David Fastuca, Co-Founder and CEO of Ricavi AI, joins the show to unpack how enterprise sales has flipped in five years, from headcount-heavy SDR teams to a leaner bench of account executives running their own go-to-market motions. He explains why sales-led growth is making a comeback even at product-led darlings like Cursor, why salespeople have become "the new engineers," and what separates fast-ramping sales teams from the rest.
Expect real numbers on rep pay and ARR growth, a practical prospecting stack, and healthy scepticism about the AI hype.
Guest Introduction
David Fastuca is a serial entrepreneur with two SaaS exits worth $75 million combined. He co-founded Locomote, later helping buy the travel tech company back from Travelport, and is now Co-Founder and CEO of Ricavi AI (formerly Coach Pilot), an AI sales coaching platform.
Key Topics
- How the B2B sales org has changed since 2021: leaner headcount, with SDRs converging into account executives who now hunt their own deals using go-to-market tooling
- Why uncapped commissions are producing account executives earning up to a million dollars a year, and why David calls this "the best time to be a seller"
- The Cursor case study: product-led growth alone stalled past $200M ARR, and adding a sales team helped push it past $4 billion in annualised revenue, with roughly $2.6 billion from enterprise deals sales closed
- Rising paid acquisition costs, and why LinkedIn ads are mostly a brand play, as drivers of the return to sales-led growth
- What separates fast-ramping companies from those stuck at six to eight months: a documented sales process and a small tool stack
- David's prospecting stack: enrichment tools, multi-touch outreach, and signal-based list building triggered by funding rounds, hiring surges, or industry news
- How David mines historical CRM data to find his most profitable customer profile, from his experience returning to lead Locomote
- Why David is sceptical of "AI will replace your sales team" claims, and which AI tools have earned a spot in his stack
Resources & Links
People
- Ben Horowitz - Co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Companies & Tools
- Ricavi AI - David's AI sales coaching platform (formerly Coach Pilot), built to cut manual CRM entry
- Locomote - Travel tech company David co-founded and later helped buy back from Travelport
- Cursor - AI coding tool David cites as the strongest case for sales-led growth after adding a sales team
- Firmable - Australian B2B enrichment tool David recommends for prospecting
- ZoomInfo - International B2B enrichment platform
- Lusha - International B2B enrichment platform
- lemlist - Multi-touch outreach automation tool
- Botdog - LinkedIn automation tool
- Framer - AI website builder David used to update Ricavi's site after its rebrand
- Manus - AI tool David uses for document creation and internal thinking
- Todoist - The to-do list tool David keeps returning to
Contact & Credits
Host: Shahin Hoda
Guest: David Fastuca
Produced by: Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell
Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido
Music by: Breakmaster Cylinder
Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie
APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth
