{"id":373833,"date":"2026-04-04T00:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T00:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/373833\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T00:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T00:29:09","slug":"driving-seven-figure-deals-how-recall-ais-amanda-zhu-went-from-founder-led-sales-to-building-out-gtm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/373833\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving seven-figure deals: How Recall.ai\u2019s Amanda Zhu went from founder-led sales to building out GTM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t miss the quick guides: “Discovery and demo talk tracks”<\/a> and “30-60-90 day sales manager onboarding plan”<\/a><\/p>\n

Amanda Zhu is a force to be reckoned with. As co-founder and COO of Recall.ai<\/a> she personally closed more than $7M in enterprise deals while building the sales organization that drove 4x year-over-year growth.<\/p>\n

Her story is a reminder that the COO role done right isn\u2019t a template\u2014rather, it\u2019s a response to a company\u2019s evolving needs. In the beginning, some companies need to scale customer operations. Others need to build a sales machine. Recall.ai needed someone to own go-to-market end-to-end, and Amanda took the helm. In doing so, she not only helped bring in some of the company\u2019s foundational customers, but also built a consistent enterprise inbound motion and team that ultimately supported a $250M valuation.<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\nRecall.ai<\/a> is the API for meeting recording. The API captures recordings, transcripts and metadata from Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, in-person meetings, phone calls, and more. Recall.ai offers a Meeting Bot API<\/a> to send meeting bots to calls and a Desktop Recording SDK<\/a> to build a desktop app that can record meetings.
\n
\n <\/p>\n

Many founders act as the company\u2019s first sales rep. But the real challenge is what comes next: systematizing that intuition, scaling hard-won insights, and building an organization that can execute the GTM motion without the founder in the room. Amanda\u2019s experience demonstrates how AI-native founders can close seven-figure deals through rigorous discovery, strategic personalization, and disciplined execution\u2014and then successfully systematize their learnings into a playbook that can be handed off to an independently led sales team.Here, we collected nine of Amanda\u2019s best strategies for AI business to achieve success throughout the sales cycle and the journey of scaling a sales organization.<\/p>\n

Top takeaways from this enterprise sales guide
\n
\n\tThe most important moments in moving deals forward are often between checkpoints. Invest in back-channeling, warm intros, and in-person visits as much as the formal sales process.
\n\tEvery discovery call needs four things: a clear sequence, incisive questions, an honest qualification moment, and a compelling narrative.
\n\tWhen a deal stalls and you don’t know why, fly out. The goal is to uncover the blocker, not pitch harder.
\n\tDesign every event and dinner to optimize for the follow-up, not the night itself.
\n\tTreat every objection as a missing signal: technical objections hide underlying constraints, financial objections open a conversation about the cost of inaction, and risk objections dissolve fastest on a live call.
\n\tWhen hiring a VP of Sales, prioritize intellectual honesty and critical thinking over quota history\u2014ask candidates to analyze their misses, not just their wins.
\n\tOnboard your VP of Sales through maximum exposure before maximum ownership: shadow first, then transfer 1:1s, deal judgment, and board materials around day 90.
\n\tOpening self-serve will temporarily tank your MRR. Expect a stall, and trust that higher-fit, higher-volume inbound follows.
\n\tEvery new product, customer segment, or GTM motion rewires your operating model. Plan for upheaval, not just growth. <\/p>\n

\"recall<\/a>
\nDiscovery calls that lay the groundwork for seven-figure deals
\n1. There is no enterprise sales script\u2014only a scaffold<\/p>\n

Founders are often told that when it comes to sales, there is no real playbook. \u201cIt\u2019s true, there\u2019s no script, formula, or guaranteed sequencing for enterprise deals,\u201d writes Amanda<\/a>. \u201cBut there is a scaffold.\u201d<\/p>\n

While every deal eventually hits the same checkpoints\u2014from discovery call to demo to final sign-off\u2014the moments of real importance are harder to define. \u201cIt\u2019s what you do when you\u2019re stuck between checkpoints,\u201d Amanda says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Below is a list of tactics she\u2019s used to move deals forward:<\/p>\n


