How GradBridge is building distribution through school partnerships to reach students at the point of decline | Jen O'Donald

How Avantos positioned against CRM by calling itself an operating system for client management — and why buyers got it immediately | Bassam Chaptini

Avantos AI [https://avantos.ai/] is replacing the fragmented patchwork of CRMs, task managers, and paper-based workflows that financial services firms have relied on for decades with a single operating system for client management. Built on a knowledge graph and AI-native from the ground up, Avantos models the full complexity of financial relationships — client data, the service team, and the products clients hold — as a unified, contextual graph rather than disconnected tables. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Bassam Chaptini [https://www.linkedin.com/in/bassam-chaptini-80ba6b4/], Co-Founder & CEO of Avantos AI, to hear how he and co-founder Rabih leveraged 20 years of financial services experience to identify a massive white space, validated it in stealth with a design partner before officially founding the company in September 2024, and are now expanding from wealth management into insurance, banking, and capital markets with anchor logos including Mercer Advisors, Guardian Life, Vanguard, and SEI. Topics Discussed: * Why wealth management became the beachhead — and how Mercer Advisors resolved the market selection question * The knowledge graph architecture decision: why relational tables broke down and what unlocked multi-entity data modeling * Why CRMs, task managers, and portfolio systems all fail at the same thing — and what "swivel chair" actually costs * How Avantos used Series A design partners at Guardian Life, Vanguard, and SEI to de-risk expansion into adjacent verticals * The category naming problem: why "CRM" is a hijacked term and what it takes to position as an operating system * Branding into a conservative enterprise buyer: the deliberate calibration between tech credibility and institutional trust * Why enterprise GTM at the foundational layer doesn't require marketing — and when that changes GTM Lessons For B2B Founders:  * Let the buyer who shows up first tell you which market to enter. Bassam and his co-founder had wealth management, insurance, capital markets, and banking all on the table simultaneously. What broke the tie wasn't analysis — it was Mercer Advisors arriving with a clear mandate. The president of Mercer came in saying what they had in place didn't work and wanted to co-build something new. Avantos partnered with them in stealth to validate the platform before officially founding the company. When a specific buyer shows up with that level of urgency and is willing to build with you, that's a stronger signal than any market sizing exercise. The analysis can follow. * Relational tables will eventually break your data model — know when to reach for a graph. When Avantos first tried to represent the three-way relationship between clients, the service team, and the products clients hold, they started with traditional relational tables. Bassam is direct about what happened: it got out of control quickly regardless of how you structure it, which is why firms revert to paper. The knowledge graph solved it because it can represent arbitrarily complex relationships between data entities without the model collapsing — and as a side effect, it turned out to be natively well-suited for AI agents, which require rich contextual data to operate effectively. For founders building in any domain with deeply interconnected entities, this is a meaningful architectural lesson about where relational models fail. //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io [http://www.frontlines.io] The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co [http://www.globaltalent.co] // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM [https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM]

How Nominal combined go-to-market engineering and CFO dinners to build a pipeline motion that converts | Guy Leibovitz

Most AI finance startups are chasing the same crowded ground — invoice processing, AP automation, SMB-friendly dashboards. ⁠Nominal⁠ [https://nominal.so/] is doing something different. ⁠Guy Leibovitz⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/guylaybovich/], a three-time founder with two exits, is building AI agents that replace the full manual workload of controllers and accountants — and he's selling it into mid-market and enterprise companies that nobody else is seriously going after. In this episode of BUILDERS, Guy gets into the hard pivots: walking away from a startup ICP mid-cycle, breaking up with customers that didn't fit (and feeling it in the revenue), and building a GTM motion that actually works at the enterprise level — not through brand spend or conference booths, but through a compounding combination of AI-powered outbound, go-to-market engineering, and field marketing that puts the right CFOs in the same room and lets the product sell itself. Topics Discussed: * Why Nominal started targeting startups — and the single customer conversation that changed everything * Competing on the labor budget, not the software budget — and why that reframe changes everything about the deal * What it cost Nominal in real revenue to fire customers outside their ICP — and why Guy says it was the right call * How Nominal built the Nobu Series: intimate CFO dinners in high-end sushi restaurants worldwide that generate pipeline without a single pitch * The GTM engineering + field marketing combo that Guy calls "unstoppable" — and how they actually built it * What a go-to-market engineer actually looks like at Nominal, and which backgrounds have performed * How Nominal tracks ROI on every event and marketing activity — and what got cut * Navigating the "AI will eliminate your team" conversation directly with CFOs * The single priority Nominal is locked into for 2026 GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: * Fire customers who don't fit your ICP — even when it hurts the quarter: Nominal made the deliberate call to walk away from customers that didn't fit their mid-market and enterprise ICP. Guy is explicit: it cost them hundreds of thousands in ARR at seed stage, and it hurt. But carrying the wrong customers slows everything — product focus, team energy, positioning. They raised their Series A with traction that actually reflected the market they were going after. If the customer can be better served elsewhere, let them go. * Your real competition might not be software at all: Nominal's primary competitor isn't another SaaS tool — it's humans running Excel and offshore BPO teams in the Philippines and India doing the work instead. That reframe completely changes the sales motion: you're not on the software budget, you're on the labor budget. That's a different buyer, a different ROI conversation, and a different reason to act. * The ICP pivot rarely announces itself — follow the thread anyway: Nominal's enterprise pivot didn't come from a market map or a board deck. It came from a casual conversation at an event where a friend in energy said "we really need what you're doing." Guy called everyone he knew, followed the chain, and landed his first enterprise customer — Green Street Power Partners — through a founder's neighbor who happened to be their CFO. That customer is still with them two and a half years later. The signal came before the data. Act on it. //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership.⁠ www.FrontLines.io⁠ [http://www.frontlines.io] The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.⁠ www.GlobalTalent.co⁠ [http://www.globaltalent.co] // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here:⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM [https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM]

