DLPad.io

Adam Baker, a three-time SaaS founder and former VP of Sales at Salesforce, identified a gap in the sales software market. While most platforms focused on internal tools for sales teams (CRMs, call recording, workflow software), no one was building external software for buyer collaboration. Adam saw an opportunity to help sales teams align with their buyers from the moment a deal becomes an opportunity through to close.

Adam bootstrapped DLPad with $120K in seed funding and his own personal capital—"hundreds of thousands, not like millions." The team built the platform throughout 2021 and launched in late 2021. From inception through the end of 2021, the company booked $400K in its first year. By 2022, revenue climbed to $1.2M ARR, and by the time of this interview (mid-2023), they had reached $2.3M ARR run rate with projections to finish the year at $2.7M to $3M ARR.

Growth came from two primary channels: events and LinkedIn. Adam credited conferences (presumably Nathan Latka's SaaS Open) with generating "very good" results. The team developed a sophisticated LinkedIn strategy: SDRs identify ideal buyers (typically CROs with large networks), manually research who engages with their posts, assess relevance, then use Connected.io to automate outreach. With four SDRs dedicating one hour daily to this process, the company reached 160+ customers. Adam emphasized the importance of the human element in identifying the right targets before automating the outreach.

Adam's sales philosophy, influenced by "The Challenger Sale," focuses on challenging buyers who don't yet realize they have a problem. The team optimized their approach through weekly Wednesday call reviews (2 hours) where all sales calls—both cold calls and meetings—are recorded via HubSpot and analyzed. This led to a repeatable 5-6 page master sales script covering opening, value prop delivery, and open-ended questioning. Cold calls are kept to 10 minutes max for qualification, with deeper discovery calls lasting 35-40 minutes.

Quota-carrying Account Executives (AEs) are expected to generate 600-750K in revenue annually with a $100K base and $100K commission at target, totaling $200K OTE. Ramping takes time, but by year two, expectations align with the 750K target.

With 16 employees (5 engineers, Kim as co-founder/CTO, 1 product, 1 design, 2 customer success, 4 SDRs, 2 quota-carrying AEs), DLPad is fully remote and growing sustainably. Adam plans to stay bootstrapped as long as possible but indicated he'd likely bring in external capital—potentially debt rather than venture—within the next year to accelerate growth. He remains thoughtful about the company's ceiling: a $20M ARR business flipped for $200M is a win, not a failure.