Great GTM Starts With Weird Problems ft. CheeTung Leong

In today's episode, I chat with CheeTung Leong, founder at The GTM Architects, about helping mid-size B2B software and services companies build genuinely AI-native go-to-market systems—not just bolting AI onto the same old ZoomInfo and Outreach pipeline. The campaigns he walks through are real problem-solving exercises: finding car washes and narrowing a massive TAM down by digging into public records for how much each one actually spends on water, and building first-party signal systems for a 100K-user client by pulling together HubSpot, Postgres, and product analytics to define custom lead states and the next best action for each one. CheeTung's background is 10 years as a tech founder—enterprise consulting selling to Fortune 500s, a venture-funded startup raised to Series A and $3M ARR with a 14-person GTM team, a bootstrapped SaaS attempt, and eventually building The GTM Architects after deciding not to push a dying edtech business uphill. He's now running 70% of his work through Claude Code, building a skill that pulls from nine or ten sources—DKIM/DMARC settings, website HTML stack detection, social posts—into an Opus-strategist agent that outputs full pre-call research documents, and he's publishing fully-sourced 3,700-word blog teardowns weekly using the same system, work that used to take a month per article. His prediction: the bleeding-edge GTM engineers will burn out as starving artists while tools like Clay move upmarket toward enterprises who'd rather hire average operators than chase geniuses—but the fundamentals of people-to-people selling won't change, just the speed at which the tooling evolves. His advice: take on early clients for free to build proof, then charge, and remember the build itself is commoditized now—your own thinking is the only thing that isn't. Enjoy 🙂(0:00) Introduction to The GTM Engineer Podcast (0:27) What The GTM Architects Does: AI-Native GTM Systems for Mid-Size B2B Companies (2:06) The Car Wash Campaign: Narrowing TAM by Digging Into Public Water Spend Records (3:05) First-Party Signal Systems: Combining HubSpot, Postgres, and Product Analytics for 100K Users (7:08) CheeTung's Journey: Enterprise Consulting, a Series A Startup, and Shutting Down to Build GTM Architects (9:06) Running 70% of Work Through Claude Code: The Pre-Call Research Skill Across 10 Sources (11:46) Publishing Fully-Sourced 3,700-Word GTM Teardowns Weekly With Fable 5 (14:03) Predictions: The Starving Artist GTME, Clay Moving Upmarket, and Why the Fundamentals Won't Change (19:22) Advice: Take Early Clients for Free, Then Charge—The Build Is Commoditized, Your Thinking Isn't🔗 CONNECT WITH CHEETUNG 👥 LinkedIn  💻 Website 🔗 CONNECT WITH SAURAV🎥 YouTube Channel🐦 X (Twitter)📸 Instagram💻 Website👥 LinkedIn📧 Email - [email protected]🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW If you enjoyed listening to The GTM Engineer Podcast, we'd love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help others discover the show :)👋🏼 GET IN TOUCH You can also reach out with any feedback, ideas or thoughts about the lessons you've learned from the episodes.