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I'm a product guy with a keen interest in bringing innovations to light and scaling…
Articles by Ashok
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Why Vertical AI Products will (eventually) Win
Why Vertical AI Products will (eventually) Win
Over the past two years, advancements in large language models (LLM) have been happening at breakneck speed, with…
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Changing Tide of SaaS and Why VCs and Serial Entrepreneurs Will Love it
Changing Tide of SaaS and Why VCs and Serial Entrepreneurs Will Love it
Originally published on Entrepreneur.com The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is about 20 years old.
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Recipe for an Infallible SaaS Startup
Recipe for an Infallible SaaS Startup
(Originally posted on YourStory.com) I am a firm believer that there are no rules to doing anything.
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3 Traits of Entrepreneurs that Kill Startups
3 Traits of Entrepreneurs that Kill Startups
Having been associated with startups for over 8 years, when I have been an entrepreneur, and worked with successful…
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Activity
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Ashok Gudibandla shared thisIf you’re a Shopify + Klaviyo retention marketer or agency, you’ve probably already tried Claude and automated a bunch of things. Did you know? Claude is capable of a LOT more - you have barely scratched the surface. After working with a lot of email marketing agencies and brands as a technology partner, I keep seeing the same pattern. Most teams are using it way below its real potential. The problem is not Claude or even the setup, it's the mindset and wrong expectations. The biggest mistakes I keep seeing are: - Trying to automate too much, too fast - Not giving Claude the right data and context - Trying to do strategy instead of using it as an execution engine I put together a practical guide on how to fix these mistakes. It includes detail of what to do, what not to with examples, setup instructions, and more. Comment "GUIDE" and I'll send it over. #claude #klaviyo #emailmarketing
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Ashok Gudibandla shared thisAt #commerceRoundtable Austin doing limited launch of Nexie. Overwhelmed with the interest sofar. Every conversation I walk into and every other talk is about AI whether it is to optimise Ad spend, or improve LTV and retention. Shout out to Jimmy Kim for a great event.
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Ashok Gudibandla shared thisI am #hiring a GTM associate for Nexie to work closely with me on early go-to-market initiatives and experiments. This role is ideal for a young, startup-savvy, execution-focused marketer. A hustler who can execute unconventional GTM ideas, experiment quickly, iterate, delegate working ones and start all over.
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Ashok Gudibandla shared thisSundar Pichai made a big announcement of it's Universal Commerce Protocol (#UCP) last week at #NRF2026. OpenAI has already published their Agentic Commerce Protocol (#ACP). What does this #AgenticCommerce mean for brands. My take. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁𝘀: • 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 will move from websites to agents (ChatGPT/Gemini) - but much 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 and 𝘯𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 than most think • 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 becomes extremely critical, since acquisition will be controlled largely by big tech companies (via ads, agents, marketplaces) • 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 with the brand (delivery, returns, service) become more important since agents penalize bad experiences • 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 that is 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘺 personalized & timely (to humans and their agents) is rewarded. Spray and pray fails. • 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 in pricing, discounts, and returns become more 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 important 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁: • Brand websites will matter for a long time - but customer experience needs to improve significantly • Brands still own customer data and can reach users via email, SMS etc - but need extreme relevance • Storytelling still matters, but only after trust and consistency are earned 𝗠𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 Agentic commerce will be one more channel, not the only one — but an increasingly important one over the next decade. Brands that are consistant with customer experiences, brand story telling will thrive. #retal #ecommerce #retention #marketingAshok Gudibandla shared thisGreat to be at #NRF2026 yesterday in NYC! I shared some thoughts on how AI is going to transform every aspect of the shopping journey and how retail businesses are run. Incoming Walmart CEO John Furner joined me on stage to talk more about the opportunities for retailers ahead. What we’ve learned as a company from the last 27 years of working with retailers is that we only succeed together. Our goal is to build a future of retail where the opportunity space expands for everyone. That includes laying the groundwork for AI agents and systems to talk to each other across every step of the shopping journey. As a next step we introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), available starting today. It’s built to meet the needs of retailers and customers— from the moments of discovery to decision and beyond. It’s open, agnostic, built together with industry leaders Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, and endorsed by 20+ more. There’s a lot that UCP will enable, and we are starting with native checkout. Soon you’ll see a buy button directly on Google surfaces including AI Mode in Search and Gemini. We also introduced a new Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience. Now in preview, this helps retailers build sophisticated agents for their own apps. That includes a shopping agent that provides personalized, proactive help, bringing the power of AI Mode right to a retailer’s app or website. Delivery is another important step that AI can help transform. Wing’s autonomous drone deliveries, in partnership with Walmart, have shown impressive expansion - and will be coming to another 150 stores, in addition to the 120 already announced. Starting in Houston on January 15, and will reach 40M people by the end of the expansion. A big year for AI in retail, and we’re excited for this next chapter of partnership.
