APAC's B2B Growth Podcast

David Fastuca, Co-Founder and CEO of Ricavi AI, joins the show to unpack how enterprise sales has flipped in five years, from headcount-heavy SDR teams to a leaner bench of account executives running their own go-to-market motions. He explains why sales-led growth is making a comeback even at product-led darlings like Cursor, why salespeople have become "the new engineers," and what separates fast-ramping sales teams from the rest. Expect real numbers on rep pay and ARR growth, a practical prospecting stack, and healthy scepticism about the AI hype. Guest Introduction David Fastuca is a serial entrepreneur with two SaaS exits worth $75 million combined. He co-founded Locomote, later helping buy the travel tech company back from Travelport, and is now Co-Founder and CEO of Ricavi AI (formerly Coach Pilot), an AI sales coaching platform. Key Topics How the B2B sales org has changed since 2021: leaner headcount, with SDRs converging into account executives who now hunt their own deals using go-to-market toolingWhy uncapped commissions are producing account executives earning up to a million dollars a year, and why David calls this "the best time to be a seller"The Cursor case study: product-led growth alone stalled past $200M ARR, and adding a sales team helped push it past $4 billion in annualised revenue, with roughly $2.6 billion from enterprise deals sales closedRising paid acquisition costs, and why LinkedIn ads are mostly a brand play, as drivers of the return to sales-led growthWhat separates fast-ramping companies from those stuck at six to eight months: a documented sales process and a small tool stackDavid's prospecting stack: enrichment tools, multi-touch outreach, and signal-based list building triggered by funding rounds, hiring surges, or industry newsHow David mines historical CRM data to find his most profitable customer profile, from his experience returning to lead LocomoteWhy David is sceptical of "AI will replace your sales team" claims, and which AI tools have earned a spot in his stack Resources & Links People Ben Horowitz - Co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things Companies & Tools Ricavi AI - David's AI sales coaching platform (formerly Coach Pilot), built to cut manual CRM entryLocomote - Travel tech company David co-founded and later helped buy back from TravelportCursor - AI coding tool David cites as the strongest case for sales-led growth after adding a sales teamFirmable - Australian B2B enrichment tool David recommends for prospectingZoomInfo - International B2B enrichment platformLusha - International B2B enrichment platformlemlist - Multi-touch outreach automation toolBotdog - LinkedIn automation toolFramer - AI website builder David used to update Ricavi's site after its rebrandManus - AI tool David uses for document creation and internal thinkingTodoist - The to-do list tool David keeps returning to Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest: David Fastuca Produced by: Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by: Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

Andy Lark has sat on 15-20 boards across ASX, Fortune 100 and startup companies, and he's blunt: most boards barely think about marketing. He explains why, what actually earns a marketer a seat at the table, and why commercial relevance beats campaign metrics. The chat then turns to AI: how marketing lost three of the four Ps, why most AI content is making brands worse, and the exact agent workflow Andy runs daily to track sales calls, competitors and market signals. Guest Introduction Andy Lark is a globally awarded CMO, entrepreneur and board director who helped build Xero into a global software company, reimagined Commonwealth Bank's brand and digital experiences, and helped build Dell's eCommerce site. He is Chair and Founder of Group Lark, leads The Accelerants, advises Nomni, co-authored the best-seller Augmented, and coaches thousands of leaders yearly on AI-first growth.  Key Topics Why boards rarely care about marketing, and the two triggers that put it on the agenda: major change, or something going wrong.How marketing lost three of the four Ps (product, price, place), keeping only promotion.What "commercial relevance" really means: being the voice of the customer and of the market.A telco board wanting to cut brand spend for "not driving growth," and why that's the wrong call.How businesses train buyers to wait for discounts, and why ABM and brand building fix it.Andy's AI agents that score every sales call each morning and scan the market for signals.Why AI content is flooding LinkedIn with noise, and how to use AI without losing brand voice.A five-level AI maturity model for marketing teams, plus Andy's 30-day plan for heads of marketing. Resources & Links People Joan Withers - former Mercury Energy chair, cited for prioritising brand at board level Companies & Tools Liven - Andy's CCO roleThe Accelerants - Andy's marketing consultancy for CMOsDell - past CMO roleCommonwealth Bank - past CMO roleXero - past CMO roleMercury Energy - from the Joan Withers storyMondelez's AI briefing tool - AI-automated creative briefsClay's AI writing policy - content rule exampleClaude - primary AI toolChatGPT - secondary AI toolCodex - coding tasksGemini - image generationPerplexity - quick researchGrok - quick researchLovable - app prototypingReplit - app prototypingClickUp Brain - marketing calendars Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest: Andy Lark Produced by: Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by: Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is presented by xGrowth

