Camilla

Founder at Venatrix Group. Lessons from scaling GTM at 40+ companies.
BD Associate @Durindal_US. Old acc @spheratimes. 🇮🇹

[Camilla @romansphera]

I've helped 40+ companies build their GTM since 2023. Almost every time a founder tells me they're "scaling to multiple channels," it's because their first channel isn't converting.

Channels don't fix a conversion problem. They just make it harder to find.

[Camilla @romansphera]

I've run the same find-out-what's-wrong playbook across 40 companies' GTM teams.

Think of a horror movie: Payback spikes to 24 months, conversion rates stay 0.5-1%, each hire adds a tiny little profit on top before breaking even. And customers churn in less than 3 months.

But what surprises me the most isn't how they run GTM. It's that they looked at the numbers and thought "let's just hire more people" instead of doing a hard pivot.

[Camilla @romansphera]

Most founders are selling at less than what they hoped for and only get to grab their piece of the pie after early-investor dilution + co-founder split + taxes.

They'll have a 'celebratory dinner' at a Michelin restaurant if they feel like it, then get back to work because the pie only allows for a few years of financial freedom inside major tech hub cities (NYC, SF).

[Camilla @romansphera]

@bgrgndzz I also fondly disagree with the "ship now, think later" advice. Most of these founders are building general-purpose builders (i.e., make your website with AI) aniway

[Camilla @romansphera]

@DamienWayne @mercury Everyone's switching into mercury so I'm curious, what makes it so special?

[Camilla @romansphera]

@AlexanderTw33ts that office costs $10k a month minimum

[Camilla @romansphera]

@ScriptCraftista yes

[Camilla @romansphera]

I was on a call with a founding eng of a $3b company that got acquired.

8 months into his new company, and he's talking with investors about raising $5m at a $50m valuation.

High multiples. Product & GTM carry 99% of it.

- customers coming from 5-6 GTM channels
- 2-3 channels are partnership-based
- all organic, ramping up on ads soon

This is what happens when you build around failure modes early.

They didn't bet everything on one channel, and that's the part most founders skip.

Speed gets you an angel check. Speed + built-in longevity gets you a real fundraise.

[Camilla @romansphera]

@tommy_magill_ what kind of industry is this? HVAC, media agency, tech company, etc

[Camilla @romansphera]

@NWischoff @meetgranola @orionsleep @maticrobots Great list, and been using some variations of these too. For me, the biggest changes both in work and personal life were MCP (Claude connecting to other apps) and being able to talk to Claude rather than text. Probably saved me 5-10 hours a week

[Camilla @romansphera]

@ay_ushr short emails / texts are the best. And please, please no audios.

[Camilla @romansphera]

I really don't get why more people choose not to build leverage around their lives, whether it's building an audience, networking, or working on projects outside work.

If your job is your sole source of income and finding it is difficult (which it is if you're sending resumes), you might aswell get conscious of your failures modes and address them before it's too late

[Camilla @romansphera]

@adamshuaib Honestly, this is what distinguishes tier-1 from tier-2 investors the most. Tier-1 is driven by experience and first principles; tier-2 and below just try to follow what tier-1 does

[Camilla @romansphera]

That's interesting. From my POV a lot of companies stall at the A-B series, and the roadblock is usually either

a) you're going from early adopters to early majority (and getting stuck)
b) you've saturated your tiny market and need to expand into a bigger arena (and getting stuck)
c) you can't keep up with industry changes; management and coordination slow things down a lot

Open to hear others' POV on this one

[Camilla @romansphera]

@prachiruns Get well soon! I've been running aswell and know how frustrating it feels not to be able to. Take care of yourself, you'll get back to running before you're even aware of it

[Camilla @romansphera]

@RachaelRad Generally, you'd expect volume and quality to go in opposite directions. I find their content pretty good tbh, they have lots of affiliated writers which is how they cut it through imo

[Camilla @romansphera]

Everyone talks about lack of urgency and no one talks about how to systematically build momentum to get yourself going.

A lot of the people I met who want to become entrepreneurs don't lack motivation but are stuck in their heads too much. It's like every action carries a heavier weight.

The older you are, the worse it gets, which is why most people never reach true business momentum (calls flowing in, signing customers on a repeated basis, etc.)

I found it immensely helpful to start from the smallest task imaginable each day. Each task locks you in more, so you don't get derailed by whatever your mind's trying to analyze and get stuff done.

Pretty basic tip, but leaving it out there in case it helps someone.

[Camilla @romansphera]

@ErnestiSario they're always busy but their phone always buzzes when a email / text comes

[Camilla @romansphera]

The core logic behind every message that gets replied to always boils down to one thing: relevance.

Two ways of becoming relevant asap

1. Stand out (work on something cool, work with big names, work on what they're working on, etc)
2. Get intro'd (proximity still wins, even in the digital age)

I can't recall how many times I cold emailed someone and intro'd them to customers or friends.

Warm or cold doesn't matter. If it gets you there, it's worth doing.

[Cristóbal Valenzuela @c_valenzuelab]

warm intros are low agency. you can just reach out

[Camilla @romansphera]

@CEOLandshark This is the oldest lesson in history. When an anchor is missing, whoever provides it will be treated close to being a messiah