GTM Ops Is Now The Path to Efficient Pipeline

A preview of our upcoming series with QC Growth’s own ops expert, Jake Bivens

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GTM today is all about leanness: data-driven approaches that focus on relevance, leveraging automation and LLMs to scale what works.

The old growth model is dying: Onboard a whole sales team, one SDR for every 2-3 AEs. Let the SDRs loose on a bunch of leads to do manual outbound. Forecast growth aggressively to avoid frightening your investors. Hire a Salesforce admin to generate reports and police how reps input data.

Teams embracing a new model, with an AI-first mindset, are the ones generating more pipeline with less toil. They’ll have a huge CAC advantage. 

Not all AI is magic, however, and many think clever tools that do personalization are enough. Personalization is a technique to grab attention. Alone, it can feel gimmicky. Relevance is about using data that uncovers an unmet need. Relevance is what drives qualified responses and pipeline.

Buyers today do their homework and they know what they want. It’s your job to get in front of them at the right time with the right message that proves their pain point can be solved with your product.

A successful Go-to-Market (GTM) that harnesses the power of relevance hinges on operational excellence—the systems, tooling, automation, and data plumbing that power your campaigns behind the scenes. It’s the most important role in GTM today. 

At QC Growth, we’ve always believed that the unsung hero of any scalable GTM motion is the Operations Lead—and we’re lucky to have one of the best in the game: Jake Bivens.

Jake doesn’t just keep the engine running—he builds it, automates it, and tunes it daily. Everything we do in GTM ultimately runs back through him on the operations side (GTM Engineering, Sales Leads, etc.). 

Over the past year, Jake has helped us architect a best-in-class outbound and inbound engine that combines smart segmentation, automated enrichment, cross-platform outreach, and tight feedback loops into a repeatable process. 

This blog post kicks off a five-part mini-series where Jake will share the frameworks, tools, and hard-earned lessons behind the GTM ops systems we use to help early-stage startups grow.

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We’re entering a new era of GTM—one that’s AI-enhanced, highly automated, and deeply technical. 

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That’s where a world-class GTM Ops lead comes in.

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Jake doesn’t just install tools—he guides the team in deciding how we should create entire workflows. He ensures that we can spin up campaigns and strategies in days, not weeks. He identifies signal-rich leads, builds real-time reporting dashboards, and ensures that every new idea can be tested, measured, and scaled (or killed fast if it doesn’t work). His impact is one of QC Growth’s biggest unlocks when it comes to scaling client success.

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What You’ll Learn in This Series

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Over the next few weeks, Jake will break down the specific systems we’ve built, why we made certain choices, and how other early-stage companies can replicate this playbook. Here’s what’s coming:

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1. Tech Stack Deep Dive

We’ll walk through the tools we use—from HeyReach and Instantly to Clay, Databox, and AI assistants like ChatGPT—and how they come together to form a seamless outbound and enrichment machine.

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2. Building the Enrichment Funnel

Learn how we identify the highest-signal leads, enrich data with precision, validate emails, and prepare leads for high-converting outreach—all while staying compliant and respecting opt-outs.

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3. Orchestrating Outreach Across Platforms

We’ll show you how we start with LinkedIn, follow up via email, and ensure every touchpoint feels authentic to our client’s tone of voice—backed by automation and approvals that make scaling easy.

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4. Data-Driven Testing & Campaign Feedback Loops

How we test messaging angles, track engagement metrics in real-time, and use data to double down on what works—plus how we use campaign naming conventions to stay organized and scalable.

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5. Automation & Social Signals

Discover how we automate nearly every part of the enrichment and outreach process—and how we layer in social signals like LinkedIn engagement to prioritize high-intent leads and warm them up before direct outreach.

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Why Jake?

Jake Bivens is the reason QC Growth can move fast without breaking things. He understands the power of smart systems and the importance of making data actionable. Whether it’s setting up a Do Not Contact safeguard or automating enrichment flows in Clay with N8N, Jake brings an engineering mindset to growth. His work lets our sales leads and GTM Eng team focus on leading engagements and helping startups create an Allbound sales strategy to drive more pipeline, not worrying about spreadsheets and CRM clean up. 

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Stay Tuned

This is the first of many tactical deep dives we’ll be publishing to help startups modernize their GTM strategy. If you’re an early-stage team struggling to turn outbound into real pipeline—or if you’re just trying to do more with less—this series is for you.

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