James Toepfer, former Head of Campaign Strategy and Demand Marketing for Digital Media APAC at Adobe, joins the show to explain why his team there ditched the Marketing Qualified Lead for the Marketing Qualified Account. He unpacks the disconnect that forced the change, an MQL dashboard glowing green while sales sat in the red, and how an account view reshaped BDR targets and conversion. Expect a practical breakdown of MQA and advice for lean teams without an insights function. Guest Introduction James Toepfer is a senior B2B marketing leader with 20+ years driving marketing strategy, go-to-market architecture, and revenue growth across enterprise SaaS in ANZ and APAC, at organisations including Adobe, Google, Intuit, PayPal, and Optus. Key Topics The "green dashboard, red sales" disconnect: why MQL volume and database coverage stopped reflecting sales performanceWhat MQA measures: engagement across a buying group of 7-10 ICPs per account, including "dark funnel" activity, not a single last-touch metricThe multi-quarter transition at Adobe, running MQL and MQA in parallel, led by a global insights team with heavy BDR enablementThe Account Engagement Hub: a self-serve tool for BDRs to prioritise accounts, see engaged contacts, and build outbound plansHow BDR incentives changed under MQA: unchanged pipeline targets, but higher-quality conversations and disposition ratesAdjusting the model under quarter-end pressure by narrowing to the most-engaged accounts, not adding more leadsAdvice for smaller teams: group leads by account manually and work backwards from the revenue numberWhy conversion improved once the denominator shifted to prioritised accounts, alongside sharper, problem-led content Resources & Links People Kerry Cunningham - Former Forrester analyst, now at 6sense, whose talk first shaped James's account-based thinkingJon Miller - Marketo co-founder, early advocate for account-based measurementJon Stona - Global CMO of Airwallex, cited as an example of bold B2B brand marketingNishi Seth - Google Cloud Marketing Lead APAC, cited for her take on continuous optimisationLucinda Barlow - Senior Director, International Marketing at Uber and James's former Google leader, cited for brand built on a customer "jolt"Mark Jones - Host of The CMO Show, which Adobe sponsorsDave Gerhardt - Founder of Exit Five, followed for ABM contentShadé Zahrai - Self-leadership researcher whose "I could" vs "I should" framing James cites as a takeaway Companies & Tools Adobe - Where James led the MQL-to-MQA transition6sense - Intent platform Kerry Cunningham now works withMarketo - Automation platform, part of Adobe, co-founded by Jon MillerThe CMO Show - Marketing podcast hosted by Mark Jones, sponsored by AdobeExit Five - B2B marketing community founded by Dave Gerhardt Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest: James Toepfer Produced by: Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by: Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

