GTM 152: What’s Actually Working in GTM Right Now: Lessons from Centari, Atrix AI, & Gaiia

What’s actually working in go-to-market right now? In this live panel from the GTM Fund AGM, three early-stage leaders from three exceptional companies—Centari, Atrix AI, and Gaiia—break down how they’re closing enterprise deals in some of the most challenging verticals: legal, pharma, and telecom. From viral LinkedIn content and founder-led dinners to the now-infamous "donut drop" strategy, this episode is packed with practical, first-principles GTM plays you won’t find in a sales playbook.Kevin Walker (Centari) – Founder & CEO of Centari, a legal tech platform providing deal intelligence to large law firms and, soon, financial services. A former M&A attorney at Paul Hastings, Kevin brings deep insider knowledge to solving complex legal workflows.Vera Kutsenko (Atrix AI) – Founder & CEO of Atrix AI, a platform helping medical affairs teams at pharma and med device companies capture and operationalize real-world insights. Vera has become a thought leader in AI for regulated industries—recently authoring a viral book on AI in medical affairs.Stephen Farnsworth (Gaiia) – VP of GTM at Gaiia and early GTM leader at Workato and Outreach. Gaiia is an end-to-end ERP, billing, and CRM platform for independent internet service providers (ISPs), tackling a niche but high-value market with massive infrastructure needs.Discussed in this Episode:Centari built trust with top law firms by pairing deep domain credibility with a thoughtful, relationship-driven sales approach.Atrix AI sparked inbound demand by turning a single viral LinkedIn post into a full-length book on AI in medical affairs.Gaiia chose not to hire SDRs, focusing instead on high-ACV deals and personalized outreach in a tightly defined TAM of telecom providers.Gaiia’s “donut drop” strategy—personally delivering treats to rural ISP offices—created brand awareness and unlocked new pipeline.Both Centari and Atrix AI scaled founder-led sales by hiring a Chief of Staff to operationalize and extend GTM efforts.Atrix AI uses educational AI workshops to qualify buyers, build trust, and stand out in a noisy vendor landscape.Centari combats pilot fatigue and skepticism in legal tech by showing deep empathy, hiring former lawyers, and proving value early.Highlights:03:00 – Why Atrix AI scaled founder-led sales with viral content and thought leadership06:00 – The accidental (and wildly successful) AI & medical affairs book launch08:00 – Centari’s early GTM strategy: legal empathy, cookies, and product conviction11:00 – Gaiia’s high-ACV model and why SDRs don’t make sense for their TAM20:00 – The Donut Playbook: creating pipeline by showing up IRL23:00 – Why Chief of Staff was a critical early hire for scaling sales ops27:00 – How Gaiia is thinking about building community in a slow-moving vertical28:00 – What’s next: repeatability, vertical expansion, and community infrastructureGuest Speaker Links:Vera Kutsenko LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/verakutsenko/Stephen Farnsworth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-farnsworth/Kevin Walker LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpwalker1/Host Speaker Links (Paul Irving):LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving/Where to find GTMnow (GTMfund’s media brand):Website: https://gtmnow.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow/Twitter/X: https://x.com/GTMnow_&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.