Topline · 8 Oct 2026 · From the week of 5 October
SPOTLIGHT: How CEO Sam Jacobs Is Redefining Pavilion's Identity | Sam Jacobs, Founder & CEO @ Pavilion
Listen on Apple Podcasts Show on Spotify Episode page
In brief
Sam Jacobs, founder and CEO of Pavilion (formerly Revenue Collective), joins co-hosts AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman to discuss how the operator community grew to over 10,000 members, driven by LinkedIn and Slack. He explains how removing the qualification barrier and expanding beyond go-to-market executives diluted what made the community valuable. He also describes a 2022 overbuild of sales and educational teams that forced a return to profitability, the invitation-only Pavilion Gold tier, and a three-year vision with a financial plan. His central argument is that rebuilding exclusivity takes patience and restraint.
For founders
- Sam Jacobs said removing the qualification barrier and letting anyone join was the single biggest mistake Pavilion made.
- Sam Jacobs said Pavilion lost focus by expanding beyond go-to-market executives to CEOs and planned groups for CFOs and COOs.
- Sam Jacobs said he built a three-year vision with a coupled financial plan, something Pavilion had never had before.
- Sam Jacobs said fixing the problems caused by opening up would take three to five years, and that slowing down makes progress smoother and faster.
- Sam Jacobs said a private top tier gives value to the tiers beneath it, comparing it to the black American Express card.
For revenue leaders
- Sam Jacobs said the 2022 decision to build a large sales team prospecting into memberships bloated Pavilion's cost structure and forced a reversal.
- Sam Jacobs said members putting Revenue Collective on LinkedIn profiles as a badge of honor was a major driver of early growth.
- Sam Jacobs said operating executives such as CROs rarely get public recognition for the growth they deliver, unlike founders and investors.
- Sam Jacobs said Pavilion invests directly in chapter operations and enablement, equipping local chapters with marketing materials and automations.
What was said 17, most useful first
Removing the qualification barrier and letting anyone sign up online was the single biggest mistake Pavilion made.
Pavilion, formerly Revenue Collective, originally had strict membership requirements and an application process. After it opened sign-up to everyone, the company moved away from its focus on go-to-market executives and let in CEOs, and Sam says the impact of those decisions was still being worked through years later.
“we made it so that you could sign up online without talking to anybody and we let in so anybody can join. That's the single biggest mistake we've made.”
After raising money in 2022, Pavilion built a large sales team to sell corporate memberships, and its cost structure became bloated.
Sam says he was much more reactive as a leader in 2022. The company had raised money and built a big sales team to drive corporate team memberships, even though the point of Pavilion was not to sell to members, and it also built a slow-moving educational team. Sam says the cost structure became so bloated that the company had to reverse course to get back to profitability.
“all of the STRs that we hired were just prospecting into the membership”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
A small exclusive top tier creates the brand halo that gives value to the platinum and gold tiers beneath it.
Sam compared Pavilion's tiers to the Birkin bag and the black American Express card, saying the top tier's brand halo gives value to the tiers below. He framed the goal as keeping a private club inside an educational institution, asking whether there can still be a Harvard while many people take Harvard online. Gold is what he is building for that purpose.
“we need the black American Express card because that brand halo is what gives value to in some ways the platinum and the gold card.”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Positioning & marketing Link to this
Sam built a three-year vision with a coupled financial plan, something Pavilion had never had, after realizing he had not answered the board's question about where the business was going.
Sam says the board asked what he wanted to do with the company, and he realized he had not answered that for anyone. He built a three-year vision that specifies what he wants to do, when, and which pieces will go into it. He presented it to the company two weeks before the episode and said it gave him confidence about direction, while acknowledging that building clubs the right way takes time.
“We'd never had like a three-year vision with a coupled financial plan.”
After opening up, Pavilion became too diffuse in its focus and lost sight of what had made it work.
Sam says Pavilion expanded from go-to-market executives to CEOs and then began planning an operations collective for CFOs and COOs. He describes this as losing focus on what got the business there.
“we just got so diffuse in our focus”
A profitable low-growth company can find growth more easily than a high-growth unprofitable company can find its way to profitability.
Sam cited this idea, attributing it to McKinsey, while describing Pavilion's cost problems after 2022. He said he was quite proud that the company reversed course and got back to profitability.
“it's much easier for a low growth company that's profitable to find and discover growth than it is for a high growth unprofitable business to find its way to profitability.”
Pavilion Gold is an invitation-only tier for current operators at companies from about $50M ARR up to around a billion in ARR, admitted through an interview.
