focus andhave a dedication there, just so
people can actually focus onthe right things and drive the
right behaviors and drive theright outcomes.
So that was the very firstthing we did, is we bifurcated
(04:08):
the SDR team to Inbound andOutbound.
Sophie Buonassisi (04:11):
Interesting, okay.
And were there any lessons orchallenges to that bifurcation
process?
Ghazi Masood (04:18):
I think the first thing is I think there's a
couple of things.
One is you have to kind ofdefine this one Lance of what
really are lead sources that areinbound and what really are
lead sources that are outbound.
An example of that could belike event leads right, are
(04:39):
event leads inbound or outbound?
I would say like event leadsare outbound because usually an
event lead is somebody who comesto your booth or you engage
with at a conference, but youhave to follow up with them to
determine if there's interest,if there's appetite to kind of
move forward there.
And again, other companies dothis differently.
So the first thing to do is toget good alignment with
marketing and the sales orgaround the definition of what
inbound means from a channelperspective and what outbound
(05:01):
means from an outbound channelperspective.
That's the first thing.
The second is, I think, as youbifurcate the team and you have
dedicated reps for inbound andoutbound, you have to determine
the profile of these individualsright.
And this is especially importantin like a PLG company, because
early on in PLG usually folkswho are inbound tend to have a
(05:23):
technical hat on because they'rehelping the customer with a
signup flow, they're demoing theproduct, they need to
understand the product kind ofinside and out.
So usually the inbound teamearly on tends to be a bit more
technical in nature and theircareer path is really kind of
gravitating and becoming more oflike an SE.
They don't really want to gointo sales.
(05:43):
Outbound profiles, as you know,are different right Like
outbound sellers and outboundBDR teams come from really more
of a sales mindset where it'sall about pipeline generation
and they have a vested interestin that pipeline actually
closing the revenue.
And most of the outbound folkseventually want to kind of make
and move their career into beingan account executive.
(06:04):
So really really determiningthe profile of where you get
these people and where they comefrom and what their career
aspirations are, I think is alsosuper, super important.
Sophie Buonassisi (06:14):
Excellent point.
And I'm curious.
You know, at Auth0, self-serveonboarding served as a stepping
stone and then, with Retool,some customers stayed in
self-serve forever.
Right, some customers are happyto stay in self-serve forever,
while others need a sales touchto really grow.
How do you design ago-to-market model that can win
(06:35):
at both?
Ghazi Masood (06:37):
Yeah, yeah, this is a really, really good
question.
Ultimately, I think what needsto happen first is you need to
define the role of self-servicein your business, and every
business will have a differentrole or function as to what they
want self-service to go out anddo.
I think you also want to definehow customers want to engage
with you and your product andthen, depending on this, you can
(06:58):
kind of figure out what signalsyou want to get from those
self-service customers to figureout where they are on their
journey.
So, as an example, right, ifyou know self-service customers
kind of come in and you knowthat they want to just get
onboarded onto your technologyand your solution, you want to
have a platform and a vehiclefor them to do that in a very
(07:18):
seamless way.
But maybe you reserve the rightfor some of these enterprise
features like single sign-on andsource control to more
sophisticated customers, right.
So when they actually get tothose thresholds, they know they
have to kind of gravitate outof self-service into kind of
what we call an enterprise or acommitted plan.
But again, to determine that,you have to kind of figure out
the role of self-service andthere's a lot of work that
(07:40):
organizations do and we did atAuth0 and Retool to kind of
figure out like hey, whatsegment of customers and size of
customers are engaging andcoming in from self-service?
Are they startups, are theymom-and-pop shops?
Are they smaller entities?
Are they ever going to need thesophistication of what our
enterprise plan needs?
So at OddZero, as an example, weknew that it didn't really
(08:02):
matter.
We basically wanted to give thecustomers access to the
platform and know that over timethey will need more
sophistication and they'llgravitate there.
So at Odd Zero it was clearly astepping stone and a lot of our
mid-size and small businesscustomers started off on
self-service.
But over time I would say likeless than a year they would
probably need moresophistication and get on our
(08:24):
enterprise plan.
So it actually really reallybecame a good source of where
pipeline came from for ourmid-market and small business
customers.
At Retool it's a little bitdifferent.
Right At Retool what we foundis there's a segment of our
customers that just will neverbe as sophisticated as some of
these larger accounts.
So we've designed ourself-service plans to be like
(08:46):
the permanent home for thesecustomers.
We know they'll always live inself-service.
They'll never, ever need togrow and mature and we've kind
of crafted our plans and ourpricing to accommodate that for
these customers to have apermanent home in self-service.
Sophie Buonassisi (09:02):
Before we dive in, a quick word on hiring.
It's a weird market out thereright now, but finding top
go-to-market talent is still oneof the biggest levers for
growth.
At GTM Fund, we've made over2,000 candidate intros and
placed hundreds of eight players.
One of our go-to recruitingpartners is Pursuit.
They specialize in sales andmarketing talent and they do it
without a retainer.
We work with them closelyacross many roles.
If you're hiring, go topursuitsalesolutionscom forward
(09:25):
slash GTM That'll be in the shownotes, or paying someone from
the GTM that'll be in the shownotes, or paying someone from
the GTM fund team.
We'll get you connected.
Now on to the episode.
And if you don't have, itsounds like at Auth0, you might
have had kind of a usage base orfunctionality base baked into
the product where they werehitting triggers.
Is that correct?
Ghazi Masood (09:41):
Yeah, that's right .
That's right.
I mean, yeah, user thresholdnumbers, just basically going
past their MEU allotment andalso using features that weren't
really part of the self-serviceplan.
So, again, we would not gateanything, which is an
interesting conversation tousually have with organizations.
We would basically allowcustomers to use anything they
(10:02):
actually wanted.
But we clearly had definitionsand documentation that stated
that if you aren't self-service,you have access to X.
So what would happen is certaincustomers, if they started
using things like multi-factorauthentication or they had more
users than what their planallowed, that would basically be
a signal for sales topotentially reach out to these
(10:23):
customers and just have a goodconversation.
Go, hey, we understand, it'sbeen three months and you're
kind of using these capabilities.
Just know that that's not partof your plan.
