GTM Engineering for Early-Stage Software Companies
Your sales development reps (SDRs) open the CRM to qualified accounts, the right decision-maker, and a first draft ready to send. We build the system that does the research and list work, so they spend their day selling. Tested, documented, and yours to keep.
20 minutes. Three fixes you can use, whether or not you hire us.
Built and run by Will Mauro, GTM engineer. You work with him directly, with no handoffs.
The Approach
Most pipelines are a stack of tools nobody fully owns. We build go-to-market (GTM), the path from stranger to customer, the way good engineering teams build product: one source of truth, clear contracts between tools, evals before scale, and every decision written down.
See It Run
A sample pipeline, built the way we build yours. Every account moves through the same five steps. Click any account to see everything the system knows about it, and why it sits where it does.
Sample data. All companies, people, and numbers are fictional.
Tap an account to open its dossier. Swipe to see every stage.
What We Build
Every engagement is scoped around the motion you actually run. Start with one piece, like enrichment or CRM hygiene, or have the full pipeline built end to end.
Engagement
No packages. Every engagement starts with a conversation about your motion, your stack, and what is breaking. Then we send a fixed-scope proposal.
The Playbook
Let one kind of buyer come to you. Go find the other. Run both through one database, so every signal makes the next one smarter.
A system can handle research, list building, and first drafts. Your SDRs get those hours back for inbound, the people who already want to talk.
Assumes the system takes over 70% of manual outbound work and a 2,000-hour work year per SDR. This is the value of the time freed, before the cost of the system, which we scope with you. Example numbers, not benchmarks.
The levers multiply. 10% better on each one means 46% more revenue.
Launch the self-serve side first. Get real users and real results before you pitch anyone.
Start outbound on a small test list. Pitch with proof, not promises.
Expand what is working. Automate only the steps that have proven accurate.
Guardrails are what make automation safe to run at volume. They live in the system itself, so they hold even when nobody is watching.
Outbound targets businesses only. Individuals hear from you after they opt in, never before.
Enforced by: Targeting rulesCourt filings, medical data, and similar records stay off-limits, even when they are technically public.
Enforced by: Source allowlistEvery data source is checked against its terms of use before it enters the pipeline.
Enforced by: Source allowlistThe system drafts and a person reviews and sends. Nothing goes out on autopilot.
Enforced by: Review stepNo guaranteed outcomes and no invented stats. Every message is checked for accuracy before it goes out.
Enforced by: Review stepUnsubscribe links, a physical address, and a suppression list checked before every send. Separate sending domains protect your main one.
Enforced by: Sequencer + suppression listEvery tradeoff is written down, so your team knows why the system works the way it does.
Enforced by: Decision recordsRecording disclosures where state law requires them, calling hours honored, and no automated calls or texts to mobile numbers without consent.
Enforced by: Dialer settingsThe Scoreboard
Every build ships with a scoreboard. It ties each part of the system to the revenue lever it moves, so you can see what is working and we know what to change next. We baseline your numbers before we build, so growth is measured against your numbers, not ours.
Dollar value of new opportunities that match your ICP, per month.
Accounts whose product usage crosses your buying threshold.
Share of accounts with every required field filled.
Share of researched accounts where the contact is the real buyer, graded against hand-labeled accounts.
Time from a signup or form fill to the first human touch.
Replies that want to keep talking, per 100 delivered emails.
Meetings held per 100 accounts contacted.
Share of opportunities that close, and how they move stage to stage.
Share of free accounts that upgrade in a period.
Average first-year value of a new customer. ARR is annual recurring revenue.
Pipeline from more seats, higher tiers, or new teams at existing customers.
Revenue kept and grown from last year's customers, after churn and expansion.
Share of new signups that reach their first moment of real value.
Share of at-risk flags from usage or calls that got a response within a week.
Data, AI, and tool spend for every account that reaches Scored.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is what it costs to win a customer. Payback is the months of gross margin it takes to earn that back.
Lifetime value (LTV) is the gross margin a customer brings over their whole time with you, compared with what it cost to win them.
Share of rep hours spent with buyers instead of research and list building.
Days since each account was last enriched.
Duplicate records a sync creates. The target is zero.
Share of email that lands in the inbox, plus bounce and spam-complaint rates.
Share of AI drafts approved without edits. When it falls, the inputs need work.
Tap any metric for its definition, formula, and the services that move it.
Active free-plan users answer text messages faster than email.
Split 100 active users evenly between the two channels for two weeks.
Meetings per 100 contacts, opt-outs, and replies that want to keep talking.
Keep the channel that books more meetings without raising opt-outs. Log the result either way.
An example of how we test. Decision rules are agreed before the test starts, so the result decides, not opinions.
After You Sign
What we measure changes as the system matures. First we prove the data is right. Then we grow pipeline, then sharpen conversion and efficiency, then compound through retention and expansion. The scoreboard and our work evolve together.
| KPI | 00Baseline | 01Foundation | 02Pipeline Engine | 03Conversion & Efficiency | 04Compounding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data healthMatch rate, duplicates, freshness | Primary | Primary | Tracked | Monitored | Monitored |
| Decision-maker accuracy | Tracked | Primary | Tracked | Monitored | Monitored |
| Speed to lead | Primary | Primary | Tracked | Tracked | Monitored |
| Qualified pipeline created | Primary | Monitored | Primary | Tracked | Tracked |
| Reply and meeting rates | Primary | Monitored | Primary | Tracked | Monitored |
| Product-qualified accounts | Tracked | Monitored | Primary | Tracked | Tracked |
| Cost per qualified account | Tracked | Monitored | Primary | Primary | Tracked |
| Rep selling time | Tracked | Monitored | Primary | Tracked | Monitored |
| Win rate by segment | Primary | Not yet | Tracked | Primary | Tracked |
| Free-to-paid conversion | Tracked | Not yet | Tracked | Primary | Tracked |
| CAC payback | Primary | Not yet | Monitored | Primary | Tracked |
| Average contract value | Tracked | Not yet | Monitored | Primary | Tracked |
| Net revenue retention | Tracked | Not yet | Not yet | Tracked | Primary |
| Expansion pipeline | Monitored | Not yet | Not yet | Tracked | Primary |
| LTV to CAC | Monitored | Not yet | Not yet | Tracked | Primary |
Every client starts at Baseline. The pace through each phase depends on your data, your team, and your sales cycle.
Built With
The platforms we build with every day, plus the ones we work in for clients. If you run something else, we work in your stack.
The Engineer
"Go-to-market is a system. I build it like software, then stay to make it better every quarter."
William Mauro is a GTM engineer and product builder with more than a decade of experience across software, go-to-market, and digital execution. He has worked everywhere from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies, so he knows what a growing team needs and what it can skip.
Before founding Vantage Mode, Will co-founded a commerce platform that let people shop directly from social content, building major retail partnerships along the way. He then led North American customer success at an enterprise content management company, managing accounts across fashion, luxury, electronics, and home goods.
Today he builds the data, AI, and CRM systems that turn a target market into qualified pipeline, and the content that gives that pipeline something worth clicking. He has built products end to end, from pricing and billing to the outbound pipeline that finds the right decision-maker at every account.
Whether it's a messy CRM, an enrichment setup that never quite worked, or a pipeline you need built from zero. We respond to every inquiry within 24 hours with a clear next step.
We respond within 24 hours. No spam, no cold calls. Just a real conversation about your pipeline.