\n\tBack-channeling to learn which stakeholders are worried, which are confused, and which might be silently blocking the deal
\n\tFlying out when a senior stakeholder joins late and wants to \u201creassess\u201d
\n\tHosting a small dinner to align teams who weren\u2019t looped in until mid-PoC
\n\tGetting warm intros from investors or any mutual connections
\n\tRunning security and procurement in parallel so they don\u2019t choke the timeline later
\n\tShowing up early to events stakeholders are speaking at
\n\tGoing backwards a checkpoint when something collapses, instead of forcing the next step forward <\/p>\n

While none of these moves look like \u201cselling\u201d and may not follow a prescribed sequence, these tactics all nurture relationships and cultivate trust within the process. Amanda emphasizes the importance of lateral thinking to problem solve is what\u2019s necessary to get past thorny sales obstacles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Successful discovery and demo calls have four main ingredients\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the early days of founder-led sales, Amanda tried to compress discovery and demo into a single 30-minute call, jumping straight into feature walkthroughs before knowing whether a prospect was even a fit. Needless to say, this approach didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t start with great talk tracks,\u201d admits Amanda.<\/a> \u201cI started by doing everything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After hundreds of calls, Amanda noticed that prospects didn\u2019t need a slicker talk track or a more seamless demo. What they actually needed was structure so they wouldn\u2019t get lost in the call and a powerful narrative arc that situated use cases in real-life workflows.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda has now crystallized her approach into four main things prospects need from her:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

1. A clear sequence so the conversation doesn\u2019t jump around<\/p>\n

2. Incisive questions that get to the heart of the prospect’s problem<\/p>\n

3. A moment of honest qualification where you openly tell the prospect if they are a fit or not<\/p>\n

4. A compelling narrative, not just a simple product tour<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda kept refining her talk tracks<\/a> around those principles until they became codified.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re doing founder-led sales, use the structure until it becomes instinct,\u201d says Amanda.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Creating deal momentum where it counts
\n3. Flying out is about uncovering the real blocker, not pitching harder<\/p>\n

Sometimes in sales, it\u2019s unclear why you\u2019ve hit a roadblock. For Amanda, these moments are often a clear signal it\u2019s worth hopping on a plane<\/a>. Though she never point-blank asks prospects if she can fly out to meet them.<\/p>\n

Instead, she says something like: \u201cI\u2019m going to be in Atlanta on Friday from 2\u20137pm. Could we connect for dinner?\u201d Amands likes this approach because the clarity of the ask signals effort without desperation, while the tight time window reduces back-and-forth and makes it easier for a busy executive to agree.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once she\u2019s in a prospect\u2019s city, Amanda focuses on uncovering hidden information, not pitching. In one stalled deal, she learned that a decision-maker was quietly leaning toward an internal solution\u2014something that never surfaced on Zoom. Meeting in person created the space for candor, which let Amanda respond by walking the exec through the edge cases, ceilings, and tradeoffs the team would have to deal with. \u201cBy meeting the exec on their turf, you have their full attention and don\u2019t have to simultaneously perform in front of their team,\u201d she writes.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda is also deliberate about where these conversations happen, depending on her desired outcome. She finds that offices are ideal for aligning multiple stakeholders, while meeting outside of a company\u2019s HQ is best for eliciting honesty. As Amanda puts it, \u201cThe room shapes what people feel safe saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In-person visits have been an incredibly effective way for Amanda to unblock deals, but she has one important caveat: \u201cFlying out isn\u2019t about pushing the deal forward,\u201d says Amanda. \u201cIt\u2019s about finding out what\u2019s actually blocking it.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. A carefully-engineered prospect dinner can deliver 160x ROI<\/p>\n

Last year, Amanda spent $25K on a dinner that brought in $4M in revenue<\/a>. This was no accident\u2014every single element of the evening was meticulously designed to generate quality conversations that would spur deals forward.<\/p>\n

