Bardeen

We are just getting started! 📈 And Q2 has been a banger so far with the bell ringing every day! 🔔

Q1 at Bardeen = 🚀 mode. We started the year with a bold bet: AI works best with a human in the loop. So we reimagined the entire GTM experience with that in mind, and our Q1 results speak for themselves: - Repositioned the company as the "AI Copilot for GTM teams" - Launched AIgency, our hands-on, human-powered way to help teams automate faster - 10x'd lead volume (yep, really) - Wrote millions of words of content (SEO + Linkedin - you've seen us around :)) - Overhauled pricing and packaging: no more freemium, focused trials for qualified teams - Added 2 amazing sales engineers to build out AIgency (Joshua and Burak) - Activated 3 new demand channels: outbound, newsletters, and Linkedin (PLEASE LIKE THIS POST lol) - Oh, and we doubled revenue QoQ ‼️ The team is shipping fast, learning from our customers faster, and helping GTM teams make more money. And we will all be together in Portugal later this month! If you're tired of duct taping tools together just to run your motion... let's talk.

It's funny how competition works. At Bardeen, we overlap a lot with Clay. We automate similar workflows. We talk to similar buyers. Similar teams. And yeah, we hear "we're also looking at Clay" or "we tried this with Clay" every day. But the thing is: competition in startups is different than competition at scale. Startups are budget tight, bandwidth constrained, and focused on surviving. Tools get pitted against each other in this market becuase there's only room for one in the entire tool category. It's a zero-sum game by necessity, not by design. In the enterprise? Different story. Take Salesloft and Outreach. In SMB, they're head to head. In the enterprise, it's not uncommon to see both: SDRs use one, AEs the other. It's not about the logo choice, it's about workflow fit and org design. We already share enterprise customers with Clay. Deel is one very public example, but there are others. And what we're seeing is: When companies scale, they stop looking for one tool to rule them all. They start building efficient tool systems (James at Miro is especially good at this). Smart, cross-team workflows solving for all needs. That creates space for both of us to drive value. So yeah, we compete. But we also coexist. And in many ways, the future could be more of a partnership than a rivalry. Interesting take, huh? Q2 Colby having a moment. 😃 The VC-bubble arms race to sell into every startup isn't the market. It was a moment.

The last day of the quarter SQUEEZE. Honestly, I love today. The hustle is always energizing. How many deals do you have left today? Give your manager (when they ask you today) a range. A tight range. This shows your accuracy, but also show your comfort putting more on the line for upside. Then finish the day higher.

Enterprise AI GTM tools: $7B invested, 60% unused after 90 days. The math doesn't math, folks. GTM automation tools are a dime a dozen these days. Every week, another Series A startup promising to "transform revenue operations" (aka compete with Clay) hits TechCrunch. $7B poured into GTM tech last year, a big wave of AI SDRs, copilots, etc. Results? Mostly short trials and disappointment. Limited repeatable revenue. Why? Most tools are purchased on a trial/POC, celebrated at all hands, then abandoned. The ROI pitch is compelling. The website is world class. The reality is going from bad to BAD: - Average enterprise deploys up to 90 tools. Uses 30% effectively. - GTM teams spend 10 hrs per week navigating tools, not selling. - 72% of automation trials don't convert. - Enterprise AI tools average 5 months to full implementation. So... we're confusing PURCHASING with TRANSFORMATION. Now this year: the market is splitting into two camps: 1. The educators: "Here's our platform. Watch these videos. Join our cohort. Become an expert." 2. The implementers: "Here's our platform. We'll build you what you need. You focus on revenue." Education-first might seem noble and scalable. Teach a man to fish, etc etc. But enterprise teams are drowning in "opportunities to learn and 'jump in' to the new tool" while quotas stay the same. The back of the envelope math: - CRO making ~$300k = $144/hr. - 40 hours to master a platform = $5,760 opportunity cost. - Now scale that across a team....... ouch. - Partial implementation = zero results. AI promised to eliminate this problem. It hasn't. It's made it worse. 60% of executives report that AI implementations haven't yielded substantial ROI. So, the next wave of GTM tech will be ALL about implementation velocity. The winners will combine: - Powerful automation tech - Human expertise - Fast time to value - No "you figure it out" handoffs and "priority Slack support" (does not work in Enterprise) TLDR: 2025 winners won't be the most powerful tools. They will be the tech that can expand upmarket with the fastest shipping velocity and minimal customer effort. What's your take? **source credit: Forrester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Salesforce, McKinsey & Company

The word “experiment” is going away…. After using our research tool to analyze Q1 sales calls at Bardeen (h/t Jeff + Grain), we found the word use down 40% in sales conversations. Why? Enterprise won't tolerate the "learning journeys" anymore. The market demands tangible returns, not trying stuff out. As a revenue leader, I'm seeing this in real-time. Our outbound isn't an experiment, it's a CHANNEL driving 15% of our multimillion-dollar pipeline. In 2025, leaders can't hide behind A/B tests and "pilots." Leadership wants one thing: repeatable, scalable revenue engines. Two types of companies will emerge: those who deliver measurable results and those who become case studies in how to burn capital. Sales leaders: Are your customers demanding harder ROI? Any other trends?