Sam describes Gold as an elite membership that sits on top of Pavilion's roughly 10,000 members. Candidates go through an interview process, CEOs and service providers are excluded, and fractionals must be in an between-role state rather than fractional for more than six months. Advisers can qualify after leaving an operating role such as at Databricks or OpenAI, but consultants generally do not.
“It is for operators, current operators from 50 million in ARR up to a billion and sometimes north of a billion.”
Pavilion's main membership is now more of an educational institution than a private club, and Sam asks whether a private club can be built on top of it.
Sam says Pavilion offers education such as CRO school and CMO school and wants everyone to take them. He also says the company needs programs for members who are not the very best, so they can have connection with peers and feel part of a bigger group, while the exclusive tier sits at the top.
“now I would say now it's the the main membership is more of an educational institution than it is a private club”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Positioning & marketing Link to this
Members putting Revenue Collective on their LinkedIn profiles as a badge of honor was a key driver of growth.
Sam says the business would not have happened without LinkedIn, because people started listing Revenue Collective on their profiles. He says it became a badge of honor that the company measured very carefully, and that it produced very strong referrals.
“people started putting revenue collective on their LinkedIn profile and it became a badge of honor”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Pipeline & demand generation Link to this
Slack gave members an organized, real-time group chat that felt more useful than a messaging app, offering learning they could not get by googling.
Sam says Slack became a more sophisticated group chat than iMessage that could be organized, and it became a place where members shared in a way that felt real time. He says people felt they were learning things they could not learn by searching online.
“Slack became an opportunity for like a really more sophisticated group chat than like iMessage that could be organized”
Pavilion's founding point of view was that it acts as a union or guild for operating executives, teaching them to negotiate and protect their careers.
Sam says the community taught members how to negotiate, ask for severance, and understand equity, including double trigger and cashless exercise. It also taught them to build the right to consult into employment agreements so CEOs could not block side work. He describes it as an association that advocates for the operating executive, not just a go-to-market skills program.
“We taught people to bake in the right to consult into their employment agreement”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Positioning & marketing Link to this
Pavilion originally defined clearly who it was for and who was not allowed to join, positioning it against investors and CEOs.
Sam says the community was built for operators and not for the investors and CEOs and founders who are celebrated in the startup world. He says the audience and exclusions were both clearly defined from the start, and that it was in some ways a response to those people.
“So first who it was for was very very clearly defined and who was not allowed to join and who it was not for was very clearly defined.”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Positioning & marketing Link to this
A host observed that members began sharing their playbooks openly, which he said correlated directly with the community scaling.
A host says that in the early years he saw go-to-market leaders being territorial about their playbooks and treating other leaders as competition. After a couple of years of Revenue Collective, he says, sharing frameworks openly became common, and members realized they benefited when the whole community got better. He called this one of the most beautiful things Sam's team achieved, and Sam thanked him.
“it became very common for people to start sharing openly”
Fixing the problems caused by opening up Pavilion would take three to five years, and that slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Sam says the company has to slow down and that fixing the problems will take three to five years. He wants to keep the idea that there can be a Pavilion for everybody while building programs for members who are not the very best and keeping an exclusive top tier.
“It's going to take three to five years to fix”
A club which grows too fast loses its exclusivity, citing Soho House.
Sam says that when Soho House tried to grow too quickly and expand too much, it didn't feel as exclusive. In the discussion that followed, a host said clubs can become cool again. He said a second Soho House location in London became shiny again because even very famous people could not get in for two months. Another host said the Austin location had a two-year waitlist but members are now talking about leaving, and suggested it varies city by city.
“when they tried to grow too quickly and expand too much, it didn't feel as exclusive”
Listen on Apple Podcasts Positioning & marketing Link to this
Pavilion invests directly in chapter operations and enablement, treating local chapter leaders as the heart and soul of the business.
Sam says the company equips its local chapters with marketing materials, sent each one a stand for events such as happy hours, and runs automations for them. He says the chapter team is a function Pavilion invests in directly and is not an afterthought.
“We invest in chapter operations and chapter enablement.”
Operating executives such as CROs rarely receive public recognition for growth, unlike founders and investors.
Sam says investors and founders are still the celebrated heroes of startup stories, while operating executives feel pressure and are rarely credited for their wins. He gave the example that when companies announce fundraises, no one thanks the CRO who took a company from about $1M to $50M in three years. He thinks technical founders find sales and marketing people hard to come to terms with.
“Not once is somebody saying, you know, kudos to the CRO who took this company from like a million to like 50 million in 3 years.”