Matteo Papaluca

A very nice guy
Founder
Solopreneur helping early-stage founders build and scale their first sales team. Read my Saturday newsletter below

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

August 2026 was my best month ever for closed-won. €52K.

80% Italian clients, the rest from Europe. In the month when everyone in Italy says, "let's talk in September" 😅

Solo business, almost 4 years now. I build the first sales team with early-stage founders. I'm booked until January; the next spots open in February 2027.

DM me if you need help.

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

Hey @grok chi è questa attrice in Caro Maestro? E oggi recita ancora? Se hai foto aggiornate grazie

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

I'm struggling to choose between using Claude and Grok bot for a given task. What's the reasoning I should apply behind?

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

@blazeisonline yes exactly!

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

@BullPen_chat 💯

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

Gen Z is tech savvy. Ok... not always.
I meet a lot of early stage reps and junior people who never really set up their own AI. Some can't find their way around a CRM.
So now in every hiring process I ask for 2 things.
A role play. And share your screen, show me your setup.
5 minutes and you know more than from the whole CV.

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

I have never used the iPad, even though I have had one since 2020. I had the pro 12.9, never really used. I also have a MacBook and an iPhone 16 Pro Max. Now I need to get off my phone but still consume content, but with no work stuff. My phone screams work + social media distractions. I want to read and enjoy a good movie. Should I go with the iPad Mini or the iPad Air? I see the Mini cause I see the portability, considering I will always be carrying my MacBook....open for suggestions

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

@GentlemenxStyle hw are you finding the Mac + ipad mini/phone? I'm thinking about the iPad mini (got a Mac + iPhone)

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

@dom_gag_96 si ora che li puoi aggiungere anche su slack, lavorano anche li rispondendo in autonomia

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

I thought I was the only one but things change - welcome to Inscaler

- Chief
- Clara
- Mary
- Tubo
- Webbie
- Xena

🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

Why does Calendly have a CRM now?

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

90% of founders I work with they have never seen a PIP

Performance Improvement Plan is a crucial process to manage performance within your sales team.

I have never been on a PIP myself but got close few times during my early days in sales....😦

I ran few PIPs in my career later on as manager, some went well, some led to exit, unfortunately .

If you can avoid PIP of course you should --> but sometimes PIP is inevitable and the best course for the person.

The right structure:

1) make sure to communicate it well
2) explain what's missing and why we are doing it
3) explain clearly the steps and the help provide
4) communicate clearly the timeline and the output (stay vs let go)

If you want my template just drop me a DM below

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

I sent my first newsletter in 2023. Zero subscribers, nobody knew my name.

I wrote it every Saturday anyway. Never skipped one.

It brought in over €50K in contracts. Slowly. People read me for weeks, sometimes months. Then one day they replied.

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

This story is very close to my heart.

A founder who never gave up.

I have watched him from the inside; this is an incredible story.

Out in 20 minutes in your inbox (9am CET) - if you haven't signed up for my newsletter, you can find it at inscaler[dot]com[slash]newsletter

See you there 📥

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

LinkedIn has refreshed their app, and its desktop header looks like its app now. WTF

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

Full post on my blog: https://t.co/tgMp5Vlduc

A new one every Saturday morning.

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

Over 100 CROs today learned from one guy. Most people in AI have never heard of him.

When you hear PTC, BMC or Ariba, you probably picture old-school software. Big deals, long sales cycles, people in suits.

With all the noise around AI, it's easy to think this kind of selling is dead.

But then you look at who's actually running sales at the top AI companies. The CRO at OpenAI was under John McMahon's leadership.

The fastest-growing companies still hire from the same playbook. So when someone tells me sales have changed completely, I think about this.

This week I listened to John on Topline with @samfjacobs. (I'm an avid listener of the pod.) If you don't know him, he ran sales at five public companies, and his team at PTC built MEDDIC.

My takeaways:

1. The founder who thinks he can sell

John nails one type of CEO that I see sometimes too. Top of the class, smart at work, gets lots of money from VCs, and suddenly thinks he knows sales. He even hates paying salespeople because he believes everyone can sell their baby.

If you are a CRO in a company like this, you've got to learn how to push back hard, and soon. The CEO and the CRO should be at the same level. Both C-execs.

2. Hire for character

One of my favourites, and something I have been personally doing for years now. John hires for five things: intelligence, drive, coachability, adaptability, integrity.

Skills come later. You only get skills by doing the same thing over and over, and only driven people stick with it.

The line that hit me: every bad hire was a character problem, never a skills problem.

3. When a rep fails, look at who hired him

At PTC, if a rep failed, they just let him go. Over time John realized this was wrong and started holding managers accountable. Either you hired the wrong person, or you hired the right one and couldn't train or lead him.

What he told his managers: "I want you to go down to the bathroom. I want you to look in the mirror, and I want you to come back and tell me what you did wrong." 😅

I agree 100%. It's too easy to blame the reps.

4. Never sold? Then no CRO

Sam asks if it's a problem when a CRO never carried a bag. John says 100%. You can't coach a rep in a deal if you never sold one yourself.

I'm bullish on this too.

5. Order takers

Somebody had to say it! John says that in AI companies going from 1 million to 100 million in a year, most reps are just taking orders. CEOs tell him they can't tell who's good or bad because everyone is selling something.

I see the same thing. At Anthropic or OpenAI, it's hard to know who's actually strong because the market brings so much demand on its own. At Salesforce back in the day, or Slack, it was the same.

You've got to have some friction to really see who's good and who's not. Welcome friction and challenge in selling, it will forge better reps.

6. The rep who closes the biggest deals everywhere

Near the end, John talks about a rep from BladeLogic. He closed the biggest deals there. Then he moved to BMC and did it again. Two more companies, same story.

I love this. That's repeatability. Sticking to the fundamentals and showing up in every situation that comes your way. One good year can be luck. Four companies in a row means you actually know what you're doing.

I love these podcasts because they tell me one thing: forget the noise, sales is evolving but the basics stay the same. The repetitions will make or break it.

Forget the noise.

P.S. Full episode on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

@Zaydenf9 Cold calling

[Matteo Papaluca @matteopapaluca]

Sbaglio o in Italia ci sono un botto di co-founders normalmente nelle startups?

Ho lavorato con 200+ - la media è sempre 3 (fair...) ma ne ho viste anche 5-6-7.....

E anche qualcuna con 1 solo founder 😍

Capisco avere un CTO, un CEO, ma 4-5-6-7 ha senso?