Doug Camplejohn
(00:01)
Hello everyone, this is Doug Camplejohn and welcome to this week’s episode of Revenue Renegades. This week I am joined by Brian Cox, the Vice President of Worldwide Sales at BrainTrust. Brian, welcome to the show.
Bryan Cox
(00:14)
Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for having me, Doug.
Doug Camplejohn
(00:17)
For those who don’t know, can you give us all a background on what BrainTrust is and what your journey to get there looked like?
Bryan Cox
(00:26)
Good question. BrainTrust has been a ton of fun. I’ve been at BrainTrust since February, and BrainTrust is all about making agents great. I think everyone has heard that it’s hard to get things to production, that there have been a lot of successes with prototypes and POCs, and showing the value AI could bring to organizations. But the hard work of actually measuring something, knowing that it’s going to be good, putting a strong product out, and making it better over time is a really tough problem. There’s a new software development lifecycle being created and we’re part of it. You can think of BrainTrust as the infrastructure that sits on top of models to make sense of the chaos and help people ship great products.
How I got to BrainTrust, they had started an executive search right after I did a big deal at Grafana with a model provider. I got close to the team there and asked, “What do you think about BrainTrust?” People told me, “You really need to pay attention to this.” I was happy at Grafana, had great friends, incredible product-market fit, and really loved my team. But BrainTrust kind of knocked me off my axis. I can tell you more about how I got to know Ankur and the team, but it’s been a lot of fun over the last eight months.
Doug Camplejohn
(01:57)
Your growth has been amazing. You guys were like 15 employees when you joined and you’re what, 70 plus now?
Bryan Cox
(02:02)
Yeah, it’s been completely chaotic. We’ve gone from 15 people to now over 70. We’ll probably be over 100 by the end of the year. We’re all wearing a lot of hats, but it’s been really fun.
Doug Camplejohn
(02:15)
I have to say, my company Coffee is a BrainTrust customer. Our journey was really interesting because, as many people know, building AI products is a different beast compared to traditional SaaS products. You’ve got all these variables—the context, the data you’re feeding it, which model you’ll choose, which prompt to go with. We tried to build our own version for Coffee—best briefings, best summaries, pulling action items, etc.—and we finally said, “This is ridiculous.” We were ready to start coding our own system, but then stumbled on BrainTrust and realized we could just use that instead.
Bryan Cox
(03:03)
Thank you.
Bryan Cox
(03:11)
What’s really interesting is that when I got to know Ankur last November, all the builders in Silicon Valley—Stripe, Coda, Notion, Zapier—they all said, “We’re not going to build this. It’s a hard problem.” Everyone cares about speed in AI, so anything that’s non-differentiated heavy lifting isn’t appealing. Leaders in the space don’t want to build this themselves. One of our biggest customers said it would have taken them three years to build what we have—they don’t have that kind of time in AI; they need to move fast and get these tools to their users.
Also, everything is constantly changing at the model layer; this non-determinism is something people aren’t used to. If you try to use normal software development paradigms on top of models that change all the time, it doesn’t work. You need a new software development stack.
Doug Camplejohn
(04:32)
I’ve talked to other guests about this like Richard White, the CEO of Fathom. He says it’s very bespoke—it’s not “pull this field from a database and show it” like traditional software; there’s a lot of judgment involved. Unless you have an environment where you can experiment quickly, it’s a challenge.
Bryan Cox
(04:48)
Exactly.
Bryan Cox
(05:00)
Among the vertical AI companies, many are wrappers around the AI. The competitive advantage isn’t just the model; you need to put your own spin on the product. One interesting thing with BrainTrust is the way you evaluate even as you progress—the score level remains consistent across any model provider, so customers like PMs at Ramp or large sports leagues put their judgment into the “score,” which then becomes how they make their products great.
Doug Camplejohn
(06:03)
I had Tamara Yehoshua (President of Products at Glean) on recently. She said the biggest difference is not just for product managers but also sales and go-to-market. She’d meet CIOs considering Glean, and the idea of running a query twice and getting slightly different results blew their minds, as it’s so foreign to the deterministic SaaS world.
