Founder Mode: How Unify scaled up from founder-led sales

As a founder of Unify, Austin Hughes built his company's GTM engine from scratch, scaling revenue 39x year-over-year and landing customers such as Lattice, Justworks, and OpenPhone. Initially relying on warm sources and investor introductions for early customers, he transitioned to a more structured sales approach when the process became repeatable and predictable, hiring experienced sales representatives to take over most of the sales process. Hughes looks for excitement about the 0-to-1 journey in his sales hires, as well as traits such as experience working mid-market and enterprise deals, rigor in process, and relentless follow-up. He emphasizes the importance of treating GTM like product development, constantly testing and iterating to gather feedback and refine the process to get customers to see value quickly.