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Ashok Gudibandla shared thisContext > Intelligence. Is it just me, or do others feel this too? I keep hearing debates about Claude, Gemini 3 being smarter than ChatGPT. So I tried switching from it - numerous times. And I hit the real friction - It’s context. ChatGPT holds years of Context about me - my family, my new venture, my move to the US, how I think, what I care about, what I’m building. Moving to a “smarter” model means starting from zero. Much lower value - at least for a few months. So here I am — not choosing the smartest model, but the one that understands me best. ** Trapped in context ** Anyone else feel this? #LLMs #ChatGPT #AI #Context
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Ashok Gudibandla shared thisFor AI-native products - *Context is the Product*. The real intelligence in AI products doesn’t come from the model — it comes from the context you craft around it. #ContextEngineering is how you make agents think clearly, personalize deeply, and act with precision. It’s the difference between something that responds vs something that understands and acts. To build a great agentic system, one needs to treat it as a dynamic, evolving layer that adapts to intent, user state, and memory. And one needs to build a systematic way to evolve context over time. It is a core aspect of what we're building at Nexie, an agentic AI for ecommerce marketing. We’re hiring a Product Owner to drive the agentic workflows, LLM context architecture, along with the product in general. Apply 👇 #Agents #Products #PromptEngineering #AgenticAI #Hiring
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Ashok Gudibandla shared thisBig life update: after two decades in Hyderabad 🇮🇳, I’ve now moved with my family to Austin, Texas 🇺🇸 I've built, scaled, and sold Automate.io — all from Hyderabad. After a good exit to Notion, I unwound: built a house, spent time with my three daughters, and enjoyed what felt like retirement years. Meanwhile, the GenAI wave was unfolding. The itch to build again grew — and I founded Nexie along with Pradeep Kumar few months ago. My first instinct was: I built Automate.io from Hyderabad, now let me do much bigger from here. But Nexie had other plans for me. It started pulling me out of my comfort zone. Each time I saw an industry event in SF or NY, I felt I had to be there. Each time a top-tier VC wanted to meet, I felt I needed to show up. And so, last week, I uprooted myself from Hyderabad and moved to Austin. Excited to be closer to the market we’re building for — and to the partners, investors, and operators who will shape Nexie. #Hyderabad #Austin #Founders #startup
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Ashok Gudibandla reposted thisAshok Gudibandla reposted thisE-commerce marketing has never been harder. Ads are more expensive. Competition is ever growing. Customer attention is hard. Yet the tools we use still revolve around the same old playbook: campaigns, calendars, and constant busywork. We believe the next era of growth won’t be driven by “more campaigns.” It will be driven by systems that can listen, act and evolve — automatically. That’s why we started Nexie. A new kind of marketing system for modern e-commerce brands. It leverages AI to understand customers, create and send targeted messages, analyse and improvise. We’re excited to share our perspective, challenge assumptions, and explore what’s possible. #Nexie #ecommerce #Marketing
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Ashok Gudibandla posted thisBehind a lot of today’s standout software success stories lies something subtle and very underrated — Craft. Craft isn't just great user interface. It’s a meticulous attention to detail in product design, user experience, and market fitment. All of them together make a compelling differentiator and create category leaders. Take these products for examples: Figma - A product crafted for designers who themselves care deeply about detail. Notion: Initially crafted with writers, but extended to countless use-cases without losing its core essence of craft. Linear: Transformed mundane project management into delightful experience with craft. In the AI age, Craft is an essential ingredient for products. AI products need to add another dimension to it - one that builds trust and connection with the user. It should feel like a product with a Soul. #product #craft #design #AI
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Ashok Gudibandla liked thisAshok Gudibandla liked thisVoice has always been an interesting thread in my work. From my first course project back in 2001 to now, it’s one area I’ve kept coming back to — maybe because it sits at the intersection of language, cognition, and human interaction. LLMs have made a lot of things in voice look easy now: transcription, synthesis, real-time interaction. At a word level, we’ve made incredible progress. But spend 10 seconds in a real conversation, and the cracks start to show. The challenges are deeper: • dialects and code-switching • cultural context and vocabulary • conversational flow (interruptions, ambiguity) • and most importantly, empathy This becomes even more complex in markets like India — with 20+ official languages, hundreds of spoken ones, and thousands of dialects. Voice here is not just an interface. It’s the primary way many people interact with technology. So while my core thesis hasn’t changed — voice will be the interface for AI — the path to get there is far more nuanced than it appears. I don’t have a definitive answer yet. This article is an attempt to articulate the problem space more clearly and invite others to think through it together. Would love to hear how others are thinking about this — especially folks working on voice systems in real-world settings.Voice Will Be the Default Interface for AI. It May Never Feel Truly Human.Voice Will Be the Default Interface for AI. It May Never Feel Truly Human.