How Extend built a four-pillar marketing org mapped to four distinct B2B2B growth motions | Guillaume Bouvard

Extend's model is built on a specific bet: that banks want to offer their SMB clients a better expense management product but won't build it themselves. Extend builds that product and sells it to the bank, who then distributes it to their business customers as their own offering. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Guillaume Bouvard [https://www.linkedin.com/in/bouvard/], Co-Founder, COO & CMO of Extend, to hear how 12 years at American Express became Extend's most underrated distribution asset, why he structures his entire marketing org around growth motions rather than functions, and what he's learned about the only marketing investment that actually moves the needle in a B2B2B fintech model. Topics Discussed: * How Extend's Amex alumni network became its primary bank acquisition channel in the early years * The B2B2B distribution model: why Extend sells to banks and lets them distribute to SMB clients * How Guillaume maps Extend's four marketing pillars directly to four distinct growth motions * Why partner activation is Extend's highest-leverage marketing investment right now — and where past attempts failed * Why distributed bank sales forces make traditional field enablement structurally unworkable * What a first-time CMO should do before launching a single campaign * How founders should hire a marketing leader: the case against job postings GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: * Convert your operator network into a structured distribution channel before building any outbound motion. When Extend launched, Guillaume didn't build a prospecting sequence to reach bank executives. He called people he'd worked alongside at Amex who had since moved into product and executive roles across the financial services industry. That network was the direct result of his time in Amex's strategic planning group — a small team that worked directly with the CEO and the full executive suite, giving him exposure to senior relationships across the industry well before he needed them. The lesson isn't "use your network." It's more specific: founders with deep operator backgrounds at market-defining companies are sitting on a distribution asset that compounds over time as those colleagues move into decision-making roles at prospects. Map that network before you build anything else. * Structure your marketing org around your actual growth motions, not around standard marketing functions. Guillaume runs four parallel growth motions at Extend: selling directly to banks, acquiring SMB customers through those bank partners, acquiring a smaller volume of SMB customers directly, and retaining and growing the existing customer base. Every marketing pillar and every team member maps to one of those four motions. The insight for B2B founders is that most early marketing orgs are built around what marketing departments are supposed to look like — brand, demand gen, content — rather than around how revenue actually enters and expands in the specific business. Before making a single marketing hire, map your growth motions first, then design the org to serve them. //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io [http://www.frontlines.io] The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co [http://www.globaltalent.co] // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM [https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM]

How Safebooks AI positioned against the 80% accuracy standard that makes AI unacceptable in finance | Ahikam Kaufman