Jeff Sauer has spent twenty years teaching marketers how to measure what matters. In this episode, he explains how AI has rewritten his marketing playbook, letting a lean team (often just himself and a stack of AI tools) produce work that used to take a copywriter, web designer, project manager, and paid ads specialist. If you run a small marketing team and want a practical look at what AI can take off your plate today, this conversation is packed with real workflows, real numbers, and honest warnings about what still needs a human eye. Guest Introduction Jeff Sauer is the founder of MeasureU, a measurement training platform for agency owners and consultants, and previously ran an Inc 5000 agency for a decade before selling it. He has trained more than 50,000 marketers across over 100 countries and built a YouTube channel with more than 55,000 subscribers. Key Topics How AI has shifted marketing staffing from "I need these people" to "what staff do I actually need"Jeff's AI stack: Claude Code as his daily driver, plus ChatGPT, Gemini, Veo 3, Seedance, and Copy Coders for specialist tasksBuilding serversideblueprint.com end to end with AI, which sold $15,000 worth of workshopsAn automated LinkedIn workflow that drafts, schedules, and replies to comments, generating over 1,000 B2B leads this yearWhy long-form YouTube content anchors his content engine, feeding blog posts, newsletters, and social clipsBuilding 40+ lead generating landing pages in minutes each with Claude Code, no WordPress plugins neededHis anti-AI tuning rules and six-step skill framework for catching AI writing patterns before they go liveWhy email remains the highest ROI channel, and how voice dictation feeds his AI-assisted writing process Resources & Links Companies & Tools MeasureU, Jeff's training companyMeasureU AI Marketing Guide, free guide to this episode's four workflows, plus an AI vs human task gridClaude and Claude Code, Jeff's daily AI driverChatGPT and Codex, for image generation and code checksGoogle Gemini, for image generationGoogle Veo 3 and ByteDance Seedance, for AI video generationCopy Coders, Genesis bots for email, script, and landing page copyPubler, Taplio, Apify, and n8n, earlier tools for LinkedIn scheduling, research, and automation, now folded into ClaudeMacWhisper, voice dictation for email draftsZ.ai GLM models, used to critique and bug check AI codeAuthority Hacker, source of Jeff's skill frameworkLovable, an early 2025 vibe coding toolWordPress, Gravity Forms, and Go High Level, the old site and lead capture tools Jeff no longer needs Contact & Credits: Host: Shahin Hoda Guest: Jeff Sauer Produced by: Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by: Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

Shaun Thresher built his own AI powered second brain, using Claude Code, to run his marketing and copywriting work end to end. In this episode, Shaun walks through how he moved from bouncing between two separate AI chat windows to a single centralised system that reads his voice, his clients' details and his workflows before it writes a word. He explains why one well briefed agent with multiple skills beats a pile of specialised agents, how he trains AI to score new content against his best performing posts so it stops sounding repetitive, and how he uses AI to dig up prospect lists most competitors never find, including one built from a public FDA compliance database. Whether you're just starting to explore Claude or ChatGPT, or you're ready to build a proper system around your marketing operation, this conversation is full of practical, hard won lessons. Guest Introduction Shaun Thresher is a copywriter turned AI systems builder who spent eight years at Agora Financial, a top US direct-response shop, before becoming CMO of online assets at a publicly-traded company and later CEO of one of its e-commerce brands. He now runs BioRevGrowth, building AI powered "second brain" systems for marketers, and since January 2025 has led marketing and technical operations for a US-based long COVID doctor.  Key Topics Moving from copying and pasting between ChatGPT and Claude to a single centralised second brain, built and stored in GitHubThe difference between agents, skills and workflows, and why Shaun now favours one well briefed content agent with multiple skills over many separate agentsHow Shaun sources prospect lists from public databases, including an FDA compliance database, instead of relying solely on paid tools like ClayBuilding a "digital fingerprint" from a client's best performing content so AI generated posts match their voice and toneScoring new content against a curated pool of top performing past content to avoid repetitive, generic AI output ("AI slop")Why Claude Code offers more flexibility than a standard chat interface, including API and MCP connections into tools like Google Ads and Meta AdsCommon pitfalls: memory systems that quietly stop working, and installing unfamiliar agents without understanding how they operateAdvice for marketers starting out: pick one problem to solve, invest in a higher tier AI plan, and find a community for support Resources & Links People Mentioned Ethan Mollick - Wharton professor and AI researcherNate B. Jones - AI strategist and newsletter writerDavid Arnoux - runs the GenAI Circle community Shaun is part of Companies & Tools BioRevGrowth - Shaun's growth and revenue consultancy for biotech and nutraceutical companies Clay - data enrichment and outreach platformGitHubVercelChatGPT and OpenAI CodexClaude Code / Claude DesktopGoogle Ads, Meta AdsFirecrawlZernio -social media scheduling and publishing APIRemotion - animation library used for content generationSecond Brain 2.0 - the pre-built go-to-market agent system Shaun purchased and plugged into his own setup. Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest: Shaun Thresher Produced by: Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by: Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth