Hey y’all, happy Thursday! Some updates on the Vibescaling front:
Been super slammed with our recruiting business - we have ~15 folks starting in the next 3.5 weeks, and it’s been a ton of fun building/placing people at the best AI-natives out there
I need to hire someone in H1 2026 - if you know any sellers (requirement for now, since we recruit for GTM roles) who are looking to get into the recruiting game, shoot me a note - would love to talk about a part-time trial to see if it’s a fit! (can still test this/make additional money while working your current gig)
If you’re an SDR/BDR/AE in NYC/SF looking for your next job in AI, shoot me a message - happy to help plug you in - we selectively take these on and judge the opportunity as former sellers ourselves, so you can assure they’re vetted
On the media front, been focused on the podcast but normal articles to come shortly on this blog (on sales/startup topics/narratives) - won’t all just be podcast recaps 🙂
Q1 events in SF/NYC are being confirmed - excited to get those going again!
New episode on the Vibescaling Podcast, Pat Forquer! Been awesome doing these and have so many in the hopper (see below) - thank you all for the kind words and support so far.
Some of our previous guests:
Todd Busler, CEO @ Champify - see writeup here
Raphael Parker, CRO @ Mandolin (former founding GTM hire @ Segment) - see writeup here
Kyle Parrish, former VP of Sales @ Figma, see article here
Liam Mulcahy, GTM operating partner @ Kleiner Perkins, see article here
Some of our future guests for Season One:
Mike Donohue, CRO @ Maven AGI (recorded, in edits now)
Jack Gashi, VP of Sales @ Avoca (recorded, in edits now)
Tomer Chernia, VP of GTM @ Cursor (recorded, in edits now)
Eleanor Dorfman, Head of Sales @ Anthropic (recorded, in edits now)
Kyle Norton, CRO @ Owner.com (filming in February)
Jason Gelman, Operating Partner @ Primary Ventures (filming in February)
Evan Cassidy, VP of Sales @ Decagon
Ghazi Masood, CRO @ Replit
Liam Mulcahy is coming on again!
Mike Heller, Partner @ Floodgate (former Dropbox & Clearbit GTM)
& others from our portfolio companies @ vibescaling
And many more in the pipeline - if you know any good leaders who fit this, shoot me a DM on LI or reply to this email. We’ll keep openings rolling and be super open to suggestions for similar guests.
We film in-person in SF & NYC at legit podcast studios and have hired a new post-production agency, so the quality will be high.
And now, onto the episode 🎙️
Links To Sections
VibeScaling Episode 5: Patrick Forquer
Pat was on the the more down-to-earth people I had the chance to interview so far.
As a Suffolk County native, I loved finding out in my research that he met his wife late night in Montauk (“may I meet you?”) - a place that holds a special spot in my heart for my childhood.
He’s also a big basketball junkie, so it was fun to explain more of my love for Sir Brunson and how it’s the East to lose for the Knicks this year.
If I were a seller, I’d love working for Pat and hope this episode/article does him justice - he’s got one of the best NYC-based GTM backgrounds I’ve seen, being an early person in the space since 2008.
Pat’s Background
Patrick Forquer is the SVP of Global Revenue at Legora, one of the leading players in the AI-native legal tech space, coming off a recent Series C raise to value the company at over a billion dollars.
Before Legora, Patrick spent 7 years at Braze (formerly AppBoy) from the early days through IPO, leaving as the AVP of sales.
He started his career as a BDR at Yext during the 2008 financial crisis, worked at Intralinks, then moved to Cloud Sherpas, managing their Google Cloud relationship before the Accenture acquisition.
He was also CRO at Jacquard, an early generative AI company.
Interesting Takeaways
"Top of funnel is easy. The last mile is where deals are won or lost." With vertical AI, deployment is everything. The technology is bulletproof, but getting customers to actually adopt it is the 90% that matters. This is where the market will separate winners from losers.
The best time to be a seller is right now. Pat's been selling since the 2008 financial crisis - back when SaaS meant putting Excel in the cloud and outages sometimes lasted for days. Today's AI products actually do what you promise. When the tech is this good, selling becomes fun.
MEDDICC is not a sales process. It's a deal qualification framework. Pat sees too many reps treating it like a checklist to fill out rather than actually running discovery and understanding the buyer's world. The methodology changed, the acronym stayed the same.
Deal velocity has completely changed. Buyers are moving faster because AI makes the value obvious in 30 seconds. If you're still running 90-day sales cycles on AI products, you're probably losing to someone who can close in 30.
PLG vs. enterprise is a false tension. PLG sellers think enterprise reps are too salesy. Enterprise reps think PLG sellers have it too easy. The reality? Why wouldn't you want more signal on buyer behavior? The best companies will have both.
Discussed In This Episode
Why selling AI is fundamentally different than selling SaaS
The "last mile problem" in vertical AI and why deployment is where deals are won or lost
How deal velocity has accelerated - buyers are moving faster and expect sellers to keep up
Why MEDDICC is not a sales process and how discovery has evolved
The false tension between PLG and enterprise sales
What Chris Degnan's book "Make It Snow" reveals about Snowflake's counterintuitive GTM & why they admire it
Why the best time to be a seller is right now
Timestamps
00:00 Intro & Pat's Background
2:30 Meeting His Wife at Memory Motel in Montauk
4:30 His Path: From BDR at Yext to SVP of Global Revenue at Legora
6:50 Selling SaaS vs AI: Why It's the Best Time to Be a Seller
12:00 The Last Mile Problem in Vertical AI Sales
18:00 How Deal Velocity Has Changed with AI
26:00 Discovery, Change Management & Why MEDDICC Isn't a Sales Process
34:00 Chris Degnan's "Make It Snow" and Snowflake's GTM Playbook
42:00 PLG vs Enterprise: The False Tension
55:00 Basketball Talk: Jalen Brunson, the Knicks & NYC Sports
58:00 Creative Ways to Break Through & Get a Response
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoy it, please give us a rating, review, or follow on Spotify/YouTube/Apple Podcasts - it really helps us grow this.
For those who are new, my name is Chris Balestras, partner @ Vibescaling - a GTM advisory, recruiting, media, and investing firm, working with seed through series C AI-natives to help them grow.
Where to find Vibescaling:
We work with many of the hottest AI-native startups in various capacities, and for those who are interested, shoot me an email at [email protected] or a DM on LI.
🫡 cheers,
Chris