Leadership Spotlight: Navid Zolfaghari @ Zapier

Introducing GTMBA’s Revenue Leader Series, where we give a voice to early & growth stage GTM leaders building their company's Go-to-Market motion. In our inaugural spotlight, we sat down with Navid, SVP Sales & Success @ Zapier. He's seen it all - his first startup (Wildfire) was acquired by Google. He is a 2x founder.  He scaled Branch from $1M to $100M+ ARR. Now he's building enterprise sales from scratch at a company that's been PLG for a decade.

Julian: GTMBA’s core audience is early and growth stage GTM operators. Zapier has 700 employees, hundreds of millions in ARR…clearly not a startup. Help our audience understand why we're featuring a revenue executive from Zapier on GTMBA.

Navid: Zapier isn’t a startup by headcount or revenue. But when it comes to going upmarket, we’re still in the early innings. While Zapier has been around since 2011, our motion for scaling into larger customers is still being built.

That’s what makes this chapter so exciting. We’re laying the foundation for our upmarket GTM strategy - defining our ideal customer profile, designing our enterprise sales motion, and aligning cross-functional teams around a new kind of buyer. 

Some parts of the business are mature (e.g. employee onboarding), but our upmarket GTM is still a startup within the company. It’s the reason I’m hiring builders. There’s still so much to create.

Julian: In the age of LLMs and AI Agents, integration and workflow automation isn’t always at the forefront of conversations. What energizes you about this space?

Navid: In the age of LLMs and AI agents, it’s easy to focus on the intelligence layer and overlook the infrastructure that actually makes that intelligence useful.

What energizes me about integration and workflow automation is that it’s the connective tissue - the layer that turns AI from interesting to impactful. LLMs can generate insights, write code, or summarize content, but without the right data flowing between tools or the ability to trigger actions across systems, those outputs get stuck inside individual tools. And when that happens, the impact stays local instead of scaling across the business.

Zapier has a front-row seat to making AI practical. We’re not just enabling automation; we’re building the backbone that allows AI to plug into real business workflows and drive outcomes automatically.

That’s what gets me fired up: the chance to turn novelty into utility at massive scale.

Julian: Why do you believe Zapier can effectively evolve from historically PLG distribution strategy to enterprise sales? Why now and how are you approaching this transition?

Navid: Zapier has already achieved what most companies only dream of: product-market fit at massive scale. We have millions of users, deep integrations with thousands of apps, and workflows embedded in everyday business operations. That gives us an incredible foundation to build from.

What makes now the right time to evolve into enterprise sales is simple - the demand is already there. Larger teams are adopting Zapier organically, and today, 80% of the world’s top 100 companies by market cap use Zapier in some form. On top of that, every CEO is thinking about how to operationalize AI inside their business and we’re uniquely positioned to help them transform their organizations. 

I believe we can make this transition effectively because we’re not forcing a top-down motion that doesn’t fit. We’re building enterprise sales on top of product-led pull. Our PLG engine gives us usage signals, internal champions, and proven value - things most enterprise sales teams would kill for. My focus is on turning that signal into a system: identifying expansion triggers, operationalizing account coverage, and enabling reps to act more like consultants than sellers.

This isn’t about abandoning PLG. It’s about amplifying it - using sales to unlock the full potential of the adoption we already have.

Julian: You're known for building high-performing teams. Help the GTMBA community understand your approach to identifying and developing top GTM talent, especially when building out new functions.

Navid: Too often, GTM hiring relies on traditional signals: quota attainment, past performance, a polished resume. I’m looking more for spikes - standout traits that signal someone’s potential to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments. I prioritize three things: startup fit, business athleticism, and purposeful drive.

Startup fit means urgency and comfort with ambiguity. If someone asks, “Where’s the pitch deck?” they need to be energized when the answer is, “There is no deck. Go build one.” If that sounds daunting, they’re probably not right for the team.

Business athleticism is about versatility. In early-stage roles, top AEs aren’t just closing deals - they’re acting as SDRs, sales leaders, PMMs, and even product managers. They need to be technical enough to speak to value, and broad enough to flex across functions.

