Level Set: Why Am I Here
I spent the last 8+ years working in cybersecurity and at deeply technical companies, selling to deeply technical people, and honestly, I have really enjoyed the challenge. The challenge of having to step into someone else’s shoes, wear someone else’s hat, and try to figure out what it is like to be them.
I have prided myself on my ability to figure out really technical products.
Starting off with Sumo Logic back in 2018, sitting down with my friend Kevin Goldberg in an office in Austin, trying to distill the different aspects of observability and where Sumo Logic fit within that web of solutions.
Then going to a company like Harness, which was focused on developer tools, the CI/CD pipeline, the emergence of DevOps, and how the developer experience changed with automation.
And moving on to my 5+ years in cybersecurity, working with my Israeli friends at Bionic, who developed a way to reverse-engineer compiled application code and build architectural maps of applications. Ultimately, Bionic got acquired by CrowdStrike, where I met some of the most amazing people in the world.
Last year, I served as Head of Marketing at Legion Security, where the founders built a way to use AI vision models and computer-use agents to learn and automate human work, something no other company is doing in cybersecurity.
Unfortunately, like many people in tech right now, I have found myself ultimately unfulfilled and in need of some time away from work. Where some of the most important work of my life has been: being dad.
Waking up early with this small child who is so obsessed with you and smiles every time you look at them forces you to realize that life is not always about being the head honcho or making tons of money, but doing something that you really love. And in the past few months, I’ve really loved just being dad.
But the other thing I really loved was writing, which is why you are here currently reading this. And I am not talking about writing technical blogs using AI to figure out how to rank for the keyword “SOC automation tools”.
I’m talking about opening up on things that I feel strongly about, believe in, or have done myself. Which takes me to the point I am trying to open up about with this first real post.
Why Did I Join Aurasell
Because Steve Burton asked me to… No, I am only kidding.
AI GTM… not really the industry I thought I would find myself. In fact, a few years ago I said I would never work for a sales tech or marketing tech company. EVER. Yet, here I am.
But the team at Aurasell is different in so many ways. And not all of them have to do with me hopefully making a bunch of money with this company. Here are a few:
I LOVED my GTM team at Harness. The marketing team genuinely fired me up every day. And I stayed in touch with a lot of them over the last 5ish years. The Aurasell team is made up with a ton of previous Harness marketing and sales folks that I have worked with before.
The engineering and product team is objectively killer. Similar to the team at Harness, they are a team that genuinely want to get the ship done (if you know, you know).
The product actually works. Every early stage startup has its ups and downs. Aurasell is no different. BUT… when I joined, the product actually worked and had customers who were gaining real valuable from moving away from HubSpot and SFDC and moving on to Aurasell.
I get to focus. Over the last year or so, I had to work across every level of marketing, and most of what I was doing was not growth. For those of you who know me, growth is what I do. It’s what I am good at. At Aurasell, I get to really focus on helping the company grow.
What to expect from GTM Weather Report
Next week, I will dig into a bit of the story behind “GTM Weather Report”, but for now… Here are my commitments:
I am going to show up every week. This will be at a minimum in the form of a short form article, full length blog, research report, or interview.
I am not going to spew pro-Aurasell nonsense at you weekly. I may share my experiences of what we are doing there and things that I am excited about, but it will be the minority.
I am going to write in-depth research reports on growth and AI. Deep dives into growth strategies that actually work (and maybe actually do not work).
Podcast? Probably. Almost definitely.
Where to Follow Me
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liambarnes44
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