From Left To Right: Chris Balestras (co-founder, Crew), Mark Ebert (SVP Revenue, Profound), Jack Gashi (VP Sales, Avoca), Graham Moreno (Head of GTM, Parallel), Liam Mulcahy (GTM, Parallel)
Quick housekeeping: we're rebranding from Vibescaling to Crew. Over the next few weeks, this newsletter will start arriving from mail.withcrew.blog. If it ever lands in spam or Promotions, drag it to your primary inbox - biggest thing you can do to make sure you don't miss future sends. Appreciate you.
Two weeks ago, Crew (fka vibescaling, we changed our name!), and the folks at Avoca (thanks for giving us the space), Parallel, and Profound co-hosted a private GTM mixer in Union Square with ~100 of the best AEs in NYC on the topic of “How To Choose Your Next Startup Like A VC.”
See below for some highlights from it:
Big thank you to our panelists, which are some of the best GTM leaders in AI right now:
Mark Ebert, SVP of Revenue @ Profound (check out our podcast with him here)
Jack Gashi, VP of Sales @ Avoca (check out our podcast with him here)
Graham Moreno, Head of GTM @ Parallel (podcast episode filmed, will ship soon)
Liam Mulcahy, GTM @ Parallel (check out our podcast with him here)
It was an awesome turnout, ~100 of some of the best AI-native GTM operators in NYC (mainly AEs).
For those new here, Crew is a GTM recruiting, media, and investing firm. We throw private monthly events like this in NYC/SF, shoot me a DM if you’d want to be considered for the next one.
Here are my 5 takeaways from the event:
The Key Points
#1 - PMF Is Binary, And You Want To Feel Dragged By The Horse
Line of the night, courtesy of one of the panelists: "PMF is the difference between pushing a horse vs getting dragged behind one."
Every panelist said some version of the same thing: PMF is binary. You have it or you don't.
The filter they're using to test it is whether the same product can land at a YC seed-stage startup and at a Fortune 50 with basically the same use case.
If yes, you're standing in front of a real horizontal tailwind.
The proof point that stuck with me: one of the panelists shared that the first two salespeople at their company both hit $5M in their first year. That's not just skill for it to happen. That's a product getting dragged out the door by demand and need for the product.
You only want to join companies where the horse is dragging the org forward, not the other way around.
Heavy inbound is usually a great proxy, and even when you do outbound at one of these companies, there's a tailwind behind every touch you just don't get at a company still searching for fit.
We wrote more about the traits that make a hot sales job here.
some of the crowd in attendance
#2 - Founder Conviction On GTM Is The Whole Game
Every panelist had a version of the same evaluation question: do the founders actually understand go-to-market, or do they treat it as a necessary evil?
The answer to that question predicts almost everything downstream. Comp, enablement, headcount investment, willingness to defend deals internally, etc.
The two extremes the room called out:
Red flag: Founders who think AI eliminates the need for (most) salespeople. This is more common than you'd think right now with some of these early-stage companies.
Good sign: Founders who can walk through a deal review better than the rep can. They know the champion, the blockers, the economic buyer, the timeline. They treat GTM as a weapon, not a cost center.
One panelist shared a great test he runs on founders: ask them to describe a deal they're proud of winning, but only focusing on the people side. No product talk. If they light up and can walk you through champions, multithreading, and how they handled a blocker, that's the kind of founder you want to work for.
#3 - People > Market, Title, Or Comp
One panelist's career was a clinic on talent density. He's basically just followed specific leaders across multiple companies. Market and logo were downstream of the people.
His quote: "Pick people over chasing markets, titles, or comp."
This was the #1 trait that we put in our article here as well on what makes a great sales job. Talent density is so much of the game in order to get in the right rooms now and moving forward.
A few specific tests the panel mentioned for evaluating a leader before you join their org:
Followership. If 20-30 people have followed a single leader across multiple companies, that's about as strong a signal as you can find in GTM.