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Publications
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The Changing Tides of SaaS
See publicationThe SaaS industry has gone through a major transformation a decade ago and it's probably going through one more now. From a technology-intensive industry during the early days, it has transformed earlier this decade into a space driven by product innovation. And now, it may be converting into a brand-driven an industry that favours seasoned entrepreneurs.
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Bharath Yallambatla
Winning High-Stakes RFPs-Part 1B/10 Solution Engineering Series for NBFCs, Healthcare & Supply Chain: Execution Playbook 🔁 10-Stage Solutioning Lifecycle 🔹 1. Discovery & Qualification → Use cases, process gaps, compliance needs → Score with BANT/CHAMP, peer tech benchmarks 🔹 2. Stakeholder Mapping → Identify decision-makers, influencers, blockers → Craft win themes for CIO, CISO, COO, CFO, Procurement 🔹 3. Solution Hypothesis → Draft modular blueprint: core, service, support stacks → Align to outcomes: SLA, compliance, cost, risk, TAT 🔹 4. Architecture & Engineering Design → Build scalable, secure, domain-ready solution → Include GenAI, APIs, analytics, RPA, microservices 🔹 5. Governance & SLAs → RACI, escalation matrix, CAB workflows → Define SLA/OLA tiers, monitoring stack (ELK, Prometheus) 🔹 6. Security & Compliance → RBI, HIPAA, ISO, SOC2, GAMP mapped upfront → Embed controls: logs, vaults, RBAC, encryption 🔹 7. Delivery & Support Model → L1–L4 model, DR/BCP, shift-left/right support ops → Uptime SLAs, prod vs non-prod flows 🔹 8. Team Structure & Delivery Pods → Architect, SME, Infra, Security, Pricing, Proposal roles → Assign onsite/offshore strategy, redundancy plan 🔹 9. Estimation & TCO/ROI → Infra, licenses, AMC, effort costing → Present ROI, breakeven, value realization 🔹 10. Final Packaging & Pitch → Build exec summary, demo storyboard, solution deck → Include SoW, pricing sheet, compliance tracker 🧠 Industry-Focused Layering 🟦 NBFCs • LOS/LMS, co-lending APIs, CRILC, CKYC • AI underwriting, RBI real-time logs, XAI scoring 🟩 Healthcare • EMR/EHR AI, FHIR/HL7, GenAI for records • HIPAA controls, anonymization, access auditing 🟨 Supply Chain • IoT edge, WMS/TMS, smart fulfillment • ISO 28000, logistics encryption, last-mile AI 👥 Stakeholder Win Themes • CIO → Cloud-native, scalable, composable architecture • CISO → Zero-trust, pre-certified compliance stack • COO → SLA-first ops, uptime, TAT metrics • Biz Head → Revenue unlock, faster GTM, automation • Procurement → ROI clarity, clean pricing, timeline confidence 🏗️ Winning Team Setup • 🧠 Architect → Solution blueprint + integration • 👔 SME → Industry KPIs, domain logic • 🛠️ Infra/DevOps → CI/CD, observability, DR/BCP • 🔐 Security → Compliance-by-design • 📊 Estimation → Cost models + buffers • 📄 Proposal → SoW, version control, submission hygiene • 🧪 Demo Lead → Storyboard, proof points 🧰 Reusable Asset Kit • 🔍 Discovery Qs + Use Case Tree • 🧱 Architecture Templates (Visio/Figma) • 🗺️ Persona Maps + Win Cards • 📉 Compliance Matrix (RBI, HIPAA, ISO) • 📊 ROI/TCO Calculator • 📑 RACI, CAB Flow, BCP Plan • 📦 Submission Tracker • 🎬 Demo Script & Storyboard 📈 Key Solution Metrics • 🏆 Win Rate • 🕒 Time-to-Solution • ♻️ Reuse % of assets • 🔒 Compliance Readiness Score • 🧪 POC-to-Win Ratio • 📦 Team Utilization #SolutionEngineering #Presales #RFP #NBFC #Healthcare #Architecture #Compliance #CoreEngineering
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Aditya Arora
Agilitas x Virat Kohli partnership is one of the masterstroke deals I have seen in recent times. Virat invests 40 CR in Agilitas for a 1.94% stake, putting Agilitas’s valuation around 2000 CR. 