Alex Turnbull
20+ years building B2B software companies.
I built BantamLive and sold it for $15M, bootstrapped Groove to $5M ARR, and today I'm building Helply.
I write about what I'm learning along the way.
- 20+ yrsStarting, scaling & selling B2B software
- $5M ARRGroove, bootstrapped with a small team
- 125K+Founders on my newsletter
- BuildingHelply, in public, right now
Still building.
I'm not writing about startups from the sidelines.
I'm still dealing with the same things every founder deals with.
- Hiring the right people.
- Finding growth.
- Figuring out GTM.
- Making product bets.
- Changing pricing.
- Adapting to AI.
- Making expensive mistakes.
- And occasionally getting something right.
That's mostly what I write about.
What I'm working on.
Rebuilding customer support for the AI era.
I'm building Helply, an AI-native customer support platform designed around teams of human and AI agents working together.
We're rebuilding the traditional help desk from the ground up for AI.
You don't need another founder podcast.
You need founders you can actually talk to.
I'm putting together a private peer group of 25 B2B founders to talk candidly about product, GTM, pricing, hiring, growth and the decisions we don't post about publicly.
- 25 founding membersA capped room. You'll actually know everyone in it.
- Monthly Founder SessionsLive working calls on the decisions you're stuck on.
- Founder Hot SeatsPut your company on the table and get direct feedback.
- Private SlackA backchannel of operators between sessions, always on.
Build the LinkedIn GTM engine I use to grow profitable SaaS companies.
Get the exact positioning, content, audience-building, outreach and DM systems my GTM team runs every day, plus the coaching and community to operate the complete motion in one place.
- Positioning
- Content
- Audience
- Outreach
- DMs
- Pipeline
Notes from building.
I write about what I'm learning building B2B companies.
Growth. Product. GTM. Hiring. AI. Bootstrapping. And the occasional expensive mistake.
I had to end my $5M ARR business
18 months trying to make a 12 year old help desk agentic, and the architectural reason it was never going to work.
The four layers of an AI-native product, and the only one that's a moat
Data, context, model, outcomes. Everyone is competing on the layer they rent.
12 months to rebuild 12 years
What AI-native costs when you take it literally, and which parts of a 12 year old product turned out to be worth nothing.
All 10 of my engineers code with AI. This is not vibe coding.
The difference between AI-assisted engineering and the thing that phrase has come to mean.
A few chapters.
BantamLive
Built with a team of 10.
Acquired by Constant Contact for $15M.
Groove
Started from scratch and bootstrapped.
Grew to $5M ARR.
Helply
What I'm building now.
Rebuilding customer support for the AI era.
20+ years
A lot has changed.
I'm still building.
Get my founder notes.
What I'm learning building B2B companies, straight to your inbox.
Growth, product, GTM, hiring, AI, bootstrapping and whatever I'm trying to figure out that week.
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Bring the problem you can't stop thinking about.
I'm putting together 25 B2B founders.
Real companies. Real numbers. Real decisions.
25 founding spots · $99/month if accepted