Intro

Adam Carr is the Chief Revenue Officer at Apollo, where he’s scaling revenue by layering sales on top of a $150M+ ARR product-led growth engine. Previously, Adam helped scale Miro from a PLG-led company into a global sales organization, contributing to its growth into a $17.5B business. He’s known for building systems-driven GTM teams that turn product signals into durable revenue.

Discussed in this episode

• Why PLG is gravity (signals + acquisition) and sales is the monetization layer
• The “one-team” model to prevent PLG vs. sales cannibalization
• Building talent density (and why slowing hiring can be the fastest path)
• Hiring for curiosity, coachability, ownership, and team-first execution
• The “architect / systems thinker” profile for modern sellers
• A new post-sales model: CSMs → technical GTM Engineers + intervention-led journey
• Using customer journey milestones to drive expansion and prevent churn proactively
• AI in GTM: streamlining manual work so humans focus on better conversations

Episode highlights

00:00 — PLG is about signaling + acquisition (not monetization)

01:30 — “PLG isn’t the monetization way… it’s layering sales.”

02:41 — Talent density: hire for the next 12–18 months, not just “today”

04:50 — The soft skills that scaled Miro: curiosity, coachability, ownership

08:38 — Why Adam hires “architects” (system thinkers) instead of just sellers

10:41 — The mindset shift: celebrate value realized, not contracts signed

15:41 — Replacing CSMs with “go-to-market engineers” + an intervention model

19:14 — Turning PLG signals into PQA/PQL routing (and reducing the “noise”)

29:26 — “100M ARR is late” — when to start layering sales into PLG

Guest links

• LinkedIn (Adam Carr):https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhcarr

Follow Sophie Buonassisi (Host)

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
• Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Where to Find GTMnow

• Website: https://gtmnow.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now
• Podcast Directory: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.