FOR SEED & SERIES A INVESTORS - B2B SAAS & AI
Before your portfolio company scales sales, verify there is a sales system to scale.
The round is closed. Sales hiring and activity are up. Conversion isn’t following — and critical deals still depend on the founder.
That pattern is visible from the board seat, but it can’t be fixed from there — and fixing it isn’t the founder failing. It’s a system that was never built: the improvised motion that won the round doesn’t transfer to a team by itself.
I diagnose and rebuild that system — ICP, positioning, business case, qualification, pricing, narrative, motion — independently, and always owned by the founder. What you get is a clearer intervention decision and less GTM execution risk on the capital you’ve already deployed.
Dr.-Ing.
Technical University Munich
13+ years
2 x founder, C-Level, SaaS & AI
€10 M+
Pipeline generated
10+
Founder engagements
THE POST-ROUND PATTERN
You can’t rebuild go-to-market from a board seat — and you shouldn’t have to.
Early traction is usually the founder closing on credibility, intuition, and a warm network — a motion that lives in one person and was never written down. New sales hires inherit the activity, not the system. From inside, the resulting conversion gap looks like a pipeline problem, so spend and activity rise while predictability doesn’t.
From the board seat you can name the pattern; you can’t operate on it without leaving your role. What’s needed is an independent operator who can verify the system, work with the founder to fix it — and give you a clear basis for the capital-allocation decision either way. A fraction of the round spent verifying the motion is cheaper than the round spent scaling one that was never proven.
WHAT GETS DIAGNOSED & FIXED
Six levers. One system
Partial fixes — a better deck, more outreach, another hire — change little on their own, because GTM only becomes scalable when the parts lock together. The work is finding where the levers are out of alignment, fixing that, and validating the motion against real market signal.
ICP & Positioning
Who the company is for and why it lands — a beachhead segment, not an everybody-list.
Qualification
Buying intent separated from interest, so the pipeline in the board deck is real.
Use Case & Value Proposition
The urgent hero use case — the job the product is actually hired to do, in the buyer’s words.
Pricing logic
The offer shape that closes — and survives procurement without founder heroics.
Business Case
ROI the economic buyer can defend internally — through budget and procurement.
Sales Narrative & Motion
A story and process the team can run without the founder in the room — the lever the next round’s diligence will test.
WHAT YOU RECEIVE
Clarity for the governance decision — not a shadow reporting line.
The engagement gives you what a board seat needs and nothing that would undermine the founder relationship: the founder sees everything you see.
AN INDEPENDENT VIEW OF GTM SCALING RISK
for the specific portfolio company — with the evidence behind the diagnosis, not just a verdict.
THE CONSTRAINTS ISOLATED
whether the problem is market, positioning, pipeline quality, or sales execution. These require different responses and different capital.
RECOMMENDED INTERVENTION PRIORITIES
what to fix first, what can wait, what more activity won’t solve.
EXPLICIT DECISION GATES
defined points where the work has produced signal and continuing must earn itself.
A CONCISE SPONSOR-LEVEL UPDATE
appropriate for your governance role, agreed with the founder.
HOW INVESTORS ENGAGE
You can initiate the diagnosis. The founder owns everything after it.
A recommendation from the cap table carries real weight — founders listen to the people funding the next round. The structure below makes sure that weight lands as support: the investor initiates, the founder evaluates the evidence, owns the decision, and leads every subsequent change. An imposed consultant would be resisted; an evidence-backed one gets pulled in.
1
OUTSIDE-IN GTM READ
€950 - 48 HOURS
The low-risk starting point. A structured read of one portfolio company’s go-to-market, built entirely from public signals — positioning, funnel architecture, buyer’s-eye gaps. No internal access required. You get an evidence document; the founder gets a mirror worth acting on.
2
GTM SYSTEM DESIGN
€15–25k · 4–6 WEEKS
Once the problem and fit are established: a 4–6-week engagement that locks the six levers into one executable system — agreed directly with, and operationally led by, the founder and leadership team. Validation and fractional revenue leadership follow only if the signal warrants it.
3
GTM ENGINE DESIGN & ICP VALIDATION
€20–40k · 8–12 WEEKS
Once the system levers are in place: an 8–12-week engagement that builds the engine that reliably fills the pipeline, tests ICP assumptions against the live market, and validates which messages and buying triggers actually convert. The outcome is a validated ICP and pipeline-creation logic built on real market feedback, not internal assumptions — the evidence layer behind the next round’s revenue story.
Commit one block at a time. Exit at any gate. Fund the longer run only after you've seen the signal.
PROOF
Case Studies - read from the investor’s seat.
Case Study I - Artificial Intelligence / SaaS / Media Industry - aiconix GmbH
Situation
After a financial crisis, a small team maintained three separate products across B2C and B2B. Sales was founder-driven and opportunistic.
Problem
There was no clear ICP or value proposition. Development slowed while deals failed to close due to product–market mismatch.
What changed
We defined a clear ICP, shut down the B2C business, and merged two products into one focused offering.
Outcome
- €2.5M new investment secured
- Company merged with a competitor
- €2M pipeline generated
- €600K ARR closed
Case Study II - SaaS / Health Tech - Myosotis GmbH
Situation
A founder-led sales approach demonstrated strong market demand, but the existing sales team failed to close deals.
Problem
The pipeline was active but not converting. Sales lacked clear structure, messaging, and performance tracking.
What changed
We identified the pipeline breakpoints, reframed the sales narrative with clear ROI arguments, and implemented structured targets and tracking.
Outcome
- From zero to multiple closed deals within 3 months
- Full and progressing pipeline
Case Study III - SaaS / Insurance Industry - SII Dresden GmbH
Situation
A small team was building highly customized sales software for insurance clients. Each deployment required adapting to individual hardware setups, slowing down delivery and limiting scalability.
Problem
Time-to-market was slow, and only large projects were economically viable — which were difficult to close without strong traction.
What changed
We shifted from a custom-built model to a browser-based SaaS product with limited customization and a scalable subscription model.
Outcome
- First €200K client closed within 3 months
- Entry into larger, reputable insurance accounts
Your founder will see this page — and should. Nothing here needs to be said behind their back.
OPERATING PRINCIPLES
Built to be read over your shoulder.
EVIDENCE FIRST, OPINION SECOND
Every engagement starts with an outside-in, evidence-based read — not a verdict. The founder sees what a skeptical buyer sees; what follows is their call.
THE FOUNDER OWNS THE SYSTEM
Every engagement starts with an outside-in, evidence-based read — not a verdict. The founder sees what a skeptical buyer sees; what follows is their call.
NO SALES THEATER
Calibrated ranges, named downsides, honest gates. If there’s no fit, I’ll say so directly — to you and to the founder.
I’ll show you where your pipeline breaks — and how to fix it.