Safebooks AI is building the infrastructure layer that makes agentic AI safe to operate inside the office of the CFO. Where most finance automation tools solve point problems — AP, AR, billing, reconciliation — Safebooks ingests data end to end across every system in a company's financial stack: CPQ, CRM, contract management, billing, ERP, and banking. Using graph AI technology, it normalizes that data into a complete, traversable audit trail so AI agents can process every transaction with the accuracy and completeness that financial compliance actually demands. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with ⁠Ahikam Kaufman⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahikam-kaufman-688310/], Co-Founder & CEO of ⁠Safebooks AI⁠ [https://safebooks.ai/], to learn how a career inside the office of the CFO — including time at Mercury Interactive and a post-acquisition role at Intuit — led him to build the data infrastructure layer that makes agentic finance real. Topics Discussed: * Why the office of the CFO requires a fundamentally different accuracy standard than any other AI use case — and how Safebooks architected around that constraint from day one * How graph AI technology creates a unified, end-to-end audit trail across structured and unstructured financial systems * The SOC1 certification strategy and customer UAT process Safebooks uses to establish trust with risk-averse finance buyers * Why Ahikam positions around "finance operations automation" rather than "financial data governance" — and the category design logic behind that choice GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: * The accuracy ceiling is your positioning. Most AI go-to-market is built around aggregate improvement metrics — productivity gains, error reduction percentages, time saved. Safebooks identified that this framing actively undermines trust with their specific buyer. As Ahikam put it: "When you run AI for marketing or sales and let's say 80% is correct, then that's good enough. In finance, it's not good enough." He didn't just say this in sales conversations — he built the entire product architecture around it, including the graph AI layer that creates a complete transaction audit trail before any agent touches the data. Founders targeting regulated or high-stakes buyers should pressure-test whether their accuracy positioning is calibrated to their ICP's actual risk tolerance, not to the median SaaS buyer's. If your buyer operates in an environment where partial accuracy creates liability, that ceiling is your sharpest differentiator — lead with it explicitly. * Use compliance certifications as a trust wedge, not a checkbox. Safebooks pursued SOC1 certification — a standard typically associated with financial controls audits, not software products — as an active part of their sales motion with CFO buyers. Paired with customer UAT against their own historical data, this creates a proof path that doesn't require the buyer to take Safebooks' word for anything. The sequence matters: let the prospect run their own validation against data they already know, then back it with a certification framework they already respect. Founders selling into enterprise buyers with established risk and compliance functions should map the specific third-party certifications their buyers already rely on and pursue those proactively, rather than building a trust narrative entirely on case studies. //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership.⁠ www.FrontLines.io⁠ [http://www.frontlines.io] The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.⁠ www.GlobalTalent.co⁠ [http://www.globaltalent.co] // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here:⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM [https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM]

What ToltIQ's co-founder — a former KKR CIO — says founders must never do when selling AI to financial services buyers | Ed Brandman

Ed Brandman⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed-brandman] spent decades in global financial services before retiring in 2018. His last chapter before stepping away was at KKR — where he joined when the firm had just 390 people and left having helped build it into one of the most recognizable names in alternative assets. Five years later, a conversation with his son (now his co-founder) about the due diligence process pulled him back. That became ⁠ToltIQ⁠ [https://toltiq.com/], an AI-native platform built specifically for private markets. In this episode of BUILDERS, Ed breaks down a GTM that ran entirely on referrals for two-plus years, how a deliberate industry-first hiring policy replaced a sales team, and what founders consistently get wrong when trying to sell AI to financial services buyers who are already overwhelmed. Topics Discussed: * Why Ed and his co-founder targeted the front end of the investment workflow — not back-office ops — as the highest AI leverage point * The deliberate decision to staff 70% of the team, including engineers, from inside the industry * How ToltIQ generated 8–10 inbounds per week for two years with no outbound motion — and what finally made them add one * Running a 30-person team against a 100-person competitor using AI internally across the entire org * The three things Ed tells every founder trying to sell into financial services CIOs * Why the Frontier model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic) may be the biggest threat founders aren't pricing into their moat GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: * The highest AI leverage in financial services isn't where most founders look. Ed's conviction from the start — drawn directly from his time inside KKR — was that the front end of investment workflows (diligence, capital raising, investor relations, sourcing) would yield far more from AI than operational back-office processes. That's the opposite of where most AI vendors pitch. If you're building for a specialized vertical, time spent inside the industry isn't just helpful for credibility — it's how you identify where the real leverage is before you build anything. * Hire the domain, then train for the tool. 70% of ToltIQ's team — including engineers and the client-facing org — came from inside private markets. Ed's view: if clients can sit across from your team and feel understood before the demo starts, you've already cleared the biggest hurdle in enterprise sales. This wasn't incidental. It was a deliberate hiring philosophy from day one, and it scaled the business before there was a sales playbook. * Referral growth at this scale requires earning it, not engineering it. ToltIQ had no outbound motion for more than two years and was still fielding 8–10 inbounds per week by the end of 2025. Ed's explanation: the time they invested in onboarding clients — working through problems with them, being transparent about limitations, iterating in the open — made clients want to refer peers. In tight-knit professional networks like private markets, the quality of the relationship drives referrals more than the quality of the product alone. The referral engine sustained the company through 2025 and into 2026 before they felt the ceiling. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership.⁠ www.FrontLines.io⁠ [http://www.frontlines.io] The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.⁠ www.GlobalTalent.co⁠ [http://www.globaltalent.co] // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here:⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM [https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM]