Situation

Zylon is a fast-growing AI startup born from the viral success of their open-source tool, Private GPT, which allows secure, local use of generative AI without internet connection—ideal for privacy-conscious enterprises.

By early 2025, Zylon had:

• Raised a 7-figure pre-seed round from world-class VCs.
• Gained massive traction with their open-source community.
• Built an on-premise enterprise AI platforms for regulated industries

While the technical product was world-class, the founding team lacked the sales and go-to-market knowledge to convert inbound demand into structured enterprise revenue.

Pain

1. No structured sales process: Deals were slipping due to slow follow-up and lack of clarity on ICP.
2. Inbound traction ≠ revenue: Massive open-source interest wasn’t translating into enterprise wins.
3. No outbound or brand engine: No proactive demand generation beyond GitHub.
4. Lack of bandwidth: Founders were stretched thin across product, tech, sales, and support.
5. Hiring dilemma: Unclear how to hire first sales/marketing roles in such a specialized space.

Impact

• Technical founders needed to learn and execute B2B sales
• Difficulty in attracting investment or scaling with predictable growth.
• High risk of revenue bottlenecks despite strong market pull.
• Risk of losing deals due to slow or inconsistent follow-up.

Collaboration Journey

Phase 1: Fractional Sales Enablement: Closed key logos & learnt sales.
“We went from no structure to a healthy, converting pipeline.”

• ICP Clarity: Helped clearly define target industries and personas (regulated sectors like credit unions, local banks, etc.).
• Message-Market Fit: Refined positioning based on use cases.
• Deal Coaching: Every sales call reviewed and optimized.
• Process Design: Built and implemented Zylon’s first structured B2B enterprise sales process.
• Pipeline Maturity: Early deals matured into high-value enterprise contracts.

Phase 2: LinkedIn Brand Building Engine: Went 0 to 1 on Zylon Brand
“Went from posting 2x a month to 2x a week, with >1 Mio. impressions”

• Personal Branding: Shifted from company-first to founder-first content strategy.
• Done-For-You Posting: Weekly interviews turned into high-impact LinkedIn posts, 2–3x/week per founder.
• Viral Impact: Some posts reached 1M+ views, leading to increased awareness, interest, and leads.
• Allbound Engine: Created system to nurture both inbound and future outbound opportunities.

Phase 3: Get ready for Hypergrowth

• Role Definition: SalesPlaybook helped to sharpen the jobs to be done and job description for Zylon’s first GTM hire
• Niche Profile: Found and interviewed a candidate experienced in enterprise AI, zero-to-one sales, and data center tech.

Delegation Readiness: Founders retained strategic sales involvement but offloaded execution bottlenecks.