Let's kind of get you rightsize into the right plan.
So that's really how we kind ofdesigned our packages.
Sophie Buonassisi (10:35):
Oh, interesting.
Okay, so you weren't gatinganything.
They could use anyfunctionality and then that
would be a trigger, a signal forthe sales team to then reach
out.
Put a Tetron Sounds like.
Ghazi Masood (10:46):
That's right.
Sophie Buonassisi (10:47):
Like, if there is nothing gated, you know
, would access to some of thosepremium functionalities expire
at a certain point.
Ghazi Masood (10:57):
No, our philosophy was we want people to use the
product and we want them to getwhat they need out of the
product Right.
And again, this wasn't ahardcore sales approach where if
someone is two users over theirallotment, they're going to get
a call from sales and sales isgoing to move them over to the
plan.
This was like sustained Like ifthere's like three months of
(11:19):
use of something they're notlicensed for, they're probably
going to get a call from someonein sales to kind of right-size
them into the plan.
So it was a very mutualconversation.
We hardly had any conflict withcustomers and usually customers
know that if they're usingcapabilities like this, they
probably need to move over tothe plan.
And again, everything isdocumented.
So it's kind of spelled blackand white as to what that plan
includes and what that plandoesn't include.
Sophie Buonassisi (11:42):
That's a really, really interesting model
, ghazi, because we see a lot ofcompanies gating it and making
it very evident.
You know when you're hittingthat trigger.
You've got a pop-up, you've gotsome kind of blocker to actual
utilization, but you took theopposite approach.
You un-gated everything.
Having taken that approach,having seen tons of other PLG
(12:02):
companies now through companiesyou work for, companies you
advise, is there an approachthat you would recommend over
the other?
Ghazi Masood (12:09):
Self-service should be about getting as many
users onto your platform asquickly as possible and being as
frictionless as you can bewithin your signup flow.
Right, you want to get massadoption on self-service and
again, you want to be clear whatself-service is for right.
And then if, all of a sudden, ifcustomers get on self-service
and they're loving your productand adoption is going through
(12:30):
the roof, they're doing more,more and more, I think that's a
great thing.
It's good for the customer,it's good for you as a company
and then you can actuallyeventually kind of help the
customer kind of grow and matureinto the right plan that they
actually see.
So I think if it's done rightand if it's done correctly, with
just a lot of upfront data anddocumentation, I think it really
(12:52):
is a frictionless conversation.
I don't think any customer Imean there are customers I think
if I recall back on those days,there were clearly customers
who weren't aware that, oh myGod, they've gone over their
usage limit by X, they'vebrought their users back down
and that's okay.
But there are also customersthat continue to have excess
usage, that you actually end upright-sizing the plant.
(13:12):
So I actually prefer that model.
It just allows for frictionlessadoption of the technology and
the solution and super tactical.
Sophie Buonassisi (13:21):
But what does that documentation you
mentioned look like?
Ghazi Masood (13:25):
So it's just plans on our website.
So all of the price plans arepublished on the website under
the pricing page, and under thepricing page you can actually
see I think the names that weactually had were.
There was a free plan, then Ithink there was the business
plan.
I think the business plan Iforget the name of the other one
, but I think there aredifferent plans.
(13:46):
Think of it as like bronze,silver, gold, right.
So if you have those planspublished on your website and
you kind of say, hey, if yousign up for the bronze plan,
here's what the bronze planactually includes.
If you go to the silver plan,here's what the silver plan
includes.
So it's clearly documented onthe website as to what plan the
customer is actually signing upfor.
Sophie Buonassisi (14:05):
Love it.
And let's say there's a companythat is entirely PLG right now.
They're PLG.
They want to layer in an SLGapproach and start to move and
create that SLG motion andmuscle in general.
Everything is gated by, youknow, paywalls that they hit.
It's entirely product driven.
Right now they want to layerthat in.
(14:26):
Would the first step be then toungate everything and actually
then do the sales outreachaccordingly and to peel back all
the gatekeeping within theproduct?
Ghazi Masood (14:38):
Yeah, you could gatekeep it.
Make sure your plans areclearly published on your
website or on what each planincludes the price point for
each plan and just let it go.
And just let it go and seewhere customers kind of
naturally migrate.
That's all it's going to do.
Sophie Buonassisi (14:56):
Love it?
Yeah, love it.
Pricing is certainly one of thehardest parts of scaling SaaS.
Ghazi Masood (15:01):
It is.
Sophie Buonassisi (15:03):
How did you figure out when it was time to
move from pay-as-you-go toannual contracts?
Ghazi Masood (15:10):
Yeah, I mean so pay-as-you-go.
Most self-service customers inboth Retool and Auth0, they're
pay-as-you-go.
They're basically monthlycredit card swipes right,
they're monthly credit cardswipes right, they're monthly
credit card swipes.
We did provide discounts forcustomers who would sign up for
annual contracts, but very fewself-service customers actually
sign up for annual contracts.
They actually want to just dopay-as-you-go and swipe credit
(15:32):
cards, which I think is fine.
I think it comes down tosophistication.
So as customers mature and growand they know themselves
they're not really aself-service profiled account
because they're using a lot moreusers or they're using these
advanced capabilities, then Ithink it's a natural
conversation to talk to salesand get into an annual contract
and again, that's also publishedon the website, right, knowing
(15:54):
that if you actually everoutgrow these plans, you do have
to be on an annual contract andtalk to sales.
Sophie Buonassisi (16:00):
Makes sense.
Ghazi, you've advised andworked at a ton of incredible
companies, notably PLGproduct-led growth companies.
What's the biggest go-to-marketmistake that you see
early-stage companies makingright now?
Ghazi Masood (16:18):
Yeah, I think, from a PLG perspective, I think
the biggest thing I thinkcompanies struggle with is to
really really define, you know,if you don't know what the role
of self-service in your businessshould be, right, I think you
really really need to definewhat the role of self-service is
to really kind of helpdetermine the journey you want
to take your customers on.
(16:39):
So that's one thing.
The other thing also is for alot of PLG companies and in fact
the companies that you'rereferencing, like Odd Zero and
Retool that I was at, they werePLG, but they were PLG to a very
, very specific persona, Like itwas a technical buyer, it was
developers and engineers thatwere really engaging with the
product, and developers andengineers don't like to deal
(17:01):
with salespeople, right.
