How Splunk Scaled to a $10B IPO: Tom Schodorf’s GTM Playbook for Founders

How Splunk Scaled to a $10B IPO: Tom Schodorf’s GTM Playbook for Founders

What if the sales strategies that built a $10B IPO could transform your go-to-market engine? In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with Tom Schodorf, the sales leader who helped scale Splunk from startup to a $10B IPO, to unpack what actually builds a high-performing go-to-market engine. Tom explains why defining your ICP and aligning company-wide messaging matter far more than aggressive hiring, and how documenting a repeatable sales process creates sustainable growth.  He also shares hard-earned lessons about hiring the right support structure around sales teams, avoiding short-term thinking, and building a culture rooted in discipline, coaching, and accountability. From the “unit of one” hiring framework to adapting sales strategies in the AI era, this conversation offers founders and revenue leaders a practical blueprint for scaling without losing focus, clarity, or long-term momentum in increasingly competitive markets today.  Here’s what you will learn: * How to define your ICP as the foundation for everything * The whiteboarding exercise that aligns your entire company on messaging * Why a documented sales process scales faster than individual heroics * The "unit of one" framework for hiring support roles, not just quota carriers * How to hire for the long term, not just growth * Why your CEO's 88th Floor "don't screw it up" moment should reshape how you lead * The difference between early-stage and scale-stage sales hiring * How to cut through AI noise and stay focused on timeless value creation Tom Schodorf is a veteran sales and go-to-market executive best known for helping scale Splunk from startup to a $10B IPO. A former SVP of Field Operations at Splunk, he now serves as a board member, advisor, and coach to cybersecurity and AI infrastructure companies. With deep expertise across SaaS, cloud, and enterprise technology, Tom specializes in building scalable revenue organizations, aligning culture with execution, and driving long-term growth. His leadership philosophy combines disciplined processes, ethical decision-making, and customer-first thinking to create durable, high-performing teams.  Episode Resources: * Tom Schodorf on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomschodorf/] * The Success Cadence, the definitive guide to building rapid growth sales cultures [https://www.amazon.com/Success-Cadence-David-Mattson/dp/0578498103] * Sage Nye on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sage-nye/] * Venture Guides Website [https://www.ventureguides.com/] * Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-built-not-born-podcast/id1538583934] * Built Not Born on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/7FtY9wQJHVPa7gqovPYLUg] Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so [https://www.fame.so/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=masters-of-community-with-david-spinks?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=fame-client]

Why Most Startups Fail: Founders Don’t Know What They Don’t Know Yet

What if the real edge in building and investing in companies is knowing exactly where your knowledge stops? In this episode of Built Not Born [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/built-not-born-the-startup-go-to-market-podcast/id1806125745], host Sage Nye sits down with Dave Fachetti [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davefachetti/], Partner at Venture Guides [https://www.ventureguides.com/], to unpack the operator–investor mindset that drives durable outcomes. Drawing on decades of experience, Dave explains why great founders prioritize solving painful, urgent problems before optimizing execution, and how this “efficacy before efficiency” mindset underpins true product-market fit. He introduces his “know what you don’t know” test as a lens for evaluating founders, emphasizing self-awareness, curiosity, and coachability as critical traits. The conversation also explores cap table strategy as a long-term system, the importance of aligning all stakeholders, and why board dysfunction guarantees failure. Dave shares practical frameworks for hiring, leadership, and navigating AI opportunities, while highlighting the balance between conviction and listening. It’s a grounded playbook for founders and investors aiming to build resilient, high-performing companies. Here’s what you will learn: * How to evaluate founders using the "Know What You Don't Know" test * The critical difference between efficacy and efficiency in product-market fit * Why "painful problems" are your moat in B2B software * The cap table management principle that founders ignore at their peril * How to build a leadership team that scales without micromanaging * The "dysfunction guarantees failure" principle for board dynamics * Why the "move fast and raise big" AI strategy works for only a few * How to structure investor relationships that actually help Dave Fachetti is a Partner at Venture Guides, a seed-stage investment firm focused on helping early-stage founders navigate the path from idea to growth. With nearly three decades of experience at the intersection of venture capital, cybersecurity, and executive leadership, Dave brings a rare dual perspective as both operator and investor. His career spans managing directorships at GlobeSpan Capital Partners, where he backed companies acquired by Citrix and Pegasystems, to serve as Chief Strategy Officer at BitSight, a cyber risk intelligence leader with $200M+ in revenue. Dave's operating experience includes scaling Family Education Network to 4M+ monthly visitors before its $175M acquisition by Pearson. Episode Resources: * Dave Fachetti on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davefachetti/] * Sage Nye on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sage-nye/] * Venture Guides Website [https://www.ventureguides.com/] * Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-built-not-born-podcast/id1538583934] * Built Not Born on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/7FtY9wQJHVPa7gqovPYLUg] Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so [https://www.fame.so/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=masters-of-community-with-david-spinks?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=fame-client]

