RevOps for Hypergrowth (Fireworks AI, Perplexity, Exa & More) | CEO @ Go Nimbly, Jen Igartua
Jen Igartua, CEO of GoNimbly, discusses how fast-growing AI companies are scaling despite operational gaps, emphasizing that product strength drives growth while go-to-market becomes a competitive advantage. She argues that RevOps is fundamentally a support function, advocates for technical talent in the form of RevOps Architects rather than siloed GTM Engineers, and shares lessons from building a services business that prioritizes craftsmanship and employee tenure over transactional relationships.
Summary
In this episode of Topline, Jen Igartua shares her experience building GoNimbly into a 100-person revenue operations consulting firm that has served SaaS unicorns and is now working with cutting-edge AI companies like Fireworks, Perplexity, and Exa. She emphasizes that while product-market fit is the primary driver of growth—citing examples like Twilio and Zendesk that scaled rapidly despite organizational deficiencies—go-to-market operations have become increasingly important as a competitive differentiator.
Jen argues that the best starting point for RevOps work in hypergrowth companies is top-of-funnel infrastructure, specifically lead routing and speed-to-lead optimization, because these projects deliver ROI quickly and establish momentum. She notes that while these companies have smart operational thinkers, they're growing so fast that existing processes can't keep up. Rather than outsourcing RevOps entirely, she positions GoNimbly as providing specialized resources and surge capacity as companies scale.
On the controversial topic of RevOps as a support function, Jen asserts that operators have "done an injustice to sellers for a long time" by not viewing RevOps as a true support function. She argues that supporting sellers—whether unblocking systems access or enabling flexible selling approaches—is essential, not beneath the role. She believes the pendulum has swung from RevOps being too prescriptive and rigid (forcing sellers into rigid processes) to a healthier place where operators recognize both strategic and operational responsibilities.
Regarding talent development and the GTM Engineer trend, Jen positions GTM Engineers as a necessary response to RevOps teams becoming less technical over the 2015-2022 period, when declarative tools made the function more accessible. She's introduced the title "RevOps Architect" at GoNimbly to capture this need for technical talent. However, she's critical of GTM Engineers operating in silos under sales managers rather than rolling up to RevOps leadership, arguing this creates fragmented infrastructure and limits long-term impact. She sees GTM Engineer as a junior specialized role whose natural career progression leads to Head of RevOps.
On services business operations, Jen shares hard-won lessons: she initially tried to optimize for recurring revenue and tech enablement but realized both were mistakes for her business model. She discovered that staffing strategy—carefully matching projects to skill development opportunities rather than just filling seats—is the most critical lever. Full-time employees who stay long-term and develop deep expertise deliver better work than contractors, despite higher relative costs, because they understand how to work together and can build the trust necessary in services relationships.
Jen notes that about 30-40% of GoNimbly's customers return in the second year, but across a five-year stretch, they work with most again, suggesting a natural rhythm of episodic engagement rather than constant retainers. She emphasizes that services businesses starting at zero revenue annually creates unique challenges compared to SaaS, but it also enables higher margins through strategic project scoping rather than optimizing for recurring revenue.
On the broader question of whether sales effectiveness has improved, Jen disagrees with the characterization that sales is more broken today. Instead, she argues that operators have been failing sellers by being overly prescriptive, and that money being cheaper previously masked operational inefficiency. Now that capital is scarce, inefficiencies are more visible, forcing better skill development and more flexible approaches. She also challenges the assumption that quality sellers come primarily from great product-market-fit companies, noting an inverse correlation between brand strength and individual seller quality in some cases.
Regarding her own business fears for 2027, Jen worries about being too concentrated in SaaS and AI-native segments, seeing this as a vulnerability if those markets face headwinds. She also questions whether she wants to build a 100+ person services company long-term, suggesting she'd prefer either significant growth and evolution or an eventual exit—likely through PE acquisition or a SaaS company buying her as a services division.
