Making The Grade

The GTM Playbook that works in 2026: Amelia Scott on scaling Culture Amp from $15M to $170M without sales commission

What does it actually take to build a world-class sales culture?  Amelia Scott [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelia-scott-2b532451/] knows better than most. She spent nearly seven years at Culture Amp [https://www.cultureamp.com/], joining as a senior AE when the business was at $15M ARR and leaving as VP of Global Sales at $170M.  During her tenure, she took the EMEA business from $1.5M to $40M, and learned some hard, invaluable lessons along the way about talent, culture, regional expansion and what revenue leadership actually requires. Now working as a fractional CRO, Amelia is right at the sharp end of how AI is reshaping the GTM function.  In today’s Making The Grade episode, she shares what she's learned across both sides of that journey, how to build sales teams without a commission structure and where AI is genuinely delivering ROI right now.   📚 Episode Chapters 02:10 - Culture Amp’s scaling journey  08:50 - Scaling without sales commission   11:30 - How to expand into multiple regions  21:00 - The evolving role of the CRO   28:45 - Where AI is adding value & where the gaps are Enjoyed today's episode of Making The Grade?  If you took something valuable from the episode, we'd love for you to...  ✔️ Leave us a rating and review on your favourite podcast platform.  ✔️ Share your ideas or guest suggestions with us at podcast@scalewise.com [podcast@scalewise.com] ✔️ Stay in the loop with the latest from Making The Grade and ScaleWise by following us on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/scalewise/] or YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@ScaleWise-GTM].  See you again next week!

Bootstrapping to $45M ARR: Guillaume Moubeche on scaling efficiently without any VC trade-offs

What does it actually take to build a $45M ARR SaaS business without raising a penny of VC money?  Guillaume Moubeche, Founder of Lemlist [https://www.lemlist.com/], knows better than most. Starting with just €1,000 and rejections from 30 VCs, Guillaume built one of the most recognised outbound sales tools in the world, bootstrapped, community-led, and stubbornly focused on doing fewer things better. In this Making The Grade episode, Guillaume unpacks the full journey from building in public before it was fashionable, why the constraint of having no money forced the creativity that capital never could have bought, and his refreshingly honest reflections on what didn’t work along the journey.  Plus, we look ahead and discuss what the future of outbound and the SDR realistically looks like in an AI-native world.    📚 Episode Chapters 04:10 - Bootstrapping in a crowded market 06:20 - Repeatability, Community and Content 13:00 - Bootstrapping advantages VC money can’t buy 25:00 - GTM & Hiring lessons from scaling to $45M ARR  37:00 - The future of GTM in an AI-native world Enjoyed today's episode of Making The Grade?  If you took something valuable from the episode, we'd love for you to...  ✔️ Leave us a rating and review on your favourite podcast platform.  ✔️ Share your ideas or guest suggestions with us at podcast@scalewise.com [podcast@scalewise.com] ✔️ Stay in the loop with the latest from Making The Grade and ScaleWise by following us on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/scalewise/] or YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@ScaleWise-GTM].  See you again next week!

What Investors Really Look for: Hillel Zidel on the moves and decisions that make or break the One to Ten Million journey

What does an investor actually see when they look under the hood of a 1 to 10 Million journey? And what really separates the companies that break through from those that quietly stall? We’re joined by Hillel Zidel, Managing Director at Kennet Partners, to find out. Kennet Partners invests in founder-led, capital-efficient B2B SaaS companies at precisely the stage where growth either compounds or gets stuck, making Hillel one of the most informed voices on what this journey actually takes. In this episode, Tom and Hillel dig into the predictors he uses to assess whether a company will scale, the hidden dangers of moving from inbound to outbound too aggressively, and why the "shiny shoe" CRO hire so often ends in disappointment.  This episode is essential listening for any founder or revenue leader navigating the 1 to 10 Million journey.  📚 Episode Chapters: 01:50 - What changes at the 1 to 10 Million stage  05:00 - Predictors of early-stage growth  09:50 - The inbound to outbound danger zone  15:30 - US Expansion: When it actually makes sense  29:30 - What ‘marketable’ looks like today   🎧 Continue listening…  Make sure you listen to From Chaos to Predictability: Pete Crosby's Honest Lessons on the One to Ten Million Journey [https://www.scalewise.com/pete-crosby/] Enjoyed today's episode of Making The Grade?  If you took something valuable from the episode, we'd love for you to...  ✔️ Leave us a rating and review on your favourite podcast platform.  ✔️ Share your ideas or guest suggestions with us at podcast@scalewise.com [podcast@scalewise.com] ✔️ Stay in the loop with the latest from Making The Grade and ScaleWise by following us on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/scalewise/] or YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@ScaleWise-GTM].  See you again next week!

