Many SaaS founders struggle with go-to-market (GTM) strategy, often underestimating how it impacts valuation and exit potential. In this podcast episode, growth expert Ryan Allis—Founder of iContact and SaasRise—joins Mike Lyon from Vista Point Advisors to break down some key GTM tactics that SaaS companies can use that may help to accelerate growth, avoid plateaus, and position themselves for high-multiple exits.

Below is an article covering the key takeaways from the podcast episode, so you can scan it and get the key message quickly.

If you love growth and exit content like this, be sure to join our weekly SaasRise mastermind group for CEOs/Founders with $1M to $100M in ARR or our weekly GrowthRise mastermind group for B2B Marketers.

Enjoy the article below!

To your growth,

Ryan Allis, CEO
SaasRise & GrowthRise
Austin, TX

GTM Practices for SaaS Growth & Exit Optimization

By Ryan Allis, CEO of and GrowthRise.com

If you're a B2B SaaS founder thinking about scaling your revenue or planning a future exit, one of the most important levers you can pull is getting your go-to-market (GTM) strategy right. Most SaaS companies plateau because they simply don't have a repeatable, scalable, and data-driven marketing and sales system.

I've been through it. At iContact, I scaled our SaaS business and exited for $169 million. Today, I coach dozens of SaaS CEOs and lead SaasRise, a mastermind for high-growth founders building the next $10M–$100M companies. In this post, I’ll break down what I shared recently on the Path to Exit podcast with Mike Lyon of Vista Point Advisors—how to build a modern B2B marketing system that fuels predictable growth and drives higher valuations.

First Things First: Growth Rate = Exit Multiple

Let’s start with a simple truth: the multiple you get at exit is heavily correlated to your growth rate. A business growing at 30% per year might sell for 3–5x ARR. But one growing at 60–70% with solid profitability and net revenue retention (NRR) north of 100%? That’s a 7–10x multiple all day long.

And that’s what this whole strategy is about—building a repeatable GTM engine that lets you break through growth plateaus, scale your revenue, and exit on your own terms.

The SaaS Growth System: Overview

Here’s the system we teach and install at SaasRise for our members, which works well for B2B SaaS firms with ACVs of $1,000 to $300,000 (mid-market and enterprise).

1. Build a comprehensive ABM list of everyone in your target market
   
2. Run outbound email + LinkedIn at scale (AI-personalize everything)
   
3. Layer in targeted ads (retargeting, matched audience, lookalikes)
   
4. Track CPL, CAC, LTV, payback period, and optimize

Let’s break it down.

Step 1: Build Your ABM List

If your ACV is $1K or more, you’re in the sweet spot for outbound. And if you're selling $5K, $10K, $20K annual contracts, this is exactly where you should start.

Back in the '90s, you'd grab a phone book and start dialing. Today, we build hyper-targeted Account-Based Marketing (ABM) lists using tools like:

• Apollo
  
• Instantly
  
• ListKit
  
• ZoomInfo
  
• Clay.com (for AI-personalized enrichment)
  

Your goal is to identify every ideal buyer in your ICP—by job title, industry, company size, geography, tech stack, and intent data. Usually, that’s 25K–500K humans across 5K–100K companies globally.

Step 2: Make Your Brand Omnipresent Within Your ICP

Once you’ve got the list, it’s game time.

a) Outbound Messaging

Use outbound email tools like Instantly and LinkedIn sequencing tools like HeyReach to engage prospects. The old way? Manual copy-paste outreach with generic templates. The new way?

• AI-personalized messages at scale
  
  
• Each message tailored using the prospect’s LinkedIn profile, website copy, and company news
  
  
• Tools like Clay.com + ChatGPT or Claude write unique intros for each person
  

This isn’t spammy spray-and-pray. It’s intelligent and personalized outreach offering value and killer content to people who have the problem your software solves.

b) Matched Audience + Retargeting Ads

Upload your entire ABM list into platforms like:

• LinkedIn Ads
  
• Google Ads
  
• Meta (Facebook + Instagram)
  
• AdRoll
  
• Primer.com (for high match rates)
  

Start with retargeting to warm traffic (lowest cost, best conversion). Then layer on:

• Matched audience ads – show ads only to people in your ABM list
  
• Lookalike audiences – expand your reach using AI-modeled profiles
  
• Paid Search ads - Brand and industry keyword ads
• Thought Leader ads - Boosted organic posts on LinkedIn
• Review site ads - G2, Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice

Now your prospects are seeing your brand and valuable content in their inbox, on LinkedIn, and across the web. That’s omnipresence.