So I think one of the thingsthat we did that had a huge,
huge advantage is to have likeproduct-based reach-outs within
self-service to those folks outthere where if it's a new
feature, new capability, youknow, new ship that's coming out
, you basically haveproduct-based updates that it's
going out.
I think that's another thingthat a lot of PLG companies
(17:23):
sometimes don't reallyincorporate or do right out of
the gate with that, which Ithink is super, super beneficial
.
Sophie Buonassisi (17:31):
Incredible, and I've heard you say that the
traditional account modeldoesn't really fit AI-native
companies like Cursor Windsurf.
What structure does work inthat case?
Ghazi Masood (17:42):
Yeah, yeah, this is a fun topic to riff on, like
we could probably have an entirepodcast.
Uh, you said this topic.
It's crazy, right.
I mean, I think, as everyonesees, um, the, the traditional
b2b sass landscape is completelyevolving.
You've got companies getting to100 million dollars really
(18:03):
coming out of stealth mode withno salespeople, and you know
it's just fantastic to see thatlevel of growth out there.
I think for these companies, Ithink the traditional B2B SaaS
model doesn't really apply,right, I mean, why would you
want to go hire a bunch of SDRs,salespeople, ses, customer
success people, where you'vegrown to $100 billion without a
(18:25):
single one of them, right?
I mean, if I was a founder ofone of those companies, I would
be kind of questioning the samething.
So what my belief is and thisis my personal belief I think,
like for these organizations, asthey scale and grow, they need
to kind of rethink theirgo-to-market footprint.
And what I think is going tostart evolving and you're
(18:45):
starting to see this a littlebit in some companies out there
is the role of what I kind ofcall a GTM engineer.
You can kind of label it whatyou want, but essentially what a
GTM engineer is is it's a kindof a jack of all trades.
They're one individual.
But that individual can playthe role of an SDR, they can
qualify pipeline, they can playthe role of an SE and demo the
product, they can actually goout and close the deal like an
(19:07):
account executive and they canalso do upsell like an account
manager or a CSF.
So that's a tough role.
So that's basically almost likefour roles in one.
But I think, as theseorganizations scale and grow and
try to run like an efficientmodel, I think it's the way to
go.
I think it's really the way togo is having somebody who can
kind of specialize in all one ofthose areas.
Sophie Buonassisi (19:30):
So do you think that will entirely replace
specialization withgo-to-market engineers and these
more broad roles then?
Ghazi Masood (19:40):
At some point.
I think the equation that Ikind of think about is these
organizations that are scalingso fast.
They know they need to put ago-to-market foundation in place
and I think this is probablythe best way for them to start.
Obviously, as those companiesinvolve and they have, like
multi-product and more complexthings to go sell, that will
(20:02):
probably augment their approachto this.
But my belief in what I justmentioned is just right out of
the gate.
You know, as organizationsscale and grow and I'm talking
about companies like LovableReplit Cursor I think they're
all gravitating towards this,right.
Even their founding teams are,because I've had conversations
with them they're like hey,we've gone to $100, $150 million
with not a single sales rep.
(20:23):
Why do I need a sales rep,right?
So I think this is a model forthose type of companies that
want to kind of grow efficientlyand grow in a manner that's
sustainable for them for thatperiod of time.
Sophie Buonassisi (20:34):
Is this what you then recommend to a lot of
the PLG companies that youadvise?
Would it be, when they'relooking to go SLG, to actually
hire a GTM engineer orequivalent, first be?
Ghazi Masood (20:44):
when they're looking to go SLG to actually
hire a GTM engineer orequivalent first.
Yeah, I mean, it depends on thecompany, right?
I think not necessarily for SLG.
I think for PLG this could belike a very, very good function.
I think SLG in theseorganizations is probably a bit
different, because you'retesting your messaging, you're
(21:08):
trying to go outbound and you'retrying to see so you have to
kind of see the traction you'regetting If you're getting the
level of qualification that youare on inbound and your messages
are resonating and the pipelineis just a shrunk and
potentially you could adopt thesame model on outbound.
But usually what I find andagain proof will be the pudding,
because I think a lot of thisis also so new is is the
outbound messaging resonating asfast as what inbound is?
With a lot of these companiesout there?
(21:29):
I think kind of time will tellA lot of these companies.
By the way, they don't reallyhave an outbound motion today at
all.
It's all purely inbound andthere's so much pent up demand
and stuff that they can't get to.
They need to go staff a rolelike this to actually capture
that demand.
So outbound just kind of justdepends on the traction and the
(21:51):
volume that you actually see inthe business.
Sophie Buonassisi (21:54):
Definitely.
We've got one of our portfoliocompanies.
They launched in within threedays.
It's a PLG company.
It's about building web apps,mobile apps, no code, not
anything.
But they launched and withinthree days they had over 3
million views.
They went viral, they had over500,000 signups.
So they're in a similarsituation where a sales rep is
the last thing they're thinkingabout.
(22:15):
They're thinking about how do Ihire and maintain the actual
demand that we already have?
So the go-to-market engineerrole is a pivotal one in that.
Ghazi Masood (22:25):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Sophie Buonassisi (22:28):
Just tying it all together a little bit.
And so let's say, just to riffon this a little bit further,
because we could spend the wholesession on this but let's say
somebody hires a go-to-marketengineer in and you mentioned to
start with the go-to-marketfoundation.
What, in your opinion, doesthat starting of the
go-to-market foundation looklike for a PLG company?
Ghazi Masood (22:50):
I would say universal is to hire good people
and build a foundation.
Most companies who aresuccessful are successful
because of the talent and thefoundation that's laid out
without any bottlenecks.
So I think what's universal isyou got to go find good people.
You know references and trackrecord and stuff they've
actually done.
You definitely want to go dothat.
(23:11):
What breaks sometimes that I'veseen that organizations is
sometimes people are very, veryquick to throw bodies at the
problem.
They'll say, oh my God, we need50 salespeople or we need 50
GTM engineers.
I think you need to be very,very systematic and pragmatic
when you go hire people and thenumber of people you go hire.