Bryan Cox
(06:31)
Exactly. Some customers say they don’t trust the outputs, so they’re starting to show evaluation outputs—like here’s proof that it was good so you can trust it. If you put an agent out and it goes off the rails, trust is lost quickly and you may not get a second chance. The products that use agents—whether Coffee or BrainTrust—have to be excellent.
Doug Camplejohn
(07:11)
It’s wild, because I still don’t trust Coffee to auto-send emails or fill up my to-do list from transcripts, so we keep it in “co-pilot” mode with a human in the loop. But I’ll jump in a Tesla and trust it at 70 mph.
Bryan Cox
(07:26)
Maybe we shouldn’t! My favorite thing in San Francisco is to take a Waymo ride—Waymo only for me.
Doug Camplejohn
(07:40)
Waymos are amazing. I never realized what a better experience it would be as a user—not just for the company saving on a driver but the actual ride.
Bryan Cox
(07:46)
It’s just better. I just want that “me” time.
Doug Camplejohn
(08:03)
So let’s shift gears. How do you think about building a team and filtering for greatness?
Bryan Cox
(08:24)
I’ve had great mentors. Early in my career, I worked with phenomenal people like Josh Frazier at Flexera, Graham Moreno at Grafana, Nico Rivas, Ben Jaderstrom. We all learned what “good” looks like. For me, I want a team that wants to hit 300% of their number. Some reps are satisfied with 98%, but in a company trying to get to $100M+, you have to do more. I look for that hunger, curiosity, self-enablement, technical passion. If you sit with the CTO, can you teach them? We talk a lot about champion-building—if you can’t teach a champion what they’re dealing with, you can’t win. I also insist on meeting all candidates in person—it’s a critical differentiator that you can’t replicate remotely.
Doug Camplejohn
(10:33)
Are you all in the office or hybrid?
Bryan Cox
(10:36)
We’re hybrid. My enterprise and strat sellers are where our customers are, but commercial and SDR teams are in San Francisco. Even though Grafana was all-remote, I think for young people learning and getting better, in-person is just better. It’s great to eat lunch next to an engineering leader and learn at the table.
Bryan Cox
(15:42)
I look for really high performers. When I hire, I ask about their motivations and goals. Everyone on my team wants that 300%, not just cruising at 90–98%. Those aren’t the right fit for our growth stage. Curiosity and self-enablement are essential; people have to want to learn the tech and hone their craft daily. I also meet everyone in person—it’s such a big deal to know who you’re working with closely. Our go-to-market team is now over 30 people; it’s grown really fast.
Doug Camplejohn
(16:42)
And everyone is exceeding their quota.
Bryan Cox
(16:48)
They are! I wouldn’t bring people on if we didn’t have product-market fit or you couldn’t make money here. My first rep is already over annual. My SDR promoted to commercial is over annual in just a few quarters. Shout-out to Jack—great rep! When we put reps into New York, they’re over their number. Teams that don’t scale from a people standpoint usually don’t have PMF. We’re still understaffed. We need even more people.
Doug Camplejohn
(17:56)
Best hiring tagline ever: “Everyone on the team is over quota.” That’s unbeatable for recruiting. Can you talk about team development? I saw your LinkedIn post about the Sonoma offsite. What do you do to bring everyone together and keep focus and development high?
Bryan Cox
(18:02)
It’s going well so far.
Bryan Cox
(18:26)
I think about three kinds of development: personal, sales, and technical. When people leave BrainTrust, I want them better in all three. On the personal side, leaders don’t spend enough time helping people find their “operational rhythm”—how to get the most out of their work week. Without it, people end up working nights or long hours to compensate, which isn’t sustainable. It’s an ultra-marathon, not a sprint. There’ll be crunch times, but overall, the best work should happen during the day. If you don’t have boundaries or balance, burnout is inevitable.
Doug Camplejohn
(20:29)
With three young kids, I learned in my past startup to be home for dinner and have offline family time. If it’s urgent, people can call me, but otherwise, it waits until after the kids are asleep. Those boundaries are key.
Bryan Cox
(20:41)
Absolutely.
Doug Camplejohn
(20:58)
This isn’t about a year-long sprint—it’s a multi-year journey.
