UNPAK3D Podcast

Marcel Santilli helped scale HashiCorp from $6M to $100M ARR, was CMO at Scale AI, and now runs GrowthX.ai- an AI-native growth company serving Ramp, Reddit, and Webflow that just raised $12M from Madrona. His contrarian take: AI is making marketing harder, not easier, because most companies can't clearly define who they're for or what they're building. We unpack his vision for turning marketing into engineering: codified workflows, human-in-the-loop judgment, and why knowledge work desperately needs its own "GitHub moment."Chapters:(0:00) Cold open — "AI is amplifying crap"(1:00) Welcome and Marcel's background(1:59) Building media properties at IBM and HP(4:04) Scaling HashiCorp from $6M to $100M ARR(6:27) Finding white space in a 14,000-tool market(10:43) Content as the atomic unit of organic growth(15:52) Why AI makes marketing harder, not easier(20:46) Process architects, input calibrators, and bar raisers(26:11) The GitHub moment marketing never had(36:00) AEO: hype vs. reality(42:08) The future marketing org: smaller and sharper(45:55) Is AI a bubble? Revenue as fuel, not a drugThis episode is brought to you by Stifel Bank — our trusted partner for fund banking and wealth management. Learn more at stifel.com.Where to find Marcel Santilli:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelsantilli/GrowthX.ai: https://growthx.ai

In this episode we had a fantastic time talking to Atin Sanyal the CTO of Galileo. Galileo is a fast-growing GenAI Evaluation platform, which ensures AI apps perform reliably. In this episode we cover a lot of ground from Atin's read on the state of AI in the enterprise to how you deploy it reliably. Please listen, like and subscribe!1:08 - Atin’s journey to Galileo3:49 - What does Galileo do?11:17 - AI as a Judge and How Galileo Works14:45- Generalizing AI Evals24:44 - Defining an ICP in the AI World27:56 - Ideal Customer Profile33:35 - Open Source vs. Closed Source42:05 - Building AI Eng Teams and Leveraging AI Tools to Scale52:00 - State of AI in the Enterprise57:21 - Decompress

We had a fantastic conversation with Jake Heller who founded Casetext and sold the company to Thomson Reuters for $650M. We cover the Casetext journey to AI, how he positioned himself to take advantage of the AI wave and his lessons on creating a buzz for M&A. Listen, like and subscribe!1:00 - The Casetext journey5:00 - Learning to leverage AI21:00 - Moats in Vertical AI29:00 - Thoughts on Building an AI-native startup32:57 - Defining Customer Obsession and finding PMF55:23 - Lessons on hiring and the importance of culture1:04:31 - Decompressing

In this episode, we have a fantastic conversation with Ankit Jain, CEO of Infinitus. We cover a broad range of topics around selling, delivering value and building with a focus on how Infinitus has been successful in healthcare. We then talk about how AI going to be impact healthcare and how it will get adopted. Please listen and subscribe! 1:27 - Ankit's Journey to Infinitus 14:01 - Taking the entrepreneurial plunge 19:50 - Choosing and building the Services as a Software approach 30:58 - Spotlight on Infinitus 35:11- Pricing Service as a Software 44:35 - Developing the GTM for Healthcare 53:31 - Opportunities for AI in Healthcare 58:15 - Decompress

We talk to Sumit Agarwal the founder of Ario and Shape Security (acq by F5 for $1B). We decrypt the the journey from the military to building a deep cybersecurity product and now a personal AI assistant. Listen in to uncover his 3D framework that guided the journey of Shape and now Ario. We wrap with how to navigate M&A, a theme which we believe is going to be a key topic in several board meetings this and next year. 3:13 - Sumit's Journey from Air Force to Security to AI 10:07 - Identifying Hard, Valuable, Fun Opportunities 19:24 - Building 3D defensible, differentiated, delightful tech in tough markets 28:33 - Identifying the right talent 37:38 - How to be Customer Focused NOT Revenue Focused 46:02 - Unlocking Value to Drive Price 55:07 - Solving the demand bottleneck in M&A 58:26 - Decompressing with family

In this episode we have a great conversation with Varun Badhwar. Varun sold his first company, Redlock, to Palo Alto for over $200M. He recently embarked on his 2nd journey to build Endor Labs, where he raised a $70M Series A to secure the software supply chain. In this episode we cover: 1:04 - Varun’s foray into startups8:57 - Hiring and building the best when $s are constrained17:33 - Positioning for success in a noisy market32:02 - Early GTM Success in an expensive environment41:08 - Navigating the Palo Alto Acquisition50:06 - Spotlight on Endor Labs58:50 - Decompress

In this episode we cover Mahe's journey to being a founder, how Phenom found it's niche and what makes them successful as a business 1:12 - Mahe’s journey8:01 - AI’s role in business20:09 - How do you find a wedge in today’s software saturated world?29:38 - Building/hiring for a sustainable organization45:32 - Scaling a business

In this episode we cover: 00:56- Glen's journey to entrepreneurship + healthcare and the learnings along the way 15:19- Getting timing right in healthcare 21:04- Building great culture in tough times 26:40- Hiring the best leaders and putting together an exceptional board 30:11- Advice on scaling at different stages of the business 36:00- Accomplishing his life's mission and staying mentally energized through the journey