(23:31):
So usually you want to makesure you've got enough demand
and enough pipeline needs to gosupport the number of people you
go hire out there.
But again, what's universal tome is you've got to go hire good
people.
You've got to make sure theycome from a good background
that's kind of relevant to yourindustry.
And then you want to make sureyou know you're working with
finance and rev ops and the restof the team to really really
determine the number of folksyou actually need and is that
(23:53):
the right number?
Can the business sustain it andcan really really sustain it,
or do they need to actually slowdown or go faster, depending on
where the pipeline starts?
Sophie Buonassisi (24:05):
Makes sense and you've led go-to-market at
some of the most iconiccompanies in tech Microsoft,
oracle, acero, retool.
What's a leadership principlethat you take with you
everywhere?
Ghazi Masood (24:17):
like three things about me and my leadership style
is I'm one that kind of leadsby example.
So I'm constantly out in thefield helping the team win and
(24:38):
interface a lot with customersout there.
And, you know, really like toestablish this notion of like we
win together and we losetogether.
Right there isn't like if youwin a big deal, it's not just
the AE who gets all therecognition, it's a team,
collaborative effort.
And if we lose the deal, it'snot just on like the CSM that we
lost the deal or product.
You know we kind of losetogether and we learn from it.
And then, finally, you know, aseveryone knows, b2b SaaS is
hard.
It's a lot of hours, a lot ofcrazy hours and you want to make
(25:03):
sure you have fun along the way.
And those are like the threebig things for me in the culture
that I like to go out and build.
Sophie Buonassisi (25:10):
Always fun, yeah, always fun.
Necessary Building is hard,somebody said the other day
actually, you know, you think itgets easier after the initial
building stages.
It doesn't.
It just changes and evolves.
It's always hard and that's thefun.
So, finding the fun in theprocess, that's right.
Those are fantastic leadershipprinciples and I love that
everyone would say the samething too.
You've got the consistency.
(25:31):
Yeah, any frameworks that youfound particularly helpful that
you'd recommend?
Ghazi Masood (25:36):
Oh God, I've done so many over the years.
You know everything from likeSandler to MedPick.
I mean my favorite are like aMedPick and Solution Sales 2.0.
And Solution Sales 2.0 is adifferent iteration of the
original Solution Sales modelthat used to be out there.
So I incorporated both of theseat some of the recent companies
that I've been at.
(25:56):
So I'm a big fan of those.
Medpick and Solution Sales arethe two that kind of resonate
and stand out to me.
Sophie Buonassisi (26:03):
Brilliant.
And what about resources?
Is there a book that's made thebiggest impact on your career?
Ghazi.
Ghazi Masood (26:15):
A lot of good books out there.
There's Good to Grade, there's,I mean, a lot of good books out
there that I'm sure many of youare aware of, but the few
recently at both of my recentcompanies that we leveraged,
that we basically kind ofactually adopted their
leadership and organizationalprinciples, is the table group
and the five dysfunctions of ateam.
So that's a really, really goodbook to really really
understand the dynamics of theteam and how to collaborate and
(26:38):
work effectively well as aleadership organization, and
that really applies to theentire org.
It really, really helps you setyour operational discipline,
kind of your cadence that youwant to run the business and
kind of how you want to, whatyou want to prioritize and what
you want to focus on.
So I highly recommend that book.
Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
Sophie Buonassisi (26:59):
We'll drop it in the show notes and I'd be
remiss if I didn't ask you alittle bit about AI.
If anything, it feels like it'sgetting more important or will
get more important with theadvent of AI and the ability to
send emails at ease and havethem streamed out of your inbox
the way that you've got itstreamlined right.
So how do you actually breakthrough the noise and get that
human interaction 100% Brilliantand where can people find you
(27:23):
if they want to follow yourjourney or get in touch?
Ghazi Masood (27:25):
LinkedIn is a good spot.
I try to keep that up to datethe best I can.
I'm happy to engage with anyonewho reaches out to help.
I've been in the go-to-marketfor a very, very long time and I
like to help individuals go outand either help advance their
careers or help in any which wayI can by giving them advice.
So happy to engage with any ofyou.
Sophie Buonassisi (27:44):
That's incredible.
Thank you, Gazio.
We appreciate the conversationhere today and then everything
that you do for.
As businesses grow and evolve, we'll come to a
point and say, hey, inbound isjust not going to be enough, we
need to go supplement inbound.
Without bound.
We would not gate anything.
We would basically allowcustomers to use anything they
actually wanted.
But we clearly had definitionsand documentation.
If there's like three months ofuse of something they're not
licensed for, they're probablygoing to get a call from someone
(00:22):
in sales to kind of right-sizethem into the plan.
Sophie Buonassisi (00:45):
This episode breaks down what it takes to
layer sales onto a product-ledmotion to win.
Ghazi Masood, who helped scaleAuth0 and Retool, shares lessons
from companies that grew fromself-serve to sales-assisted.
You'll learn how to build ahybrid motion that works without
breaking what's working, whento bifurcate your SDR team, and
how to design pricing andpackaging that drives enterprise
upgrades.
(01:05):
If you're navigating the shiftfrom PLG product-led growth to
hybrid sales, this episode is atactical blueprint.
All right, let's get into it,ghazi welcome to the podcast.
Ghazi Masood (01:15):
Thank you, sophie, good to see you.
Sophie Buonassisi (01:16):
Great to see you too, and I want to dive
right in because you've seen twobreakout companies go from
self-serve growth to addingsales.
What were the earliest signsthat it was time to make that
shift?
Ghazi Masood (01:29):
Yeah, no, super, super interesting.
Yeah, I've been at a lot ofdifferent companies out there
and most recently a lot of PLGcompanies that kind of gravitate
and kind of go through thisproblem and question.
And you know like my thoughtprocess on this is, as
businesses grow and evolve,companies usually get to a point
where you have to figure outthat you need to supplement
pipeline and you can no longerjust rely on inbound pipeline to
(01:51):
satisfy your overall pipelineneeds.
And this kind of just makes thecase for outbound and SLG more
prevalent and it becomes evenmore apparent as you do like
annual planning and reallyreally determine which our ARR
needs are, You'll come to apoint and say, hey, inbound is
just not going to be enough, weneed to go supplement inbound
without bound.