📈 In turn, Agilitas acquires one8world, making Virat a co-founder and shareholder. They now get two very important growth levers: ⬇️ 1. A powerful manufacturing (via Mochiko Shoes - a 600 CR+ footwear brand that Agilitas acquired in 2008 ), 2. India’s biggest athlete — exclusively aligned. Easily becomes a 4000 CR revenue brand in the next 5 years. Footwear + retail scale requires capital — but this partnership compresses customer acquisition, product cycles, and brand-building like few others. Even Virat said in his podcast with Abhishek Ganguly, the co-founder of Agilitas that, “I didn’t want a brand deal… I wanted to build something that outlives me.” And Abhishek said something even beautiful - “An ambition to build from India but be globally relevant.” This isn’t marketing. This is legacy building with shared skin in the game. And that is how startups work - shared ambition with one goal (to make the company big) and food (read stake) in the table for everyone! A company that can be built in the long term with culture, capital, and conviction aligned. This might be the first time in India, where an athlete joins hands with a sport company to re-imagine and build the sport ecosystem of India - truly revolutionalising the game with a clear vision. 🙌
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The Circle Work
The Circle GTM Studio specializes in helping global startups soft-land in India. A structured accelerator designed to help growth-stage founders localize for India, run pilots, acquire early customers, and prepare for fundraising — backed by deep ecosystem access and real-world insights from founders who’ve successfully navigated the Indian market. If India is on your roadmap, this is where you begin. #thecircle #acceleratorprogram #startups #growth
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Arjun Malhotra
India has abundant expertise across every domain - logistics operators, subject matter experts, local service providers, etc. What's scarce isn't capability. It's the systems that coordinate this capability at scale. Most companies see this fragmentation and default to vertical integration: build everything in-house, own all capabilities, control every aspect of delivery. This works if you have unlimited capital and time. Most companies have neither. But there's an alternative approach that we've noticed two of our portcos execute remarkably well, in completely different industries - 1. When Meesho looked at India's logistics, and they saw thousands of fragmented local operators. Instead of building warehouses and delivery fleets, they built Valmo - an orchestration platform coordinating existing partners. Individual pilots with smartphones earn sustainable incomes, small hub operators build viable businesses, and Meesho gets coverage across 15,000+ pin codes at 12% lower cost than traditional third-party-logistics. 2. Entri saw similar fragmentation in education. India has abundant teaching expertise already running offline/online programs. Entri partners with them for content while owning demand generation, platform infra, quality monitoring, and placements. This allows them to launch new categories in weeks and scale across languages without the capital intensity of building in-house teams for every vertical. If I had to pull a common thread, it's that in fragmented markets like India, the orchestration layer often matters more than asset ownership. Coordinate what exists rather than rebuilding from scratch.
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anmol maini
In venture capital, ultimately “only a handful of companies per year actually matter”. Just 7 firms led the Series A of ~60% of startups in India that are worth $1B+ today. The list of firms leading investments in these cos is fairly predictable - PANZEL + Tiger Global. Full post on India's unicorn hunters in the comments
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Adith Podhar
Whenever a new industry takes shape and scale, ancillary/supporting companies also get set up. We call such companies as ‘Enablers’, the ‘Picks and Shovels’, to the large and growing industries. For eg: Contract manufacturers for FMCG/Pharma/Electronics/Mobiles, auto-ancillaries for OEMs, bottling plants for Coke. These are supply side businesses. There are demand side businesses also. For eg. Franchisees of QSR/retail brands, Cloud kitchen business on Food Delivery apps, Fleet operators on Ride hailing apps. When E-Commerce started scaling in India, we saw players like Delhivery, Shadowfax and Shiprocket emerge. So, we asked this question to ourselves, "Which enabling business will emerge when Quick Commerce starts seeing unprecedented scale?" We found our answer in Inamo. Do chk them out. C Sumit Anand and Rupesh Thakare are building a fundamentally solid company and we at Gemba Capital are happy to be a part of the journey.