We use our own product every hour of every day. Really. Here's the exact intel I have 10 minutes before a sales call, all delivered in one Slack message (and copied in HubSpot) with zero manual work: 1. Company revenue, headcount, funding, and growth trends (AI-categorized for relevance) 2. Decision-maker's complete LinkedIn profile with recent activity/posts (with key insights highlighted) 3. Team composition and reporting structure (especially helpful when a champion books) 4. All previous conversation history from our CRM (synthesized) 5. Recent company news and press releases (filtered for relevance) 6. Current job openings indicating growth opps 7. Technology stack analysis (flagged for competitive displacement or “better together” opportunities) 8. Recent earnings reports 9. Social mentions and sentiment analysis 10. Lead qualification score (dynamically calculated based on all data points) 11. Key organizational initiatives from public announcements 12. Recent executive changes or restructuring related to the team we are meeting with 13. Competitive intelligence (companies in the space partnering with new tools) Start every call fully armed. Sales teams can focus on selling, not searching. DM me “PREP” if you want us to build this Bardeen playbook for you, for free!

We're launching something big today: 🦄 Since we started Bardeen back in 2020, we observed a problem across all AI and automation technology: Adoption. Over the last 3 months, this problem has been even more common during our client calls and when I talked to other founders, investors and users of AI and automation products. The technology is there, but the people and workflows are not - yet. There's a need for AI enablement. There's a need for GTM engineering. There's a need for accelerated adoption. Now, the most disappointing part of AI is how difficult it's been for most organizations to adopt it. (And even 95% of orgs that DID adopt it aren't optimizing it to it's fullest potential or are just doing PoCs). We've hired some major talent to help with this project. Our staff has been investing a significant amount of time with Bardeen users to develop high-performing, customized workflows and playbooks specifically for your business. In other words, we're deploying an AI-enabled automation platform managed by our staff. This will operate as a GTM engineer inside your business. Think about it as an AI automation engineer, supervised by a human expert. For some reason, this offering is uncommon. Most organizations choose between AI agent assistance all the way (not quite there yet technologically) OR human assistance all the way (agency model). We're bringing the best of both worlds now. This will be available to all of our teams and enterprise plans starting TODAY. If you'd like to get a first look, ping me or Colby. Special offer today only: Comment AIgency below and ping us for an extra 10,000 credits for Free on your teams/enterprise plan. LFG 📈 🚀 Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/d2bS2QB8

🚨 If you're wasting time on new GTM tools that don't work, you'll want to read this. The problem with GTM isn't a lack of tools. It's that there's not enough time and expertise to properly deploy them. Let's be honest, a truly transformational playbook with Bardeen takes a while to build. Simple playbooks are 2 or 3 actions, but the playbooks actually used by some of our largest customers are 20 to 30 steps. Not everyone has time to invest into a new tool. Our solution to that is adding a human into the loop. We're calling this new model an AIgency. So, who is this human? Well, they are: ✅ Really really good at automating GTM ✅ Have years of experience shipping actual outcomes for clients ✅ Familiar with ALL GTM tools, so they can help you avoid pitfalls and wasted effort ✅ Skilled at troubleshooting and optimizing existing workflows to eliminate inefficiencies But most importantly, they're augmented by AI systems and processes we've built. 🔥 So, if you've wasted time testing a tool in the past quarter, we're offering you 3 hours of dedicated AIgency time to sort out your GTM workflows 🔥 Shoot me a DM or comment LAUNCH and I'll follow up with details. More in the comments...

🕺 Introducing Bardeen's AIgency 🤖 The problem? GTM automation has become too complex. You open your laptop on Monday to find half your processes are still manual, your teammates juggling fragmented tools, and your data tied up in your CRM in ways only a serious RevOps engineer you untangle. Even highly innovative AI tools feel like adding another layer to the puzzle of your GTM motion versus simplifying it. That's why we're launching Bardeen's AIgency: an in-house agency of GTM experts who build and implement your entire automation ecosystem. Here's what makes AIgency stand out: When you sign up for Bardeen, you pay for your credits (the fuel), but you get a dedicated human copilot included, at no additional cost. Think of AIgency as your personal GTM specialists; part of the Bardeen team working exclusively for you. Here's exactly what AIgency DOES for you: 1. Builds custom AI Playbooks that automate your entire GTM workflow Integrates all your tools into one unified system (no more switching between platforms) 2. Creates personalized outreach sequences that adapt in real-time 3. Deploys AI-powered data enrichment to identify your best prospects 4. Automates repetitive tasks like lead qualification and follow-ups 5. Provides dedicated Bardeen specialists who implement everything for you "AI alone can't intuit all the nuances of your market positioning. And humans alone can't scale to handle billions of data points in real time. Blending the two is like fusing a sports car's engineering with a seasoned driver's know-how." Choose the plan that fits your needs: 1. Teams Plan: 2 custom AI Playbooks + your AIgency human copilot 2. Enterprise Plan: Unlimited AI Playbooks + dedicated AIgency specialist 🔥 SPECIAL OFFER: Get 3 hours of additional dedicated AIgency time OR 10,000 additional credits FREE ($1,500 value) with any Teams or Enterprise plan through the end of June. Comment LAUNCH below. 🔥 Just like HubSpot's partner ecosystem, we'll eventually scale AIgency through trusted third-party partners. But for now, these are Bardeen's own ELITE in-house experts dedicated to your success. We're anticipating many folks claiming this offer to transform your GTM engine, so please stay patient as we process requests this week! https://lnkd.in/ennDnY8h