From Chaos to Predictability: Pete Crosby's Honest Lessons on the One to Ten Million Journey

If you're building a venture-backed software startup and trying to navigate the messy, exhilarating, often brutal stretch from $1M to $10M ARR, this episode is essential listening. In this Making The Grade episode, we’re joined by Pete Crosby [https://uk.linkedin.com/in/peterdcrosby], Founder of Revelesco [https://www.revelesco.com/] and one of the most experienced revenue coaches in the UK startup ecosystem.  Pete has helped countless founders and CROs find clarity, fix alignment, and scale with real commercial rigour. In this conversation, Pete shares the patterns he sees repeatedly across the companies he works with, and the frameworks he uses to help them break through. Pete also shares the human side of scaling - why team alignment is the silent killer of otherwise great businesses, what makes a true builder in the one to ten phase, and how the best GTM leaders think about culture, hiring, and diversity. Whether you're a founder, a CRO, or a revenue leader trying to level up, Pete's insight is the kind of hard-won wisdom you'd normally only access through years of experience.  📚 Episode Chapters 01:40 - The root cause of stalled growth   05:30 - Finding your ICP with discipline  10:30 - The four phases of scaling internationally  18:00 - Defining true predictability  21:30 - Team alignment & hiring diverse teams  🎧 Continue listening…  Make sure you listen to Reshaping GTM in the AI Era - Harrison Rose on repeatable GTM and scaling beyond Founder-Led Sales  Enjoyed today's episode of Making The Grade?  If you took something valuable from the episode, we'd love for you to...  ✔️ Leave us a rating and review on your favourite podcast platform.  ✔️ Share your ideas or guest suggestions with us at podcast@scalewise.com [podcast@scalewise.com] ✔️ Stay in the loop with the latest from Making The Grade and ScaleWise by following us on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/scalewise/] or YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@ScaleWise-GTM].  See you again next week!

Reshaping GTM in the AI Era - Harrison Rose on repeatable GTM and scaling beyond Founder-Led Sales

Harrison Rose [https://uk.linkedin.com/in/harrisonroseuk] has lived the journey most founders only see from the outside. As Co-Founder of Paddle, he helped scale from zero to $100M+ revenue - without the “overnight success” story everyone loves to tell. Now he’s doing it again with GoodFit [https://www.goodfit.io/], turning the market-mapping and ICP systems Paddle built internally into a product built for modern GTM teams. In this episode, Harrison breaks down the real inflexion points that unlocked Paddle’s growth, why founder-led sales is often misunderstood, and how teams get trapped at $2–3M ARR when “founder privilege” masks the lack of a scalable playbook. You’ll also hear Harrison’s clear-eyed take on bootstrapping vs VC, and how AI is moving from “more output” to actually making GTM decisions, including the coming tension over who owns the top of funnel: CRO or CMO. 📚 Episode Chapters 05:15 - When to hire experienced Sales Leaders  08:45 - A focus on cold outbound  11:25 - Seeing ICP as a spectrum 19:30 - Building true repeatability   25:15 - Funding & the future of AI  🎧 Continue listening…  Make sure you listen to From Inception to Acquisition: Natasha Ratanshi-Stein on scaling Surfboard, stage-fit hiring and the importance of founder-led sales [https://www.scalewise.com/natasha-ratanshi-stein/] Enjoyed today's episode of Making The Grade?  If you took something valuable from the episode, we'd love for you to...  ✔️ Leave us a rating and review on your favourite podcast platform.  ✔️ Share your ideas or guest suggestions with us at podcast@scalewise.com [podcast@scalewise.com] ✔️ Stay in the loop with the latest from Making The Grade and ScaleWise by following us on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/scalewise/] or YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@ScaleWise-GTM].  See you again next week!