About this episode
<p>Jen Igartua, CEO at Go Nimbly, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman. Her client roster is wild: Fireworks AI, Perplexity, Exa, and Wispr Flow, plus some of the biggest names in SaaS. Topics in today's episode include how the fastest-growing AI-native companies are growing in spite of their revenue operations (not because of them), the first project she runs when she wants to show ROI fast, and how she makes the case that RevOps is a support function and always was. Plus, whether the GTM engineer is anything more than RevOps with better marketing (and more)!</p> <p>Key Takeaways:</p> <p>- Operational debt at the fastest-growing AI companies tracks demand, not management quality. Go Nimbly's second customer was Zendesk in 2016, where the head of IT told her "oh, we've grown in spite of our operations." Jen shares what it takes to make a difference at the breakneck pace these environments demand.</p> <p>- RevOps spent a decade insisting it was strategic, and Jen thinks that cost the function credibility with the sellers it exists to serve. As she says in the episode: "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. And we've been fighting it forever. We are not a support function. And I'm like, we actually are." Asad, who has argued the same line for years, put the failure mode in football terms: "if a goalkeeper starts trying to play like a striker, you don't let in a lot of goals, right?"</p> <p>- In a people business, staffing is the product, and Jen only learned that after COVID took Go Nimbly down to 20 people. The rule she rebuilt around is "I should only take projects of skills that I want to nurture," then staff someone who is 80% of the way there so the last 20% is stretch. "Our whole job is playing Tetris with resources." She is equally direct about what did not work: "I poured a bunch of money in being tech enabled... I burned millions of dollars trying to do it," because at her clients' scale "everything's custom." The payoff line is the one to keep: "if you nail staffing, you grow a really great services organization."</p> <p>Connect with the Hosts & Guests:</p> <p>Host: Sam Jacobs, CEO at Pavilion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/<br /> Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/<br /> Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at STA - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/<br /> Guest: Jen Igartua, CEO at Go Nimbly - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-igartua/</p> <p>Topline is more than a podcast:</p> <p>Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/<br /> Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast<br /> Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: <a href="https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack">https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack</a><br /> <br /> <br /> 00:00 Introducing Jen Igartua<br /> 02:15 Growing In Spite Of Their Operations<br /> 05:46 Top Of Funnel Is The First Fix<br /> 06:39 What AI-Native Ops Teams Actually Have<br /> 10:50 The Twenty-Rep Qualification Bar<br /> 11:37 Is Sales More Broken Than Before<br /> 15:00 RevOps Is A Support Function<br /> 16:29 Do Great Products Make Great Sellers<br /> 22:51 Caesars, COVID, And Twenty People<br /> 24:56 Lessons From A Services Business<br /> 28:21 Staffing Is The Whole Game<br /> 31:10 Why Contractors Do Not Work<br /> 40:09 What Is A GTM Engineer Really<br /> 49:26 What Scares Jen About 2027<br /> 54:40 Bulls and Bears</p>
Key Insights
- Jen argues that fast-growing companies succeed despite their operations because strong product-market fit generates inbound demand that outpaces organizational capacity—the infrastructure is the constraint, not the opportunity.
- She claims that top-of-funnel RevOps work delivers the fastest ROI and should be the first priority, while downstream projects have slower feedback loops and higher complexity, particularly CPQ implementations.
- Jen contends that RevOps teams have historically treated sellers poorly by being overly prescriptive about process stages and timing, losing sight of sales as a consultative art requiring flexibility.
- She argues that GTM Engineers are a response to RevOps becoming less technical during the 2015-2022 period when declarative tools made the function more accessible, and technical capability is now necessary again.
- Jen believes GTM Engineers should roll up to RevOps leadership rather than operating in silos under sales managers, because isolated top-of-funnel work creates fragmented infrastructure misaligned with broader go-to-market goals.
- She claims that full-time employees with high tenure deliver better work than contractors in services businesses despite higher per-hour costs, because they develop trust with clients and understand how to work together as teams.