Purposeful drive means they’re motivated by more than just comp. If someone is optimizing purely for OTE, they’ll struggle with the ambiguity and grind of early GTM. The best people are mission-aligned - money matters, but it’s not the #1 goal.

Once I find those people, I invest in them. A-players elevate everything around them, and helping them go from A to A+ creates compounding impact across the org. I give them meaningful stretch opportunities - projects they may not be “qualified” for on paper, but that push them to the next level. I’m also transparent with context: why we’re making certain decisions, what trade-offs we’re navigating - so they can build real judgment, not just execute.

For more details, check out his article on building and scaling high performance teams here: “Blueprint for Excellence.”

Julian: Can you give a tangible example of these stretch projects?

Navid: I put a high-performing IC in an influential role as we expanded into a new international market. He spoke the language and had closed a few deals in the region, but this was a major step up. He played a key role in shaping the go-to-market strategy, partnering closely with cross-functional teams across Product, Marketing, Finance, Legal, Ops - you name it. The project gave him exposure to how high-stakes decisions are made and how strategy and execution must align to succeed. It was essentially like launching a startup - full of ambiguity, fast learning, and meaningful impact. The experience sharpened his business fluency and gave him the kind of cross-functional perspective most ICs don’t get until much later in their careers.

Julian: Tell us about your biggest mistake as a sales leader. What did you learn?

Navid: In building a GTM function, you make hundreds of decisions - some strategic, some tactical - and with enough years, there’s no shortage of lessons learned. Overhiring during the ZIRP era was a common misstep, and like many, I’ve made that mistake. There are also smaller, everyday misses - like not farming for dissent or assuming alignment without verifying it.

But one mistake I’d spotlight was during international expansion at a former company. We had done all the right research on market potential - the opportunity was clear. But we significantly under-accounted for the operational burden of localization, which made the expansion far more expensive than anticipated. From translating content and marketing assets, to hiring native-language support, to even product experience - nearly every function required a deeper level of customization than we had planned for.

It reminded me that international expansion isn’t just about market opportunity - it’s equally about cost to serve. It fundamentally shifts the ROI equation. Even if a region looks profitable on paper, the real question is: what’s the relative opportunity cost of deploying time, talent, and capital there versus in a higher-leverage region or program?

That lesson has since reshaped how I evaluate new markets - and how rigorously we model the full-stack GTM cost, not just the top-line upside.

Julian: Tell us about the most impressive deal one of your AEs landed. How did you help enable your AE to land that deal?

Navid: A few years ago, one of my Strategic AEs closed a multi-million dollar deal with a major streaming platform. It was a marathon - over two years in the making - and has since nearly doubled through expansion, a testament to the deal’s strength and long-term value.

As a leader, I stayed deeply involved as a co-pilot. We met regularly to unpack customer pain points, navigate organizational shifts, and shape the overall strategy. I partnered cross-functionally with leaders across product, marketing, and legal; helped open executive doors; supported critical negotiations; and worked side-by-side on deal structure - including role-playing high-stakes conversations.

One of the more creative moves? The customer badged one of our engineers so they could ship them a laptop and fast-track a proof of concept using our SDK. It built trust, showed commitment, and helped move the deal over the finish line.

Deals like this remind me that great outcomes come from deep partnership - not just with the customer, but across your entire org. Leadership is about being in the trenches, not just calling the plays.

Julian: Give us two hot takes: one on the future of GTM and AI, and one about anything else.

Navid: The next generation of GTM talent will be systems thinkers - professionals who integrate tools, design efficient workflows, interpret data, and turn insights into action. Every role will need to resemble a business athlete: adaptable, analytical, and execution-driven. As a result, GTM orgs will become leaner. Good talent that harnesses AI will rise to elite levels. Headcount will decline, but output per GTM employee will soar, likely doubling in a short time.

One personal hot take: Pouring milk before cereal is elite behavior. Maximum crunch. Perfect portions. Zero soggy regrets. It’s pre-9am workflow optimization.

For additional resources on Navid's journey and approach to building GTM teams, check out: Unusual Ventures interview, Blueprint for Excellence, or follow Navid on LinkedIn. 

If you're interested in speaking with Navid about GTM opportunities at Zapier, please feel free to reach out to our partners at VibeScaling - [email protected]