Where their former team members are now. Good leaders develop people who get promoted elsewhere. If their old reports are running orgs at top companies today, that tells you basically everything.
Backchannel references. Not the ones the leader gives you. The ones you find yourself.
If the leader checks those boxes, the rest of the decision gets a lot easier.
#4 - The AE Job Is Collapsing Into One Technical Operator
The macro point a few panelists kept making: AI is turning most verticals into two-horse races within 6 months. Product gaps that used to take a year to close now close in weeks. Competitors copy features almost as fast as you can ship them.
So if product isn't the long-term moat anymore, what is? GTM execution. As one panelist put it, "you can't vibe code an army." Sales teams are way harder to replicate than features.
The downstream effect on the AE job itself is real and happening now:
Pre-sale and post-sale roles are collapsing into one. Sellers need real technical fluency. SEs need real selling chops. The traditional split is fading.
The traditional CSM role is disappearing. What's replacing it is a technical account manager who can actually expand the account, not just renew it.
The new bar is: one operator who can carry a deal from first touch through expansion, with AI tooling backing them up.
The quote of the night on this one: "Ignorance is not bliss, ignorance is unemployment."
If you're in GTM today and you're not actively getting more technical (using the product daily, getting comfortable with APIs, MCPs, agent stacks, etc), you're losing ground.
The reps compounding the fastest right now are the ones who treat technical fluency as a core part of the job, not an SE problem.
#5 - Run Your Search Like An Enterprise Deal (And Use Top Rep Comp As The Tell)
This was the most tactical part of the night, and probably the most useful one for anyone currently in process.
The candidates who stood out were running their own interview process the way they'd run a complex enterprise deal. Multithreaded, researched, product-fluent, energetic.
A few specific things that came up:
Multithread before the final round. Talk to 5-6 people already on the team. Fellow AEs, SDRs, SEs, current managers. Build groundswell from inside before the offer conversation. This is enterprise selling 101 and almost no candidates do it.
Use the product before the interview. If they sell an API, hit the docs and build something. Send a Loom of what you built. If it's a horizontal tool, use it for a week and bring real observations.
Front-run your objections. Whatever they're going to be nervous about on your background, name it first. Tell them how you'd derisk it.
Energy. This came up a lot. Multiple panelists said strong resume candidates regularly tank the interview on energy alone.
The framing that landed: "Is this person's career happening to them, or are they driving it?" Every part of your process should signal the latter.
On the flip side, when you're the one evaluating them, the cleanest single signal I've seen is also the simplest: how much is your top rep making this year?
If the answer is high (and ideally uncomfortably high for the CFO), that's about as good a signal as you can get that this is a place where a salesperson can actually win.
A few proxies that came up:
CEO is public about wanting to pay salespeople a lot. Big green flag. Usually means the founder gets GTM as a weapon.
Median rep is clearing quota. Becoming the new standard at the best AI-natives. If the median is missing, the plan or the product is broken.
Less tolerance for average performance, but bigger upside for top performers. Orgs are running leaner with higher-performing reps. Not a bad thing if you're confident you're in the top half. It's a really good time to be a top performer.
The through-line across all 5: the bar for what counts as a good AI-native GTM role has gone way up, and the operators who treat their own search like an enterprise sale are the ones landing in the best seats.
Stay tuned for the next one. We're throwing these monthly between SF and NYC.
If you want on the list for the next one, DM me.
And if you're a BDR, AE, or sales leader curious about what's out there in AI-native GTM right now, DM me on that too 🙂.
Thanks for reading and being a supporter of what we're building.
For those who are new, my name is Chris Balestras, co-founder + head of talent, media, & brand @ Crew - a GTM recruiting, media, and investing firm.
Where to find Crew:
We work with most of the hottest AI-native startups in different capacities, and for those who are interested in chatting (whether to join one of them or to work together), shoot me an email at [email protected] or a DM on LI.
🫡 cheers,
Chris