Topline · 13 Sep 2026 · From the week of 7 September
RevOps for Hypergrowth (Fireworks AI, Perplexity, Exa & More) | CEO @ Go Nimbly, Jen Igartua
These are notes on the conversation, checked against its transcript. The episode itself has the full discussion.
In brief
Jen Igartua, founder and CEO of RevOps consultancy Go Nimbly (about 100 people, bootstrapped, clients including Fireworks AI, Perplexity, Exa, Wispr Flow, Gong, Zendesk and Twilio), joins Topline hosts Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman. She argues that today's AI-native companies, like Twilio and Zendesk a decade ago, grow in spite of their operations because inbound demand outruns any infrastructure, and that top-of-funnel lead routing and speed to lead is the fastest place to show RevOps ROI. She contends RevOps is, and should accept being, a support function for sellers, and that rigid process has stripped the consultative art out of selling. Much of the episode covers what she learned rebuilding a services business after COVID shrank it to 20 people: staffing is the core skill, contractors and tech-enabled productized services did not work for her, and in-house craftspeople build the reputation services firms depend on. The hosts also debate whether the best sellers come from great-product companies, whether the GTM engineer is just RevOps rebranded (Jen says it belongs under RevOps), and whether Clay is worth its reported $7B valuation.
For founders
- Jen Igartua says fast-growing AI-native companies grow in spite of their operations because demand outpaces infrastructure, and she does not see the lag as a failing.
- In a services business, staffing is the product: Jen only takes projects in skills she wants to nurture and staffs someone who is 80% of the way there so the last 20% is stretch.
- Jen burned millions trying to make Go Nimbly tech-enabled with productized services, because at her clients' scale everything is custom.
- Jen found contractors gave her worse margin, legal headaches and client trust issues, so she staffs projects only with full-time employees, and she says putting all-new people on a project makes it go red.
- Asad Zaman warned that optimising a services firm for recurring revenue can price it out of the spiky, inflection-point projects that are the most interesting work.
For revenue leaders
- Jen starts RevOps engagements with top-of-funnel lead routing and speed to lead because it ships fastest and shows ROI quickest, and the same infrastructure later supports expansion and churn-risk detection.
- Jen argues RevOps should embrace being a support function for sellers and stop forcing them through rigid stage-by-stage process that kills consultative selling.
- Jen says GTM engineers are a response to RevOps teams having become less technical, and they should roll up to RevOps, not to a sales manager, so top-of-funnel work stays tied to the whole funnel.
- AJ Bruno found that technical AEs hired by a CRO who had never carried a bag took longer to ramp than he expected at QuotaPath.
- Jen's bar for a RevOps consultancy engagement is roughly 20 reps or about to reach 20, plus a committed operator or leader to push transformational work.
What was said 30, most useful first
Jen Igartua's qualification bar for a RevOps engagement is roughly 20 reps plus a leader committed to building operations. Listen
She defines product-market fit as a fast-growing sales team in which all the reps are getting fed. Below 20 reps, or not about to reach 20, she doubts the company needs Go Nimbly at her price point, which she gave as 20 grand plus. She turns down business when there is no strong operator or executive commitment, because transformational work needs a leader with goodwill and executive presence to open doors.
“if you don't have 20 reps or about to get to 20 reps, I'm going like, I don't know if you need us. Like, I'm charging 20 grand plus”
The best sellers come from companies with the strongest product-market fit, because that fit funds world-class sales development. Listen
He uses MongoDB as the example: high product-market fit let it attract a world-class CRO and invest in skill development, which is why AI companies want to hire its reps. If more companies now have product-market fit, he reasons, a higher share of salespeople should develop great skills, though it may not have happened yet. He would advise a young seller to start at a well-run company with strong enablement rather than take early-stage risk.
“there's a reason why every AI company would love to Hire from MongoDB is because they have this great machine to develop talent.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
There tends to be an inverse correlation between the strength of the brand on a seller's business card and the seller's quality. Listen
At Axial, a private equity buyer told a colleague that the better the salesperson, the worse the product must be. Sam's team saw the reverse case in a weak LinkedIn Sales Navigator rep, which they took as a sign of how strong the product was. He allows that great sellers can come out of true enterprise organisations with a CRO who invests in training.
