Doug Camplejohn
(00:01)
Hello everyone, this is Doug Camplejohn and welcome to the latest episode of Revenue Renegades. This week we’ve got Kyle Norton, the Chief Revenue Officer from Owner.com. Among other things, Kyle’s an active angel investor, he opened up the Pavilion Chapter in Toronto, and is soon to be a Bay Area local. I’m very excited about that. Welcome to the show, Kyle.
Kyle Norton
(00:15)
Thanks for having me.
Doug Camplejohn
(00:16)
Tell me a little bit about Owner.com and what drew you to the company.
Kyle Norton
(00:18)
You can think about Owner as basically Shopify plus HubSpot for the small takeout restaurants you order from on a Friday night. We handle their website, online ordering, email and text message marketing, and offer a custom branded app-all in one solution. The key differentiation is that we give restaurant owners less choice and flexibility than our competitors, but in exchange, they get much better results. By opting into a set of best practices and templates, they get an army of experts working on their behalf, constantly running A/B tests and experiments across customer segments. We roll out the winning ideas to all customers, so rather than a restaurant owner trying to become a digital marketing expert and stitch all these tools together, they can rely on a system that works out of the box.
Typically, customers come from our direct competitors and make 50% more in their first six months-sometimes double or triple. There’s a great story we just put on the website: someone was doing $1,000–$2,000 a month in direct online orders and now does $20,000 a month. There are a lot of cool stories like that.
Doug Camplejohn
(01:30)
That’s fantastic. Tell me about the sales environment when you joined and the big changes you’ve made.
Kyle Norton
(01:34)
I started early, when we were at $2.5 million ARR. I used to say I’d never go back to such an early stage, but through GTM Fund, I met the founder, Adam, and there was a gravitational force I couldn’t resist. Having invested in and advised a bunch of startups, you develop some pattern recognition with founders. I knew there was something special between Adam and Dean, and it was a big market. I took the plunge, and now we’re well over $30 million. The team was five when I started; now it’s over 100 across sales, partnerships, and customer onboarding.
I own growth, demand gen, rev ops, and enablement, so it’s a full go-to-market stack now compared to just a manager and a couple reps when I started. We’re on a strong growth trajectory-planning to more than double again this year. The economics get better every month, and we’ve always intended to go big with this one.
Doug Camplejohn
(02:58)
So you were playing for a big outcome and invested in infrastructure earlier than most companies at that stage. What were those investments, and what’s worked well (or not as well)?
Kyle Norton
(03:05)
The two biggest investments were in rev ops and enablement. We invested in both infrastructure and people to create a growth platform. It’s hard to justify big salaries in supporting functions that don’t carry a quota, but having done this a few times, I’ve seen the impact. We invested early in great go-to-market data, systems, and new hire onboarding, training, and development. Early on, the ROI is thin compared to making more reps productive, but as the team has grown, the payoff is night and day. Each rep is probably three to four times more productive than our direct competitors.
The lesson is you have to know what game you’re playing. If you’re going big, these investments make sense. If you’re aiming for a smaller footprint or early profitability, that strategy might not work.
Doug Camplejohn
(05:56)
Could you name some of the tools in your stack?
Kyle Norton
(06:00)
We replaced Outreach with SalesLoft, my preferred sales engagement tool. We built in-house tools to enrich and score leads and now use Datalane for most prospecting data. We use Momentum for AI CRM enrichment-after a demo call, Momentum reads the transcript, fills in CRM fields, and can trigger alerts if something’s missed in the sales process. Another favorite tool is Avara, an AI sales simulator highly tuned to our exact selling environment and approach. The reps who spend the most time with the simulator ramp up the fastest.
We’re also building out with OneMind, leveraging their AI avatars for a more education-centric engagement channel for restaurant owners landing on our page.
Doug Camplejohn
(08:49)
You’re clearly on the bleeding edge with new technologies.
Kyle Norton
(08:52)
I try to be. It’s been an advantage throughout my career. I was one of the first SalesLoft Cadence customers, one of the first Chorus and Chili Piper customers. I approach picking tools in emerging categories much like angel investing: betting on founders more than products, since early differentiation is usually about the founder’s quality, speed, and vision.
Doug Camplejohn
(11:06)
You’re a student of the craft of sales. What are your guiding principles for running a successful sales team?
Kyle Norton
(11:10)
I bucket it into four pillars:
- Talent: Attracting great talent, selecting the right individuals, and creating an environment where they can develop. Enablement and coaching are key.
- Infrastructure: Building rep-centric infrastructure that accelerates reps rather than slowing them down with unnecessary fields and validation.
- Positioning: Getting sharp on how you position your product. I teach a point-of-view positioning framework and a radically transparent selling methodology.
- Strategy: Making holistic business decisions beyond just the sales number. My differentiator as a sales leader is thinking beyond the number-building a go-to-market strategy that starts at awareness and stretches through to renewal.
Doug Camplejohn
(14:31)
When sharing metrics with your leadership or board, what do you focus on beyond the number?
Kyle Norton
(14:35)
Ultimately, it’s about enterprise value. That means looking at LTV/CAC and unit economics, not just growth. LTV is a lagging metric, but it’s crucial to prioritize what happens after the deal closes: customer activation, adoption, and the entire customer journey. We have tight feedback loops between onboarding, sales, and customer success, constantly refining our qualification criteria and improving the entire journey.
Doug Camplejohn
(17:34)
Do you tie comp plans to post-sales success?
Kyle Norton
(17:38)
Yes. We sell to SMBs at high velocity, with a sub-seven-day sales cycle and onboarding from four days to three weeks. Reps are paid on customer launch, not deal close, so their incentive is tightly tied to customer quality and a good handoff. This change led to more focus on successful handoffs and better customer outcomes.
Doug Camplejohn
(25:10)
As an investor, what advice do you give startups struggling with early go-to-market?
Kyle Norton
(25:15)
First, know what game you’re playing-venture-backed high growth or a smaller, profitable niche. Many founders mix best practices and end up with chaos. Second, get really specific about your ICP. Early on, it’s tempting to sign anyone, but that leads to churn and hurts your business. Be disciplined and choiceful, even when it’s hard.
Positioning is another common pitfall. As a seed-stage startup, you’re not the best product in the category yet. Be honest about where you’re strong and where you’re not. Lead with your strengths and weaknesses so customers can opt in or out quickly. That builds trust and saves time.
If your competitors could make the same positioning claim, your positioning isn’t strong enough. Force customers to make a choice, not just a comparison.
Doug Camplejohn
(31:31)
I love the focus on niching down and candor. It’s like a great restaurant where the sommelier tells you what not to order-it builds trust.
Kyle Norton
(31:55)
Exactly. That transparency builds long-term relationships and enterprise value. Even if you’re scraping by, having a long-term horizon is important. Sell vision over fabrication. The ultimate flywheel is super happy customers, and you see the compounding effect as you scale. Owner.com is now the highest-rated product in restaurant software, partly because we do month-to-month contracts and focus on delivering value, not locking people in.
Doug Camplejohn
(36:16)
The compounding effect is real. You’ve invested in enablement, rev ops, and organic marketing, and it’s paying off.
Kyle Norton
(36:48)
Yes, we have more Instagram followers than Toast, a $15 billion company, even though we’re only 200 people. The returns on organic marketing and long-term bets are now compounding.
Doug Camplejohn
(37:39)
Let’s shift to AI. What excites you most about AI and its impact on your work?
Kyle Norton
(37:44)
Everything about AI excites me. I use it constantly for research, podcast prep, health, and more. In the business, we use Momentum for AI CRM enrichment, Avara for sales simulations, Pavlov for post-sales journeys, and OneMind for AI avatars. We’ve built our own machine learning models, too. My thesis is to use AI internally to make teams more effective and automate routine work, so reps can spend more time selling. It’s about augmenting, not replacing, salespeople.
The next few years will favor companies with great internal data. We use tools like Guru to build a high-quality knowledge base, surfacing information to help people do higher-value work. It’s all about generating and leveraging high-quality data.
Doug Camplejohn
(41:14)
How can listeners keep in touch and help you on your journey?
Kyle Norton
(46:27)
All my content ends up on LinkedIn, including my Substack and podcast. If you’re an early-stage founder and want to talk revenue strategy, or if you’re a high-velocity SMB rep looking for a job, reach out. We’ll probably hire around 50 people in sales this year.
Doug Camplejohn
(46:35)
Check out Kyle at owner.com. Kyle, I feel like we could talk for another hour. I’m excited to welcome you to the Bay Area. When you get here with your family, let’s catch up in person. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Kyle Norton
(46:56)
Appreciate it. This was a blast. Thanks.