At large conferences, where dozens of sponsored dinners happen every night, the promise of delicious food alone isn\u2019t enough to get the right people in the room. So Amanda booked notable speakers two months in advance, and intentionally name-dropped them in the invites. She was aiming to entice 40 attendees, but was pleasantly surprised with overwhelming demand\u2014pushing the capacity to 90 attendees.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the dinner, Amanda didn\u2019t leave conversations to chance. A sales rep was assigned to every table with a single goal: get customers and prospects sitting together. That way, prospects heard answers directly from happy customers\u2014not the sales team\u2014and could see firsthand how much customers trusted the team and product.<\/p>\n

Even the follow-up was designed with intention. Instead of a generic follow-up email, reps introduced prospects directly to customers in the email, referencing specific conversation topics from their chats at dinner. Reps still requested meetings, but the follow-up led with value instead of a pitch.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Amanda\u2019s words<\/a>, \u201cIf you want meetings after a dinner, design the dinner for the follow-up.\u201d
\n5. Enterprise objections are most often missed signals<\/p>\n

When a deal stalls in the middle, Amanda doesn\u2019t push harder. Instead, she rewinds the deal to the last checkpoint where everyone was aligned. \u201cIn enterprise sales, a \u2018no\u2019 isn\u2019t necessarily a rejection,\u201d she says.<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s often a signal you\u2019re missing context.\u201d In her experience, being given a \u2018no\u2019 usually boils down to one of three factors that can each be systematically addressed:<\/p>\n

1. Technical objection\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, \u201cWe need X and you don\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda finds that this is almost never about the feature. Instead, she focuses on the question behind the question, and asks, \u201cWhat is the reason you need X?\u201d By understanding the true underlying constraint, it\u2019s often possible to offer a better solution to solve the actual problem.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Financial objection\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, \u201cHow much should something cost?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s common for early stage startups to experience prospects pushing back on pricing. When exploring willingness-to-pay, it’s recommended that founders ask thoughtful questions such as what the prospect is using to anchor the comparison and where the budget is actually coming from. Perhaps most importantly, pricing can be an entry point to discuss the cost of doing nothing\u2014which is often much higher than prospects realize. If the champion can\u2019t answer these questions, there\u2019s a clear discovery gap to address.<\/p>\n

3. Risk objection\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t meet our security requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

When hit with this type of objection, Amanda has had consistent success getting everyone who\u2019s concerned on a live call. Live conversations surface missing context, incorrect assumptions, and what actually needs to change. \u201cVague risk objections don\u2019t survive real-time discussion,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Scaling the sales organization by hiring dedicated leadership
\n6. Ask hard-hitting questions to secure the right VP of Sales<\/p>\n

As the Recall.ai has grown, Amanda knew it was time to delegate the sales function to a dedicated leader. At the executive level, nearly every resume was tightly polished and most candidates could pull off an excellent interview, so Amanda needed an alternative way to suss out the VP of Sales right for the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda cut to the chase in interviews, asking candidates to dissect and analyze their misses more than highlight their wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI cared less about whether targets were hit and more curious about why they thought they missed their targets,\u201d she explains. \u201cDid they blame the product, the market, or other people? Or did they truly understand what broke and own their role in it?\u201d Amanda was looking for three qualities she couldn\u2019t do without\u2014 intellectual honesty, critical thinking, and a growth mindset.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also relied heavily on backchannel references, specifically from a candidate\u2019s direct reports. She would ask them about where the candidate needed to improve and how they would react when things didn\u2019t go according to plan. One very revealing question she always asked: \u201cTell me about a time you disagreed with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda would also assess whether or not the candidate could still be an effective seller themselves versus just waxing poetic about sales. She\u2019d use take-home assignments to clearly evaluate their sales capabilities. She had candidates sell to her and put together a sales plan as part of the hiring process. Finally, Amanda would weigh personality and a gut sense of trust heavily in her decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

CTA: Want a template for evaluating VP of Sales candidates\u2014including interview questions and take-home assignment examples? Download here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