“I think there tends to be an inverse correlation between the quality of the brand on your business card and the quality of the salesperson.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Jen Igartua tried making 20% of Go Nimbly's workforce contractors and found it hurt margin and created legal and client-trust problems. Listen
She says contractors bill heavily because they are paid hourly, and they cost her about $100 an hour versus $50 for employees. California rules mean she cannot set their schedules or make them part of the core business. Clients want full-time, trained employees on their company laptops, and contractors bill her for internal one-on-ones and team huddles.
“So Now I'm paying $100 an hour instead of 50, you know, for these people. So my margin is really bad on my contractors.”
One speaker found that services clients rarely buy two years in a row but often return by year three. Listen
Reviewing a base of 2,000 client companies, the speaker found that only about 30 to 40% of a year's clients were worked with again the next year. Many were back by the third year, so across a five-year stretch the firm worked with them for most of those years.
“Very rarely have we worked with more than 30 or 40% of the companies we're working with in one year in the second year but by the third year we're working with them again.”
Listen to the episode Retention & customer success Link to this
GTM engineers should report to RevOps, not to a sales manager, so their top-of-funnel work does not become a silo. Listen
She expects GTM engineers to win early love by automating low-hanging fruit before the real work begins. Because the role grew out of Clay, it centres on top of funnel, and working in isolation risks mismatched ICP and workflows that SDRs do not use. She is fine with a top-of-funnel focus as long as the GTM engineer's boss cares about the whole funnel.
“What I don't like is a GTME rolling up to a sales manager and like doing things in a little silo.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
AJ Bruno found that technical AEs hired by a CRO who had never carried a bag took longer to ramp than he expected at QuotaPath. Listen
QuotaPath's CRO, Ryan, came from RevOps, and AJ thinks traditional SaaS sales teams like his have over-rotated toward technical AEs. He saw the issue early but gave Ryan a longer leash because the team was performing, flagging concerns without blocking the hires. Sam Jacobs said he tends to step in even on two-way-door decisions, which he thinks hurts people's development.
“the technical AES that he's hired have taken a lot longer to ramp than I would expect.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Whether AI agents prefer a tool will increasingly decide which vendor wins, which makes him bullish on Clay for now. Listen
He cited an investor who builds heavily with AI saying his agents love working with Clay. Asad reasons that if three companies do the same thing and agents prefer one, you have to be bullish on that one, at least for now. He also pointed to Clay's long history and pivots as giving it time to build strong operations.
“if that's the case, at least for now, you have to be bullish on the company that the agents love working with.”
The fastest-growing AI-native companies grow in spite of their operations because demand outruns any infrastructure that can be built. Listen
Her AI-native clients, which she names as Wispr Flow, Exa, Perplexity and Fireworks, have hiring plans so large that Go Nimbly cannot build process fast enough. A handful of SDRs make it work because inbound is so heavy, so in her view the go-to-market job is to maximise success that is already assured. She compares it to Zendesk in 2016, whose head of IT told her they had grown in spite of their operations.
“They are growing in spite of their operations because there's just no way for us to keep up with that speed.”
RevOps work at today's AI companies is largely the same as a decade ago, namely speed to lead and SDR automation, done with different technology. Listen
At Twilio, her first client, the project was making sure the team could pick up the phone within one minute of a lead arriving because inbound and signups were overwhelming. At Zendesk, her second client, Go Nimbly built a 'fake AI SDR' persona named Sarah with a LinkedIn profile, sending Eloqua emails with dynamic content that varied by industry, title and role. She says the projects for AI-native clients today feel very similar.
“It's still speed to lead and it's like automating SDR activities. It's not that different. It's just we're doing it with different technology”
Listen to the episode Pipeline & demand generation Link to this
Jen Igartua starts with top-of-funnel lead routing because it is the fastest RevOps project to deliver and to show ROI on. Listen
Lower in the funnel, the feedback loop is much slower and the work turns into things like CPQ projects. She says top-of-funnel infrastructure is not that different from what is needed to spot expansion opportunities or churn risk, so Go Nimbly tries to fit expansion workflows onto the same infrastructure.
“top of funnel is like one of the first things that I look at ... it's also the fastest like you, you can do that project pretty quickly and you can see ROI on that project really.”
Listen to the episode Pipeline & demand generation Link to this
Jen Igartua tells fast-growing clients to build their own RevOps team and uses outside help only for specialists and demand spikes. Listen
Her AI-native clients usually have one mid-level ops person who is ready to become more strategic but is quickly overwhelmed. Jen says she is not trying to outsource RevOps. She supplies specialists, speed to decision and special projects so clients can spike and come down on resourcing. Structure built for 50 SDRs is outgrown when the team becomes 75 and then 200.