Sophie Buonassisi (02:10):
Makes sense and for you yourself you've worn
those shoes At Auth0, at Retoolhow did you convince the team
that it was time to changecourse?
Ghazi Masood (02:20):
Yeah, I mean, usually there's not really a
whole lot of convincing to do.
It becomes pretty apparent andobvious that we need to bring
more pipeline into the businessto support the ARR needs, right?
You know, as everyone knows,when you get into an annual
planning process you determineand set the growth rate of what
you want to grow by whether it's30, 40% or north of that and
(02:41):
you kind of do the top down andthe bottoms up plan and as part
of that process you'll come to apoint where you'll see that
inbound is just not going to beenough.
So there really isn't a wholelot of convincing to do.
It just kind of makes thingsmore apparent and you kind of go
out and embark on that journey.
Sophie Buonassisi (02:58):
And the state that we find most companies are
in is they've always got theireyes on SLG.
Like you said, it is a littlebit more obvious, but it's also
the path to enterprise, tobigger contracts, larger ACVs.
So it is usually something thatis desired.
But let's say a company ismaking that transition,
everyone's on board.
You have a need to convincethem.
They're already on board.
(03:19):
What's the first thing that youchange in your go-to-market
motion?
Ghazi Masood (03:23):
Yeah.
So kind of just going back tomy history at Auth0 and Retool,
you know.
So the first thing we did soinitially, when companies are
small and you have an SDR team,you usually have hybrid
individuals where you have SDRsthat do both inbound and
outbound, and that's usuallysufficient for a period of time.
But when you really really wantto start doubling down and
start driving towards a focusedapproach, the first thing we did
(03:46):
is we bifurcated our SVR teamand we basically had inbound
dedicated folks and then folkswho would be dedicated to
outbound.
We found over time that youknow, you just need the focus.
You just need the focus andhave a dedication there, just so
people can actually focus onthe right things and drive the
right behaviors and drive theright outcomes.
So that was the very firstthing we did, is we bifurcated
(04:08):
the SDR team to Inbound andOutbound.
Sophie Buonassisi (04:11):
Interesting, okay.
And were there any lessons orchallenges to that bifurcation
process?
Ghazi Masood (04:18):
I think the first thing is I think there's a
couple of things.
One is you have to kind ofdefine this one Lance of what
really are lead sources that areinbound and what really are
lead sources that are outbound.
An example of that could belike event leads right, are
(04:39):
event leads inbound or outbound?
I would say like event leadsare outbound because usually an
event lead is somebody who comesto your booth or you engage
with at a conference, but youhave to follow up with them to
determine if there's interest,if there's appetite to kind of
move forward there.
And again, other companies dothis differently.
So the first thing to do is toget good alignment with
marketing and the sales orgaround the definition of what
inbound means from a channelperspective and what outbound
(05:01):
means from an outbound channelperspective.
That's the first thing.
The second is, I think, as youbifurcate the team and you have
dedicated reps for inbound andoutbound, you have to determine
the profile of these individualsright.
And this is especially importantin like a PLG company, because
early on in PLG usually folkswho are inbound tend to have a
(05:23):
technical hat on because they'rehelping the customer with a
signup flow, they're demoing theproduct, they need to
understand the product kind ofinside and out.
So usually the inbound teamearly on tends to be a bit more
technical in nature and theircareer path is really kind of
gravitating and becoming more oflike an SE.
They don't really want to gointo sales.
(05:43):
Outbound profiles, as you know,are different right Like
outbound sellers and outboundBDR teams come from really more
of a sales mindset where it'sall about pipeline generation
and they have a vested interestin that pipeline actually
closing the revenue.
And most of the outbound folkseventually want to kind of make
and move their career into beingan account executive.
(06:04):
So really really determiningthe profile of where you get
these people and where they comefrom and what their career
aspirations are, I think is alsosuper, super important.
Sophie Buonassisi (06:14):
Excellent point.
And I'm curious.
You know, at Auth0, self-serveonboarding served as a stepping
stone and then, with Retool,some customers stayed in
self-serve forever.
Right, some customers are happyto stay in self-serve forever,
while others need a sales touchto really grow.
How do you design ago-to-market model that can win
(06:35):
at both?
Ghazi Masood (06:37):
Yeah, yeah, this is a really, really good
question.
Ultimately, I think what needsto happen first is you need to
define the role of self-servicein your business, and every
business will have a differentrole or function as to what they
want self-service to go out anddo.
I think you also want to definehow customers want to engage
with you and your product andthen, depending on this, you can
(06:58):
kind of figure out what signalsyou want to get from those
self-service customers to figureout where they are on their
journey.
So, as an example, right, ifyou know self-service customers
kind of come in and you knowthat they want to just get
onboarded onto your technologyand your solution, you want to
have a platform and a vehiclefor them to do that in a very
(07:18):
seamless way.
But maybe you reserve the rightfor some of these enterprise
features like single sign-on andsource control to more
sophisticated customers, right.
So when they actually get tothose thresholds, they know they
have to kind of gravitate outof self-service into kind of
what we call an enterprise or acommitted plan.
But again, to determine that,you have to kind of figure out
the role of self-service andthere's a lot of work that
(07:40):
organizations do and we did atAuth0 and Retool to kind of
figure out like hey, whatsegment of customers and size of
customers are engaging andcoming in from self-service?
Are they startups, are theymom-and-pop shops?
Are they smaller entities?
Are they ever going to need thesophistication of what our
enterprise plan needs?
So at OddZero, as an example, weknew that it didn't really
(08:02):
matter.
We basically wanted to give thecustomers access to the
platform and know that over timethey will need more
sophistication and they'llgravitate there.
So at Odd Zero it was clearly astepping stone and a lot of our
mid-size and small businesscustomers started off on
self-service.
But over time I would say likeless than a year they would
probably need moresophistication and get on our
(08:24):
enterprise plan.
So it actually really reallybecame a good source of where
pipeline came from for ourmid-market and small business
customers.
At Retool it's a little bitdifferent.
Right At Retool what we foundis there's a segment of our
customers that just will neverbe as sophisticated as some of
these larger accounts.