7. Maximum exposure is the best way to onboard a new VP of Sales<\/p>\n

When Justin joined as VP of Sales, Amanda\u2019s goal wasn\u2019t for him to \u2018run sales.\u2019 \u201cThe goal was to make sure deals didn\u2019t slow down because every hard call still flowed through me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

For the first 60 days, Amanda made sure Justin got maximum exposure to the reasoning behind her decision-making. She had him shadow every sales call, daily standup, pipeline review, and deal debate. She even had Justin selling like an AE with the goal to understand the team\u2019s thinking and non-negotiables. \u201cBecause that context matters once deals get complex,\u201d says Amanda.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Around the 90-day mark, she started shifting ownership off her plate. Justin took over 1:1s with reps including coaching and feedback, deal judgement, and recruiting workflows. He also handled billing and collections conversations, materials for board meetings, investor updates on sales. \u201cA lot of that work doesn\u2019t look like \u2018sales,\u2019\u201d says Amanda. \u201cBut it\u2019s the work that keeps seven-figure deals moving without the founder in every loop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through this rigorous onboarding process, Amanda could hand off her responsibilities to Justin\u2014freeing her up to tackle the next priority areas as COO. \u201cThe moment I consider an exec fully onboarded is when I trust their decisions when I\u2019m not in the room,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that trust only comes from shared context.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scaling beyond the first GTM motion
\n8. Changes to your GTM motion aren\u2019t without risk\u2014but a calculated risk was how Amanda scaled MRR 5X<\/p>\n

\u201cOpening self-serve was one of the scariest decisions I\u2019ve made as a co-founder,\u201d recalls Amanda. \u201cOur MRR stalled for a month after launching.\u201d Before self-serve, every prospect had to speak with the team. These conversations provided crystal clear visibility into why people were buying and how they planned to use the product. If MRR slowed, Amanda usually knew why within a day.<\/p>\n

But when the team opened self-serve, people could sign up, build, and use the product without ever talking to the team. Usage took off immediately, but for a month, MRR went flat. Amanda and her team had traded immediate visibility for scale.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda was deeply relieved when, with time, the system caught up. Self-serve customers started raising their hands to talk to the team\u2014not for initial discovery, but to get more out of the product. At the same time, larger companies started reaching out after they\u2019d already seen the product work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This led to more conversations\u2014\u201cjust later, at higher volume, and with bigger customers,\u201d says Amanda. This when growth really accelerated and her initial risk paid off beautifully. Since opening self-serve, the team\u2019s MRR has grown 5x.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"try<\/a>
\n9. Upheaval is often a necessary part of hypergrowth<\/p>\n

The year 2025 was an eventful one for the Recall.ai team. They tripled their revenue, raised a Series B, expanded beyond the meeting bots with the launch of a new product, and launched self-serve. And yet, from the inside, the year was full of change and growing pains. \u201cThis was a rewiring year,\u201d reflects Amanda.<\/p>\n

A combination of three inflection points in three major areas of the business were hit at once: the product, the GTM motion, and the sales motion. A new product meant major adjustments to how the team pitched the product, allocated engineering time, and elevator pitched the company. The self-serve motion forced the team to rebuild the funnel. Established work on everything from pricing to onboarding to support had to be rethought.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And as the team attracted upmarket customers, the sales motion had to be drastically altered. Typical deals went from single to multi-stakeholder deals. Simple technical validation became multi-threaded reviews and one product fit became cross-product conversations. Amanda\u2019s team had to learn a new type of selling.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amanda learned firsthand that every new product, every new customer segment, and every new GTM motion changes the operating model. While the team is much stronger for it, Amanda feels it\u2019s worth acknowledging the importance of upheaval.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good reminder that companies don\u2019t grow in straight lines,\u201d says Amanda.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nGTM resources\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don’t miss our guides from Amanda Zhu:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Learn more from Amanda on LinkedIn:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don’t miss the quick guides: “Discovery and demo talk tracks” and “30-60-90 day sales manager onboarding plan” Amanda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,179345,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-373833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-enterprise-sales","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}