“I'm not trying to outsource revops. I'm trying to give your team specialists. I'm trying to give your team speed to decision.”
An unidentified host argued that a company with elegant RevOps infrastructure is probably a red flag, because it suggests the company is not growing fast enough. Listen
The argument was that companies with strong product-market fit accelerate so fast that operations cannot keep up and get built while growing, and that the product makes up for the operational mess. Jen replied that she works primarily with companies that already have product-market fit and would not speak to earlier stages.
“If you saw a company that had the opportunity to build this really eloquent rev ops infrastructure, probably means that they weren't growing fast enough.”
RevOps is a support function to the sales team and that operators have harmed sellers by insisting otherwise. Listen
She describes RevOps as building a product on top of existing infrastructure so a group of people can do their jobs. She still wants a large share of the team's time to be strategic, but if a seller is locked out of a system or blocked, ops has to help. She says strategy and execution roles should be held by different people, and that operators are starting to accept the support role as important rather than ugly.
“I think that operators have been doing an injustice to sellers for a long time and we are starting to really take onus of the fact that Revenue Operations needs to be a support function to the sales team.”
RevOps is a force multiplier only when it understands its support role, comparing it to a goalkeeper who should not play striker. Listen
Asad, who has held this view for years, says RevOps done well is a massive force multiplier, but it fails when the function misunderstands its role in the overall machine. Jen added a comparison to a product team needing customer support.
“if a goalkeeper starts trying to play like a striker, you don't let in a lot of goals. Right?”
Rigid, stage-by-stage sales process imposed by operators has stripped out the consultative art of selling. Listen
She says operators have been beating sellers over the head with exactly what to do at each stage and when to send the proposal. Sellers who act as consultants and help buyers through a difficult decision or an organisational bet will shine. She thinks sellers have not gotten worse, and that scrutiny outside the AI-native space, where mediocre sellers can still make a lot of money, probably creates more skill.
“we've lost the like flexibility and the art of sales and allowing, you know, sellers to be consultants.”
Jen Igartua cites a two-by-two of skill and taste against AI use, in which low-skilled people using AI become 'slop cannons'. Listen
She describes the matrix as skills and taste versus working with or without AI. Highly skilled people using AI do a really great job, and low-skilled people using AI produce slop. She says this gap is showing up much more now.
“if you have, you're very skilled with AI, you do really great job. If you're low skilled with AI, you're a slop cannon.”
Sam Jacobs sees roughly the same share of good sellers as 10 or 20 years ago and does not see AI tools changing that. Listen
He notes that someone has always claimed sales is broken because reps miss quota. Today he sees companies with huge product-market fit and bigger markets feeding many average sellers, but he does not think the percentage of good sellers has moved.
“I don't think the number, the percentage number of good sellers is any different than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Founders of services firms go wrong by copying software-company practices, such as calling revenue MRR. Listen
Jen admitted she talked about revenue as MRR and ARR before deciding 'it's just revenue'. She says reading the book Managing a Professional Services Firm showed her she had been doing the opposite of what she should. Asad Zaman made the same point, that taking inspiration from how software companies operate is a disaster for a services business.
“I would talk about revenue as mrr. Like, I'm like, we've all done that. ARR. It's like it's just revenue. Like, let me stop pretending”
She burned millions of dollars trying to make Go Nimbly tech-enabled with productized services, because enterprise-scale client work is all custom. Listen
She can design a standard MQL flow but cannot install it in every client's org, because each one is different and carries tech debt. She says Go Nimbly has become more tech- and AI-enabled in the last six months than in its first 10 years.
“I poured a bunch of money in being tech enabled. Like, we created all these like, you know, productized services, but the, the level of company I'm working with is everything's custom.”
Asad Zaman warned that optimising a services firm for recurring revenue can price it out of the most interesting, high-value projects. Listen
He argued that services firms want to come in at inflection points and emergencies, solve spiky problems and not stay forever. Chasing recurring revenue can push a firm into an awkward corner of the market. Jen replied that she likes retainers because staffing someone for more than three months helps, but well-scoped projects with strong outcomes let her charge more and earn higher margins.
“If you try to optimize for too much recurring revenue, you almost like, put yourself in the wrong position.”