Bryan Cox
(21:02)
Totally. We want to build BrainTrust into a big company, and it’s not sustainable to be constantly burning out. You also need family buy-in; I check with my wife Jenna, “Is this all working for you?” That alignment is important.
Doug Camplejohn
(21:30)
Let’s talk more about development.
Bryan Cox
(21:32)
On the personal front, we want people to sell with their strengths. Some sellers don’t know their strengths when they join: if they’re funny, I want them to use that in sales! On the sales side, we’re training everyone in negotiation—many go up against procurement veterans without formal training. BrainTrust is a technical product; sellers need to be technical and opinionated. We work on this constantly.
Doug Camplejohn
(22:45)
No one bats a thousand in hiring—how long do you give someone before deciding if they’re trainable or it’s time to move on?
Bryan Cox
(22:59)
You have to move fast in a startup. It’s easier to help someone who wants to make it work, but they also have to put in real effort. There’s no set time frame; it’s contextual, but you have to hire and let go fast if needed. It’s not fair to the company or the individual to hang on too long—this isn’t a family business, it’s about building something big.
Doug Camplejohn
(23:49)
At Coffee and previous companies, we always did a 90-day check-in meeting for new hires. I realized that everyone I ever had to part ways with, I knew within 90 days—usually faster. If you’re hesitating because someone is “mostly getting the job done” or it would be tough to lose a resource, you’re making the wrong choice.
Bryan Cox
(24:05)
Couldn’t agree more.
Doug Camplejohn
(24:22)
So you’ve now sold both AI and non-AI products. What’s different for AI in terms of trial, evaluation, and the buying process?
Bryan Cox
(24:37)
Eli Gill (who’s on our board) said, “What worked in 2022 might have to be thrown out—AI demands a new playbook.” That’s true. At Grafana we did classic playbook selling: new business meetings, proofs-of-value, etc. In AI, you do everything at once—new business meetings now consolidate at POV time when we’re scoping the POV and validating the business problem. A lot of prospects will have already touched the tech through some sort of free trial. It compresses the sales cycle and can feel chaotic, but it’s the new norm.
Doug Camplejohn
(25:22)
Right.
Bryan Cox
(25:38)
The technology must be fantastic—people need to love it when they get hands-on. You also have to meet buyers where they are; many AI-native companies don’t want to jump on the phone, and you have to respect that and adjust.
Bryan Cox
(26:08)
The sales process is evolving. We still believe in getting to economic buyers and understanding their priorities, but we’re working with technical teams more closely, and “gating” tech access isn’t the way anymore.
Doug Camplejohn
(26:30)
How much of your business is PLG versus sales-led these days?
Bryan Cox
(26:34)
It’s truly both. In terms of lead flow, people either raise their hand for BrainTrust or sign up for a free org, and we’re running product-led growth (PLG) as well as sales motions. We kicked off PLG in March and it’s been growing fast. But our view is that PLG feeds the enterprise motion—we’re seeing users quickly graduate from self-serve to enterprise engagements.
Doug Camplejohn
(27:17)
With this new world, how do you think about education, community, and ecosystem?
Bryan Cox
(27:31)
Great topic. In the first year or two, Ankur specifically avoided sales and marketing—it was all founder-led. That was partially because the company originated as a solution in search of a problem. BrainTrust got its start inside MPRA, then Figma, then incubated at Coda, Notion, and Zapier, all three times as a solution for a specific problem. His focus was making sure PMF (product-market fit) was absolutely undeniable before expanding. Now we’ve started building out marketing, community, developer relations, and ecosystem (Morgan, our new VP of Marketing, is phenomenal).
Doug Camplejohn
(28:37)
I noticed you’re active with industry dinners. In a world of AI SDRs and buyers not wanting to talk to humans, what’s your perspective on the human touch versus the self-serve approach?
Bryan Cox
(28:46)
We see ourselves as community builders. I’ll ask at dinners who’s new to AI—nobody has more than a year of experience, but almost everyone has less. These dinners are just to let people share war stories and what’s working.
Doug Camplejohn
(29:10)
Yeah.
