What Wins When Anyone Can Build Anything with Brett Queener, Partner at Bonfire Ventures

Brett Queener (Partner at Bonfire Ventures) joins GTMnow to share what three decades across Siebel, early Salesforce, co-founding, and seed-stage investing has taught him about what actually wins now that software is cheaper and faster than he ever imagined.Brett was one of the earliest GTM hires at Salesforce when it had seven employees. He helped build the go-to-market playbook that defined a generation of SaaS: enterprise segmentation, sales motion design, product marketing, the whole works. He then co-founded SmartRecruiters, angel invested in companies like Outreach and Pando, and eventually joined Bonfire Ventures as a Partner to do early-stage investing the way he thinks it should be done: hands-on, operator-led, and built around founders who are ruthless about execution.Guest links:Brett Queener - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettqueener/Bonfire Ventures - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bonfire-ventures/Guest company website: https://www.bonfirevc.com/Host links:Max - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler/Max - X: https://x.com/HackItMaxPaul - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving/Paul - X: https://x.com/PaulGTMNewsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.comBrought to you by: AngelListFrom starting as a small, operator-led rolling fund, to evolving to an institutional platform, AngelList has been a core partner in every phase of GTMfund’s growth. Their software-first fund admin infrastructure allowed us to scale without sacrificing agility — from onboarding hundreds of LPs seamlessly to handling compliance, capital calls, and reporting as our fund size evolved.As we expanded from Fund I to Fund II, AngelList took care of the back-office operations, allowing us to stay focused on what matters most: investing in world-class founders and building the strongest go-to-market network in venture.They’ve scaled with us across funds and into the future.If your fund is growing in size or complexity, check them out at https://angellist.com/gtmfund.Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/Highlights:00:00 – Brett's career: Siebel, Salesforce employee #7, co-founder, angel investor, seed-stage VC06:58 – The big shift: from passive CRUD apps to agentic software that does the work for you08:07 – "Failing upwards" and what the fastest-growing companies taught Brett about investing in people10:58 – Why Brett moved into VC: 25 years of operators whose collective worth hit $25B16:50 – What Brett looks for in founders now and how it's changed over 6-7 years18:05 – Why anybody can build anything: Brett builds a fully functional travel app in 15 minutes19:20 – The last remaining 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.