So we've designed ourself-service plans to be like
(08:46):
the permanent home for thesecustomers.
We know they'll always live inself-service.
They'll never, ever need togrow and mature and we've kind
of crafted our plans and ourpricing to accommodate that for
these customers to have apermanent home in self-service.
Sophie Buonassisi (09:02):
Before we dive in, a quick word on hiring.
It's a weird market out thereright now, but finding top
go-to-market talent is still oneof the biggest levers for
growth.
At GTM Fund, we've made over2,000 candidate intros and
placed hundreds of eight players.
One of our go-to recruitingpartners is Pursuit.
They specialize in sales andmarketing talent and they do it
without a retainer.
We work with them closelyacross many roles.
If you're hiring, go topursuitsalesolutionscom forward
(09:25):
slash GTM That'll be in the shownotes, or paying someone from
the GTM that'll be in the shownotes, or paying someone from
the GTM fund team.
We'll get you connected.
Now on to the episode.
And if you don't have, itsounds like at Auth0, you might
have had kind of a usage base orfunctionality base baked into
the product where they werehitting triggers.
Is that correct?
Ghazi Masood (09:41):
Yeah, that's right .
That's right.
I mean, yeah, user thresholdnumbers, just basically going
past their MEU allotment andalso using features that weren't
really part of the self-serviceplan.
So, again, we would not gateanything, which is an
interesting conversation tousually have with organizations.
We would basically allowcustomers to use anything they
(10:02):
actually wanted.
But we clearly had definitionsand documentation that stated
that if you aren't self-service,you have access to X.
So what would happen is certaincustomers, if they started
using things like multi-factorauthentication or they had more
users than what their planallowed, that would basically be
a signal for sales topotentially reach out to these
(10:23):
customers and just have a goodconversation.
Go, hey, we understand, it'sbeen three months and you're
kind of using these capabilities.
Just know that that's not partof your plan.
Let's kind of get you rightsize into the right plan.
So that's really how we kind ofdesigned our packages.
Sophie Buonassisi (10:35):
Oh, interesting.
Okay, so you weren't gatinganything.
They could use anyfunctionality and then that
would be a trigger, a signal forthe sales team to then reach
out.
Put a Tetron Sounds like.
Ghazi Masood (10:46):
That's right.
Sophie Buonassisi (10:47):
Like, if there is nothing gated, you know
, would access to some of thosepremium functionalities expire
at a certain point.
Ghazi Masood (10:57):
No, our philosophy was we want people to use the
product and we want them to getwhat they need out of the
product Right.
And again, this wasn't ahardcore sales approach where if
someone is two users over theirallotment, they're going to get
a call from sales and sales isgoing to move them over to the
plan.
This was like sustained Like ifthere's like three months of
(11:19):
use of something they're notlicensed for, they're probably
going to get a call from someonein sales to kind of right-size
them into the plan.
So it was a very mutualconversation.
We hardly had any conflict withcustomers and usually customers
know that if they're usingcapabilities like this, they
probably need to move over tothe plan.
And again, everything isdocumented.
So it's kind of spelled blackand white as to what that plan
includes and what that plandoesn't include.
Sophie Buonassisi (11:42):
That's a really, really interesting model
, ghazi, because we see a lot ofcompanies gating it and making
it very evident.
You know when you're hittingthat trigger.
You've got a pop-up, you've gotsome kind of blocker to actual
utilization, but you took theopposite approach.
You un-gated everything.
Having taken that approach,having seen tons of other PLG
(12:02):
companies now through companiesyou work for, companies you
advise, is there an approachthat you would recommend over
the other?
Ghazi Masood (12:09):
Self-service should be about getting as many
users onto your platform asquickly as possible and being as
frictionless as you can bewithin your signup flow.
Right, you want to get massadoption on self-service and
again, you want to be clear whatself-service is for right.
And then if, all of a sudden, ifcustomers get on self-service
and they're loving your productand adoption is going through
(12:30):
the roof, they're doing more,more and more, I think that's a
great thing.
It's good for the customer,it's good for you as a company
and then you can actuallyeventually kind of help the
customer kind of grow and matureinto the right plan that they
actually see.
So I think if it's done rightand if it's done correctly, with
just a lot of upfront data anddocumentation, I think it really
(12:52):
is a frictionless conversation.
I don't think any customer Imean there are customers I think
if I recall back on those days,there were clearly customers
who weren't aware that, oh myGod, they've gone over their
usage limit by X, they'vebrought their users back down
and that's okay.
But there are also customersthat continue to have excess
usage, that you actually end upright-sizing the plant.
(13:12):
So I actually prefer that model.
It just allows for frictionlessadoption of the technology and
the solution and super tactical.
Sophie Buonassisi (13:21):
But what does that documentation you
mentioned look like?
Ghazi Masood (13:25):
So it's just plans on our website.
So all of the price plans arepublished on the website under
the pricing page, and under thepricing page you can actually
see I think the names that weactually had were.
There was a free plan, then Ithink there was the business
plan.
I think the business plan Iforget the name of the other one
, but I think there aredifferent plans.
(13:46):
Think of it as like bronze,silver, gold, right.
So if you have those planspublished on your website and
you kind of say, hey, if yousign up for the bronze plan,
here's what the bronze planactually includes.
If you go to the silver plan,here's what the silver plan
includes.
So it's clearly documented onthe website as to what plan the
customer is actually signing upfor.
Sophie Buonassisi (14:05):
Love it.
And let's say there's a companythat is entirely PLG right now.
They're PLG.
They want to layer in an SLGapproach and start to move and
create that SLG motion andmuscle in general.
Everything is gated by, youknow, paywalls that they hit.
It's entirely product driven.
Right now they want to layerthat in.
(14:26):
Would the first step be then toungate everything and actually
then do the sales outreachaccordingly and to peel back all
the gatekeeping within theproduct?
Ghazi Masood (14:38):
Yeah, you could gatekeep it.
Make sure your plans areclearly published on your
website or on what each planincludes the price point for
each plan and just let it go.
And just let it go and seewhere customers kind of
naturally migrate.
That's all it's going to do.
Sophie Buonassisi (14:56):
Love it?