Step 3: Align Sales, Marketing & RevOps

If your sales and marketing teams are still in silos, you’re leaving millions on the table.

Today, you need one revenue function with shared ownership across:

• Outbound
  
• Paid Ads
  
• Email Nurtures
  
• Landing Page CRO
  
• SDR qualification
  
• Customer expansion

Whether you call them a Head of Growth, VP of Revenue, or CRO, you need one quarterback. And if you’re early-stage? That’s you, the founder.

Step 4: Budgeting + Cost Breakdown

Here’s the good news: this stuff is way cheaper than it used to be.

📊 Typical Monthly Budget for B2B SaaS (ACV $5K–$20K)

Item

Cost Estimate

Data & ABM List

$5K (one-time)

Outbound Tools

$400–$500/month

Ad Spend

$5K/month to start

AI Personalization Tools

~$100–$500/month

You’re looking at a total launch budget of around $5K–$6K/month—very doable even for early-stage startups with $500K+ ARR.

For members of our SaasRise and GrowthRise community, we have specialized data brokers that can build your account based marketing lists for you using tools like Apollo, Instantly, Clay, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and ListKit. Just reach out to us via Slack, the SaasRise community platform, or WhatsApp to get the contact.

Step 5: Track the Right Metrics

What gets measured gets optimized. Here’s what to watch:

• CPL (Cost per Lead)
  
• CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
  
• LTV/CAC Ratio – Aim for 6–8x - anything lower and you’re not going to be profitable
  
• Payback Period – Aim for 6–9 months (if bootstrapped) and 12 months if VC backed
  
• NRR (Net Revenue Retention) – Aim for 110%+ annually
  

Use attribution tools like:

• Cometly (our recommendation)
  
• HockeyStack
  
• DataDream
  
• HubSpot
  
• Google Analytics
  

Once you have data, optimize:

• Kill channels with high CPL
  
• Double-down on low CPL channels
  
• CRO your landing pages + ad copy monthly
  

A Word on SEO (and Why It’s Dying)

Ten years ago, inbound and SEO were everything. HubSpot built a billion-dollar company off it. But today?

• AI summaries are replacing search traffic
  
• Organic CTRs are plummeting
  
• SEO results are buried under paid + AI boxes

Even HubSpot’s own organic traffic is down 65% in the last 6 months (source: SEMrush).

What’s the takeaway?

👉 Stop waiting for leads to find you. Instead, take your best content to them through targeted outbound + ads.

The Exit Math: $15M or $60M?

Let’s make this real.

A SaaS founder I coach was at $5M ARR growing 30% per year. They could’ve exited for 3x = $15M.

Instead, we installed this growth system. 18 months later:

• ARR: $10M
  
  
• Growth: 50% YoY
  
  
• Multiple: 6x+

Potential outcome? $60M+.

That’s the magic of nonlinear growth—not just a bigger base, but a bigger multiple. You’re not just adding value. You’re multiplying it.

Final Thoughts

If you’re a SaaS founder sitting at $1M, $5M, or $20M ARR and thinking about your exit—don’t sell during a plateau. Implement the right GTM system, grow faster, and sell during your upswing.

At SaasRise, we teach and implement this exact system with founders every week. It’s not theory—it’s the playbook being used by $50M–$150M ARR companies (and now, you too).

🔥 Want to 2x your pipeline, improve your valuation, and accelerate your exit?

Join our 16-week B2B SaaS Growth Program and apply to join our weekly SaasRise mastermind group for SaaS CEOs/founders and our weekly GrowthRise mastermind group for B2B marketers.

We’re building the next generation of growth-first SaaS companies.

See you in one of our weekly masterminds!

— Ryan Allis

About the Author:

Ryan Allis built iContact as CEO/Co-Founder from startup to $50M in ARR, 70,000 paying customers, #81 on the INC 500 list, and an exit for $169M to a publicly traded company. At iContact, he raised over $50M in venture capital (including $15M in secondary capital), and $5M in debt-capital. Today, Ryan is the CEO of SaasRise, the #1 community for experienced SaaS CEOs and Founders with $1M to $100m in ARR. Ryan is also a top SaaS Growth & Exit Coach, and has coached the CEOs of of Instantly, Seamless.ai, Tatango, Pipeline, Revenue Accelerator, RNL, Retreaver, Datalyse, Clearstream, YouCanBookMe, Noteefy, RXNT, and many more growing SaaS firms ranging in size from $5M to $160M in annual revenue. He is passionate about helping SaaS firms have successful exits. Ryan holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.