Bryan Cox
(29:23)
The turnout is incredible—someone even drove five hours for our dinner in Boston. Some of that is due to our tech, but people also just want connection to others who’ve been in it even a couple of weeks longer. We’re doing a lot of these dinners—great food, wine, and new friends.
Doug Camplejohn
(29:58)
With all the remote work and the promise of AI replacing roles, do you think human-to-human connection is more important than ever?
Bryan Cox
(30:14)
Definitely. There’s lots of talk about AI replacing humans, and sometimes it truly does eliminate roles. But it’s also a great equalizer—those with ideas and who know how to leverage AI will have an advantage.
Doug Camplejohn
(30:51)
So you’re more of the “AI super suit” model—arm your reps with AI rather than replace them with AI SDRs?
Bryan Cox
(31:01)
Exactly. On the SDR side, we can scale more, and improve ratios, but outbound is still hard work. If someone raises their hand for BrainTrust, that should be automated, but for the SDRs who graduate to commercial, I want them to know how to generate their own sales. Research, comp plans, territories—all should just be there for them. We do all the prep for blitzes so reps aren’t bogged down with busy work.
Doug Camplejohn
(32:31)
What AI technologies are you using to help your reps or improve effectiveness?
Bryan Cox
(32:41)
We’re in early days, setting up the stack. Clay has been phenomenal; we work closely with them and their founders. There’s also interesting agent work—want to offload all busy work from reps. We’re experimenting with Unifi and care a lot about clean signals. I think you can now warm up a territory with automation. I’d love to see cleaner territory management in the space—it’s not quite there yet, but we’re pushing. We want to lead with an AI-native stack.
Doug Camplejohn
(34:20)
How do you think about pricing, since everyone says seat-based pricing is dead, but most CROs aren’t ready to give up a slice of revenue?
Bryan Cox
(34:45)
It depends on the tech. Half our revenue is self-hosted and half is SaaS—self-hosted meaning hybrid deployment (control plane with us, data plane with the customer). Sometimes customers are surprised by consumption-based pricing but we’re running all the compute and solving tough problems. Pricing for value makes sense; you have to meet customers where they are, especially as a startup. I’m generally aligned to usage-based pricing: if someone is getting 100 times the value, they should pay more. It has to scale economically though.
Doug Camplejohn
(36:22)
Let’s do some quick rapid-fire questions to wrap up! What would surprise people to know about you?
Bryan Cox
(36:32)
I went couch-surfing in Europe in college. We’d wake up, check EasyJet for a $20 flight, and just go. No plan! I learned people are fundamentally good. We were helped by so many for no reason other than kindness. That shaped how I think.
Doug Camplejohn
(37:29)
I tell my kids to do a semester abroad, a gap year, all that. What do you do for fun outside of work?
Bryan Cox
(37:42)
With three kids, I’m at the beach a lot. When I get time for myself, I play tennis. I played in college, love three-set clay matches with friends—even though we’re both a bit injured! Took a decade off so I’m working back up, but it’s my happy place.
Doug Camplejohn
(38:08)
So you prefer clay over hard court?
Bryan Cox
(38:14)
I do. I grew up on hard court, which is why American tennis isn’t as strong. Clay is slower, more strategic, and you get a little dirty.
Doug Camplejohn
(38:30)
I’ve never played on clay! Adding it to the list. Is there a personal product you use and love?
Bryan Cox
(38:46)
This is more work-related, but Notion AI is phenomenal. They’re customers and we’ve worked with them on their agent. Their whole team is fantastic. Also, I love Granola—it helps me be 100% present in conversations. I’m not perfect at it, but Granola is helping me. They’re customers too, great team.
Doug Camplejohn
(39:36)
And the best way for listeners to stay in touch?
Bryan Cox
(39:41)
I’ve deleted all social media. If you want to reach me, call my cell or connect on LinkedIn; that’s where I am.
Doug Camplejohn
(39:54)
Unless you want your cell phone read out here, we’ll just send people to LinkedIn.
Bryan Cox
(39:57)
That’s right, just ping me on LinkedIn.
Doug Camplejohn
(40:01)
Brian, this was great. Thanks for coming on.
Bryan Cox
(40:05)
Doug, this was super fun. Thanks for having me.