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Siddhartha Ahluwalia
Recko’s $150M Exit to Stripe. I sat down with Co-Founder Saurya Prakash Sinha to unpack the story behind one of India’s biggest B2B SaaS acquisitions — and what it really takes to build for a $100M+ outcome. We dive deep into: 1. Why companies get acquired? 2. How companies are evaluated for Acquisitions? 3. Why $100M+ Acquisitions are rare? 4. How to Build if there's Zero Validation? 5. Why Stripe understood what VC's couldn't 6. How to raise when investors follow success playbooks? 7. How to find the real value your product adds? 8. What to expect when building products in finance? 9. What did Recko solve for Myntra that Big Four couldn’t? Watch the full episode: Youtube: https://lnkd.in/gwW84mur Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gGHMCqV8 Apple: https://lnkd.in/gDSesRm3
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Phyllian Kipchirchir
Israeli observability startup Coralogix has raised $115 million in a Series E round, becoming a unicorn with a valuation of over $1 billion. Coralogix offers a full-stack observability and security platform that helps companies understand and resolve complex issues in their data streams. The company has developed an AI agent, Olly, which uses a semantic layer over internal and external data to automate data observability and provide sophisticated insights through simple text prompts. The all-equity round was led by NewView Capital, with participation from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments | Investissements RPC) and NextEquity Partners, alongside existing investors. The funding will be used to expand its engineering base in India, with a planned $100M investment over five years, and to further develop its AI agent. Congratulations to co-founder and CEO Ariel Assaraf and the Coralogix team. TechCrunch: https://lnkd.in/dS3NZrrG #Observability #Data #AI #DevOps #Unicorn #SeriesE #Funding #VentureCapital #IsraelTech
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Soumitra Sharma
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈𝐬 𝐚 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫? 𝐖𝐡𝐲 0-𝐭𝐨-1 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐎𝐧𝐞. 🚀 0-to-1 founders: Ever heard the term design partner and wondered what it actually means — or why it matters? In Episode 18 of An Operator's Blog, Indus Khaitan (Founder & CEO of Redblock) breaks down what a design partner is, how they can accelerate early product development, and why having one could be the smartest move you make pre-launch. 🎯 Especially relevant if you're building Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) or validating early users. (Full episode link in comments)
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Hubble
Need help with your go-to-market action plan? These 10 Hubble experts will whip your GTM strategy into shape: 1. Moe Dahnji – Investor & Advisor | D2C Growth | SaaS GTM. Moe brings his 12+ years of experience in eCommerce and tech to help founders and teams shape up their GTM and sales strategies. 2. Hugo Pacheco – Agent Networks, GTM & Regulatory Execution for Africa. Hugo focuses on helping growth-stage fintechs, banks, and MNOs win in prepaid, cash-reliant markets across Africa. 3. Elana Ostrega – GTM | Marketing Leader | Advisor | Investor. With 15+ years of experience helping SaaS and product-led companies scale with predictable, efficient marketing strategies, Elana has built and led teams that drive real, sustainable growth. 4. Richard Blundell – Founder, Vencha | B2B Software & AI Sales Strategist. With a passion for helping technical founders, Richard specializes in B2B-focused sales and GTM strategies with a focus on armor-piercing value propositions. 5. Elad Schor – Strategic Partnerships & GTM Leader | Principal at Google. Elad is your go-to guide for GTM strategies and executive partnerships that unlock scalable growth. At Google, he's launched and and led BRANDFORMANCE: a platform that brings together 1,000+ execs annually. 6. Lindsay Rios – Startup GTM Leader | Champion for Women in Tech | Founder Coach. As a fractional CRO, Lindsay builds and accelerates profitable revenue strategy across multiple stages of growth by building inclusive, purpose-driven orgs, without the hustle and vibe culture nonsense. 7. Katie Wilson – Sales & GTM Consultant & Advisor | Former Google Head of Sales | Board Member | Fractional GTM Leader. Katie helps tech/retail companies untangle and demystify their sales and marketing processes to achieve sustainable growth. She also advises both startups and established companies on how to build scalable GTM engines. 8. Amanda Chan 🪄 – Enterprise Sales, Mastercard | GTM Strategist. Amanda combines commercial acumen with technical fluency to take early-stage startups, founders, and sales teams to the next level with frameworks, coaching, market insights, and more. 9. Andrés Nájera – B2B GTM Scale Up Strategist. With a passion for helping early-stage founders turn messy sales into momentum, Andrés excels at creating systems that scale and strategies that close. On top of that, he's scaled over 100+ startups without burning capital. 10. Kasey Roh – US CEO, Upstage AI | Ex-FB Angel Investor. Kasey's roster of skills range across enterprise AI GTM strategy, cross-border GTM, team-building, and even fundraising strategy. Her goal is to build bridges between global innovation and the US market. 2025 might be coming to a close... But it's never too early–or too late–to find the right mentor for you. Search their name → book the 1:1. 👉 www.hubble.social
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