The AI Hacker Era Is Here: Alissa Knight on Rewriting Cybersecurity

What happens when a former teenage hacker builds AI that can find security vulnerabilities before attackers do? In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye speaks with cybersecurity expert, CAIO, Founder, and CEO of Assail, Alissa Knight, about the rapidly evolving intersection of AI and offensive security. Once arrested for hacking as a teenager, Alissa went on to build Ares, a powerful AI model that autonomously discovers vulnerabilities in APIs, mobile apps, and web applications.  She explains why the age of adversarial AI means companies must shift from preventing attacks to continuously identifying weaknesses faster than attackers can exploit them. The conversation explores the rise of AI-driven security testing, the emerging “one-person unicorn” founder model, and how startups should think about hiring, fundraising, and defensibility in an AI-first world where directing intelligent systems may matter more than traditional expertise. Here’s what you will learn: * Why the genie is already out of the bottle, and why you must embrace adversarial AI  * How to democratize expert-level security talent through AI * The founder principle of interviewing your investors, not just the other way around * How to hire on personality first, skills second, and why it matters * The critical difference between "building AI safely" and "building AI defensively" * Why the future of enterprise work is human operators managing AI agents Alissa Knight is the Founder, CEO, and Chief AI Officer of Assail, where she leads the development of agentic AI systems for continuous exposure management. With more than 26 years in offensive security, she is widely recognized for uncovering vulnerabilities across critical infrastructure and enterprise APIs. A two-time founder with successful exits, Alissa has raised over $65 million and architected Ares, a 14-billion-parameter AI model designed for autonomous vulnerability discovery. Her research has influenced public policy, advised military institutions, and shaped modern cybersecurity practices. Episode Resources: * Alissa Knight on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alissaknight/] * Assail AI Website [https://www.assailai.com/] * Sage Nye on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sage-nye/] * Venture Guides Website [https://www.ventureguides.com/] * Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-built-not-born-podcast/id1538583934] * Built Not Born on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/7FtY9wQJHVPa7gqovPYLUg] Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so [https://www.fame.so/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=masters-of-community-with-david-spinks?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=fame-client]

Why Your GPU Investments Are Running at 40% Efficiency, and How Zymtrace Fixes It

What if your multi-million-dollar GPU investment was quietly delivering less than half its potential? In this episode of Built Not Born, the conversation focuses on why AI infrastructure performance often lags far behind spend, and how continuous profiling is emerging as a real competitive edge. Join host Sage Nye as she sits down with Israel Ogbole, CEO and cofounder of zymtrace, to explore why most GPU clusters run at just 20–40% utilisation, how traditional observability tools miss the real bottlenecks, and why profile-guided optimisation can unlock massive efficiency gains without demanding deep CUDA expertise. Israel shares hard-won lessons from building a must-have infrastructure product: validating real willingness to pay, avoiding “nice-to-have” traps, and navigating early founder dynamics.  The discussion also dives into the growing talent gap in low-level systems engineering, and how rich profiling data can become context for LLM-driven optimisation workflows. It’s a practical, insight-dense conversation for founders, operators, and AI leaders focused on extracting real returns from AI infrastructure, not just scaling hardware. Here’s what you will learn: * How to move beyond traditional observability tools * The ROI-driven shift in enterprise AI strategy * Why existing GPU profiling solutions create impossible operational burdens  * The three-question framework for validating product-market fit * How to recruit and retain specialist talent in niche infrastructure markets  * Profile-guided AI optimization: leveraging LLM context for automated code improvement Israel Ogbole is CEO and Co-Founder of zymtrace, an infrastructure optimization platform specializing in GPU and CPU workload profiling and efficiency. With a background spanning observability and monitoring at industry leaders including Microsoft, New Relic, AppDynamics, and Elastic, Israel brings deep expertise in continuous profiling, performance optimization, and distributed systems. He is recognized for pioneering profile-guided AI optimization techniques that leverage profiling data to enhance compiler efficiency and LLM-assisted code optimization. Episode Resources: * Israel Ogbole on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/israelo/?originalSubdomain=uk] * zymtrace Website [https://zymtrace.com/] * Sage Nye on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sage-nye/] * Venture Guides Website [https://www.ventureguides.com/] * Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-built-not-born-podcast/id1538583934] * Built Not Born on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/7FtY9wQJHVPa7gqovPYLUg] Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so [https://www.fame.so/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=masters-of-community-with-david-spinks?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=fame-client]

172 Rejections Later: How Stuart Lombard Built ecobee Into a Smart Home Leader

What if getting rejected 172 times was the best thing that could happen to your startup? In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with Stuart Lombard, co-founder and former CEO of ecobee, to unpack the grit and strategic clarity required to build a lasting company.  After 172 investor rejections, Stuart transformed ecobee into a trusted smart home brand competing against giants like Google and Nest. He shares how founders must develop the judgment to filter advice, balance hardware’s operational rigidity with software’s agility, and recognise true product-market fit before scaling.  Stuart also explains why culture, transparency, and mission-driven leadership aren’t soft ideals but competitive advantages. From navigating hardware complexity to building a 600-person organisation, this conversation reveals how resilience, focus, and long-term thinking turn scrappy startups into market leaders. Here’s what you will learn: * How to filter venture capital advice without becoming dismissive of it * Why hardware and software require fundamentally different operational cultures * The leadership reinvention framework for scaling from 10 to 600+ employees * How to identify and exploit a competitor's structural weaknesses * The two non-negotiable signals before scaling aggressively * Why transparency and mission-driven culture are competitive advantages Stuart Lombard is co-inventor and former CEO of ecobee, and an accidental entrepreneur whose career began after quitting a comfortable job to start one of Canada’s largest internet service providers. An engineer by training and former venture capital partner, he has built and scaled companies at the intersection of hardware and software. Passionate about sustainability, culture, and customer insight, Stuart believes businesses are community citizens. Under his leadership, ecobee became a globally loved smart home brand, helping save over 30 terawatt hours of energy. Episode Resources: * Stuart Lombard on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-lombard-88554/?originalSubdomain=ca] * ecobee Website [https://www.ecobee.com/en-us/?srsltid=AfmBOoos9UAQZU7z5LUO_Oxiv4G3x48RcXRWWRDj9Ql6lnlxAYEVkrUv] * Sage Nye on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sage-nye/] * Venture Guides Website [https://www.ventureguides.com/] * Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-built-not-born-podcast/id1538583934] * Built Not Born on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/7FtY9wQJHVPa7gqovPYLUg] Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so [https://www.fame.so/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=masters-of-community-with-david-spinks?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=bcast&utm_campaign=fame-client]