Yeah, love it.
Pricing is certainly one of thehardest parts of scaling SaaS.
Ghazi Masood (15:01):
It is.
Sophie Buonassisi (15:03):
How did you figure out when it was time to
move from pay-as-you-go toannual contracts?
Ghazi Masood (15:10):
Yeah, I mean so pay-as-you-go.
Most self-service customers inboth Retool and Auth0, they're
pay-as-you-go.
They're basically monthlycredit card swipes right,
they're monthly credit cardswipes right, they're monthly
credit card swipes.
We did provide discounts forcustomers who would sign up for
annual contracts, but very fewself-service customers actually
sign up for annual contracts.
They actually want to just dopay-as-you-go and swipe credit
(15:32):
cards, which I think is fine.
I think it comes down tosophistication.
So as customers mature and growand they know themselves
they're not really aself-service profiled account
because they're using a lot moreusers or they're using these
advanced capabilities, then Ithink it's a natural
conversation to talk to salesand get into an annual contract
and again, that's also publishedon the website, right, knowing
(15:54):
that if you actually everoutgrow these plans, you do have
to be on an annual contract andtalk to sales.
Sophie Buonassisi (16:00):
Makes sense.
Ghazi, you've advised andworked at a ton of incredible
companies, notably PLGproduct-led growth companies.
What's the biggest go-to-marketmistake that you see
early-stage companies makingright now?
Ghazi Masood (16:18):
Yeah, I think, from a PLG perspective, I think
the biggest thing I thinkcompanies struggle with is to
really really define, you know,if you don't know what the role
of self-service in your businessshould be, right, I think you
really really need to definewhat the role of self-service is
to really kind of helpdetermine the journey you want
to take your customers on.
(16:39):
So that's one thing.
The other thing also is for alot of PLG companies and in fact
the companies that you'rereferencing, like Odd Zero and
Retool that I was at, they werePLG, but they were PLG to a very
, very specific persona, Like itwas a technical buyer, it was
developers and engineers thatwere really engaging with the
product, and developers andengineers don't like to deal
(17:01):
with salespeople, right.
So I think one of the thingsthat we did that had a huge,
huge advantage is to have likeproduct-based reach-outs within
self-service to those folks outthere where if it's a new
feature, new capability, youknow, new ship that's coming out
, you basically haveproduct-based updates that it's
going out.
I think that's another thingthat a lot of PLG companies
(17:23):
sometimes don't reallyincorporate or do right out of
the gate with that, which Ithink is super, super beneficial
.
Sophie Buonassisi (17:31):
Incredible, and I've heard you say that the
traditional account modeldoesn't really fit AI-native
companies like Cursor Windsurf.
What structure does work inthat case?
Ghazi Masood (17:42):
Yeah, yeah, this is a fun topic to riff on, like
we could probably have an entirepodcast.
Uh, you said this topic.
It's crazy, right.
I mean, I think, as everyonesees, um, the, the traditional
b2b sass landscape is completelyevolving.
You've got companies getting to100 million dollars really
(18:03):
coming out of stealth mode withno salespeople, and you know
it's just fantastic to see thatlevel of growth out there.
I think for these companies, Ithink the traditional B2B SaaS
model doesn't really apply,right, I mean, why would you
want to go hire a bunch of SDRs,salespeople, ses, customer
success people, where you'vegrown to $100 billion without a
(18:25):
single one of them, right?
I mean, if I was a founder ofone of those companies, I would
be kind of questioning the samething.
So what my belief is and thisis my personal belief I think,
like for these organizations, asthey scale and grow, they need
to kind of rethink theirgo-to-market footprint.
And what I think is going tostart evolving and you're
(18:45):
starting to see this a littlebit in some companies out there
is the role of what I kind ofcall a GTM engineer.
You can kind of label it whatyou want, but essentially what a
GTM engineer is is it's a kindof a jack of all trades.
They're one individual.
But that individual can playthe role of an SDR, they can
qualify pipeline, they can playthe role of an SE and demo the
product, they can actually goout and close the deal like an
(19:07):
account executive and they canalso do upsell like an account
manager or a CSF.
So that's a tough role.
So that's basically almost likefour roles in one.
But I think, as theseorganizations scale and grow and
try to run like an efficientmodel, I think it's the way to
go.
I think it's really the way togo is having somebody who can
kind of specialize in all one ofthose areas.
Sophie Buonassisi (19:30):
So do you think that will entirely replace
specialization withgo-to-market engineers and these
more broad roles then?
Ghazi Masood (19:40):
At some point.
I think the equation that Ikind of think about is these
organizations that are scalingso fast.
They know they need to put ago-to-market foundation in place
and I think this is probablythe best way for them to start.
Obviously, as those companiesinvolve and they have, like
multi-product and more complexthings to go sell, that will
(20:02):
probably augment their approachto this.
But my belief in what I justmentioned is just right out of
the gate.
You know, as organizationsscale and grow and I'm talking
about companies like LovableReplit Cursor I think they're
all gravitating towards this,right.
Even their founding teams are,because I've had conversations
with them they're like hey,we've gone to $100, $150 million
with not a single sales rep.
(20:23):
Why do I need a sales rep,right?
So I think this is a model forthose type of companies that
want to kind of grow efficientlyand grow in a manner that's
sustainable for them for thatperiod of time.
Sophie Buonassisi (20:34):
Is this what you then recommend to a lot of
the PLG companies that youadvise?
Would it be, when they'relooking to go SLG, to actually
hire a GTM engineer orequivalent, first be?
Ghazi Masood (20:44):
when they're looking to go SLG to actually
hire a GTM engineer orequivalent first.
Yeah, I mean, it depends on thecompany, right?
I think not necessarily for SLG.
I think for PLG this could belike a very, very good function.
I think SLG in theseorganizations is probably a bit
different, because you'retesting your messaging, you're
(21:08):
trying to go outbound and you'retrying to see so you have to
kind of see the traction you'regetting If you're getting the
level of qualification that youare on inbound and your messages
are resonating and the pipelineis just a shrunk and
potentially you could adopt thesame model on outbound.
But usually what I find andagain proof will be the pudding,
because I think a lot of thisis also so new is is the
outbound messaging resonating asfast as what inbound is?