- Jen argues that trying to optimize services revenue for high recurring revenue and productization was a strategic error—her business is actually better served by episodic engagement on complex problems.
- She contends that approximately 30-40% of customers return in the second year, but across a five-year stretch, most customers work with GoNimbly multiple times, suggesting a natural rhythm of intermittent engagement.
- Jen argues that sales isn't more broken today than historically—rather, operator failures and cheap capital previously masked inefficiencies that are now visible, forcing better skill development.
- She claims that better product-market fit companies don't necessarily produce better individual salespeople; there can be an inverse correlation between brand strength and individual seller quality.
- Jen asserts that a strong operational leadership team and institutional knowledge are significant competitive advantages that take years to develop, and this accumulated experience matters more than initial hiring decisions.
- She argues that services companies have fundamentally different business dynamics than SaaS—they start at zero revenue annually and cannot optimize the same way, creating unique challenges around staffing and business continuity planning.
Topics
Transcript
Jen Egartwa is the founder and CEO of GoNimbly, a revenue operations firm that has built the go-to-market engines for SaaS unicorns like Zendesk, Twilio, and Gong, as well as some of the fastest-growing AI companies. I'm working now with Whisperflow, Exa, Perplexity, and Fireworks, these AI-first companies. The number of people they want to hire in a year is, like, it blows my mind. In today's episode, Jen shares how to prioritize when your customer demand outpaces your sales infrastructure, higher in a year is like, it blows my mind. In today's episode, Jen shares how to prioritize when your customer demand outpaces your sales infrastructure and her favorite approach if you want to get ROI from a RevOps…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from Topline
SPOTLIGHT: Skipping the SMB Trap and Building for Big Brands | Matt Allison, CEO & Founder @ Handraise
Matt Allison, CEO and co-founder of Handraise, discusses how his AI-powered media intelligence platform solves enterprise communications challenges by automating manual data processing that plagued his previous company TrendKite. He emphasizes the importance of building for high-value enterprise customers from day one and maintaining discipline in go-to-market strategy rather than chasing rapid growth metrics.
Forget Growth. Your Valuation Depends On Your AI Story | Tomasz Tunguz, GP @ Theory Ventures
Tomasz Tunguz, a venture capitalist at Theory Ventures, discusses how AI is fundamentally reshaping SaaS valuations, sales metrics, and go-to-market strategies. He argues that the market now values AI narrative and enterprise budget increases over traditional growth metrics, while warning that observable productivity gains may actually reflect demand-side changes rather than supply-side innovations.
SPOTLIGHT: Surviving the Inbox Apocalypse | Evan Huck, CEO & Co-Founder @ UserEvidence
Evan Huck, CEO of UserEvidence, discusses building a customer evidence platform while balancing startup growth from $4M to $11M revenue. He shares his career journey from SDR to founder and explains how a long-term brand investment strategy, after eight quarters of flat growth, finally drove significant pipeline acceleration.
How To Make Your ARR 20% More Valuable To Investors | Keenan, CEO @ A Sales Growth Company
Keenan, CEO of A Sales Growth Company, argues that not all revenue is created equal—revenue generated through heroic, reactive sales practices can be valued 15-20% lower by investors than revenue from systematic, predictable processes. He emphasizes that understanding the fundamental physics of selling and the actual business problems customers face matters far more than standardizing behaviors, and that most sales organizations suffer from broken systems rather than training deficiencies.
SPOTLIGHT: AI Isn't Just Faster Translation, It's a $40B Tug-of-War for Global Attention. | Bryan Murphy, CEO @ Smartling
Bryan Murphy, CEO of Smartling, discusses how he led his AI translation company through a rapid organizational transformation after recognizing GPT's potential to dramatically improve translation quality. He shares his framework for managing innovation through structured R&D processes with confidence levels and time-boxing, while maintaining focus on customer outcomes.