Jen Igartua staffs projects only in skills she wants to build, assigning someone who is about 80% capable so the remaining 20% is stretch. Listen
She says most services firms staff whatever project comes in, but her rule is to take projects in skills she wants Go Nimbly to be great at. Training programs such as Clay boot camps help, but people develop by stretching hands-on, paired with strong colleagues who teach them to run a room or build an architecture diagram. She has one person working full time on staffing.
“I should only take projects of skills that I want to nurture ... who is essentially at like 80% of the way there so they. 80% they can get this done. 20% is stretch.”
An unidentified speaker argued that services firms with transactional customers need long-tenured, deeply skilled employees to earn the trust buyers require. Listen
The argument was that services buyers are buying the ability to solve a problem, not a tangible product, so they take a bigger leap of faith, and that trust comes only from craftspeople. Jen added that staffing a project with all-new people makes it go red, because teams need to know how to work together. She said she has to prove her ethics more than a software company does, and that referral business helps.
“This transactional employee base and that transactional customer base leads to really wishy washy work.”
Jen Igartua sees the GTM engineer as a response to RevOps teams having lost technical skill and needing it back. Listen
She says she started her career doing GTM engineering as an Eloqua specialist, building automated cold-email-to-meeting workflows for Zendesk. Between roughly 2015 and 2022, ops became declarative and product-buying, and marketing ops and Salesforce admins grew less technical. Go Nimbly's 'RevOps Architect' role is its best-selling offering because clients want highly technical people.
“I think the GTME is a response to saying, oh no, we need more technical talent and we've lost that.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Jen Igartua is not convinced by the forward-deployed engineer role, which she sees as SaaS companies wanting to be consultants. Listen
She describes it as the customer-facing counterpart to the GTM engineer. Calling it an engineer does not change that it is a person working with customers to help them get the most out of the product, and she said 'that one I'm not here for'.
“which to me again it's, it's SaaS companies wanting to be consultants. You can call it engineer all day”
Listen to the episode Retention & customer success Link to this
COVID shrank Go Nimbly to about 20 people after its biggest client, Caesars Entertainment, cancelled a $2 million project with days of notice. Listen
Caesars called on a Thursday to shut down a six-person engagement by Monday. Jen negotiated a month or two of invoices instead of litigating, and Copper, also a client, ended its contract. She says the business had done well from its 2015 founding until then in spite of operations, with little attention to margin or staffing. Afterwards she studied how to run a services firm and brought in advisors who had done it before.
“I got a call on a Thursday being like, hey, shut it down by Monday. ... I got down to like 20 people during COVID and had to rebuild.”
Jen Igartua sees the exit options for a services firm as limited, mainly a private equity roll-up or a SaaS company buying a services arm. Listen
She says she would not be happy running a 150-person company in 10 years, so she must either keep growing or pursue an exit, and an exit means cleaning up her books and showing good margin. She is unsure she would want to run services inside a SaaS company, calling it a job where you get beaten up. Sam Jacobs suggested rising markets make services businesses more attractive acquisitions, possibly as a frontier lab's consulting arm.
“what is the exit for a services company? Like my only exit is PE comes in and takes a little chunk or mushes me with three other companies”
Jen Igartua is bullish on Clay and sees it moving upmarket into enterprise, though she is unsure about its valuation. Listen
She discounts the criticism that Clay is too hard to use, because an orchestration tool doing complex work will not be easy, and the difficulty sends business to Go Nimbly. She notes Clay is more expensive per unit of data, requires hiring technical people alongside it, and offers strong prototyping. She questioned the reported $7B valuation against Airtable, which she said sells for about 1.2.
“I think that they're going to shoot off. They are going up market. I'm seeing enterprise customers wanting to utilize Clay.”
In a people business, nailing staffing is what grows a great services organisation. Listen
She describes the core job as matching people to projects so they are suited to the work but still stretched, and admits it sometimes misses when a project is too easy for someone to develop. Go Nimbly recruits through an in-house three-person team that screens for drive, confidence and skill, because consultants have to push through resistance and cannot hide behind the work.
“Our whole job is playing Tetris with resources.”
Jen Igartua's biggest worry for 2027 is how concentrated Go Nimbly is in the SaaS and AI market. Listen
She described a recent two-to-three-month 'mini recession' in SaaS, which she thinks was fear-based, when nobody made big buying decisions. Her worst case is right-sizing the business while keeping overhead manageable. She is weighing whether to double down on AI-native clients or diversify beyond small medtech and insurance segments.
“I'm pretty much at the, at the hands of the market and I don't have a lot of space to find solace if things go south.”