With a lot of these companiesout there?
(21:29):
I think kind of time will tellA lot of these companies.
By the way, they don't reallyhave an outbound motion today at
all.
It's all purely inbound andthere's so much pent up demand
and stuff that they can't get to.
They need to go staff a rolelike this to actually capture
that demand.
So outbound just kind of justdepends on the traction and the
(21:51):
volume that you actually see inthe business.
Sophie Buonassisi (21:54):
Definitely.
We've got one of our portfoliocompanies.
They launched in within threedays.
It's a PLG company.
It's about building web apps,mobile apps, no code, not
anything.
But they launched and withinthree days they had over 3
million views.
They went viral, they had over500,000 signups.
So they're in a similarsituation where a sales rep is
the last thing they're thinkingabout.
(22:15):
They're thinking about how do Ihire and maintain the actual
demand that we already have?
So the go-to-market engineerrole is a pivotal one in that.
Ghazi Masood (22:25):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Sophie Buonassisi (22:28):
Just tying it all together a little bit.
And so let's say, just to riffon this a little bit further,
because we could spend the wholesession on this but let's say
somebody hires a go-to-marketengineer in and you mentioned to
start with the go-to-marketfoundation.
What, in your opinion, doesthat starting of the
go-to-market foundation looklike for a PLG company?
Ghazi Masood (22:50):
I would say universal is to hire good people
and build a foundation.
Most companies who aresuccessful are successful
because of the talent and thefoundation that's laid out
without any bottlenecks.
So I think what's universal isyou got to go find good people.
You know references and trackrecord and stuff they've
actually done.
You definitely want to go dothat.
(23:11):
What breaks sometimes that I'veseen that organizations is
sometimes people are very, veryquick to throw bodies at the
problem.
They'll say, oh my God, we need50 salespeople or we need 50
GTM engineers.
I think you need to be very,very systematic and pragmatic
when you go hire people and thenumber of people you go hire.
(23:31):
So usually you want to makesure you've got enough demand
and enough pipeline needs to gosupport the number of people you
go hire out there.
But again, what's universal tome is you've got to go hire good
people.
You've got to make sure theycome from a good background
that's kind of relevant to yourindustry.
And then you want to make sureyou know you're working with
finance and rev ops and the restof the team to really really
determine the number of folksyou actually need and is that
(23:53):
the right number?
Can the business sustain it andcan really really sustain it,
or do they need to actually slowdown or go faster, depending on
where the pipeline starts?
Sophie Buonassisi (24:05):
Makes sense and you've led go-to-market at
some of the most iconiccompanies in tech Microsoft,
oracle, acero, retool.
What's a leadership principlethat you take with you
everywhere?
Ghazi Masood (24:17):
like three things about me and my leadership style
is I'm one that kind of leadsby example.
So I'm constantly out in thefield helping the team win and
(24:38):
interface a lot with customersout there.
And, you know, really like toestablish this notion of like we
win together and we losetogether.
Right there isn't like if youwin a big deal, it's not just
the AE who gets all therecognition, it's a team,
collaborative effort.
And if we lose the deal, it'snot just on like the CSM that we
lost the deal or product.
You know we kind of losetogether and we learn from it.
And then, finally, you know, aseveryone knows, b2b SaaS is
hard.
It's a lot of hours, a lot ofcrazy hours and you want to make
(25:03):
sure you have fun along the way.
And those are like the threebig things for me in the culture
that I like to go out and build.
Sophie Buonassisi (25:10):
Always fun, yeah, always fun.
Necessary Building is hard,somebody said the other day
actually, you know, you think itgets easier after the initial
building stages.
It doesn't.
It just changes and evolves.
It's always hard and that's thefun.
So, finding the fun in theprocess, that's right.
Those are fantastic leadershipprinciples and I love that
everyone would say the samething too.
You've got the consistency.
(25:31):
Yeah, any frameworks that youfound particularly helpful that
you'd recommend?
Ghazi Masood (25:36):
Oh God, I've done so many over the years.
You know everything from likeSandler to MedPick.
I mean my favorite are like aMedPick and Solution Sales 2.0.
And Solution Sales 2.0 is adifferent iteration of the
original Solution Sales modelthat used to be out there.
So I incorporated both of theseat some of the recent companies
that I've been at.
(25:56):
So I'm a big fan of those.
Medpick and Solution Sales arethe two that kind of resonate
and stand out to me.
Sophie Buonassisi (26:03):
Brilliant.
And what about resources?
Is there a book that's made thebiggest impact on your career?
Ghazi.
Ghazi Masood (26:15):
A lot of good books out there.
There's Good to Grade, there's,I mean, a lot of good books out
there that I'm sure many of youare aware of, but the few
recently at both of my recentcompanies that we leveraged,
that we basically kind ofactually adopted their
leadership and organizationalprinciples, is the table group
and the five dysfunctions of ateam.
So that's a really, really goodbook to really really
understand the dynamics of theteam and how to collaborate and
(26:38):
work effectively well as aleadership organization, and
that really applies to theentire org.
It really, really helps you setyour operational discipline,
kind of your cadence that youwant to run the business and
kind of how you want to, whatyou want to prioritize and what
you want to focus on.
So I highly recommend that book.
Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
Sophie Buonassisi (26:59):
We'll drop it in the show notes and I'd be
remiss if I didn't ask you alittle bit about AI.
If anything, it feels like it'sgetting more important or will
get more important with theadvent of AI and the ability to
send emails at ease and havethem streamed out of your inbox
the way that you've got itstreamlined right.
So how do you actually breakthrough the noise and get that
human interaction 100% Brilliantand where can people find you
(27:23):
if they want to follow yourjourney or get in touch?
Ghazi Masood (27:25):
LinkedIn is a good spot.
I try to keep that up to datethe best I can.
I'm happy to engage with anyonewho reaches out to help.
I've been in the go-to-marketfor a very, very long time and I
like to help individuals go outand either help advance their
careers or help in any which wayI can by giving them advice.
So happy to engage with any ofyou.
Sophie Buonassisi (27:44):
That's incredible.
Thank you, Gazio.
We appreciate the conversationhere today and then everything
that you do for.
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