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Naomi Pilosof Ionita

Industry professional with extensive experience in product growth and venture capital

Naomi Pilosof Ionita is a Partner at Menlo Ventures, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco.1 She focuses on early-stage SaaS investments, particularly in AI-enabled companies innovating in areas like workflow automation, data/developer tooling, and productivity.1

Professional Background

Naomi has extensive experience in product-led growth (PLG) and has been a pioneer in this field for B2B companies.1 Her career highlights include:

  • Joining Sequoia-backed Evernote in 2011, where she was a product leader during the company's growth from 10 million to 100 million users.1
  • Serving as VP of Growth at Invoice2go (later acquired by Bill.com) when it was the top-grossing business app in the App Store.1
  • Building and managing teams across product, data, growth engineering, lifecycle marketing, design, and user research.1

Education and Expertise

Naomi holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.13 Her areas of expertise include:

  • Building full-stack growth teams and cultures
  • Launching new products
  • Helping existing products monetize and retain users
  • Product-led and sales-led growth strategies
  • Monetization and pricing

Current Role and Investments

At Menlo Ventures, Naomi focuses on AI-enabled SaaS companies, particularly those that leverage AI to improve business efficiency.1 She has made investments in companies such as Orb, Eppo, Matik, and Endgame.12

Additional Activities

Outside of her investment role, Naomi:

  • Regularly speaks and advises on product-led growth, monetization, and product development.1
  • Has been a guest lecturer at Reforge since 2015.3
  • Serves as a startup advisor on product, growth, and monetization.3

Naomi lives in San Francisco with her husband (who is a founder) and two daughters.1 She enjoys traveling to new and off-the-beaten-path destinations.1

Highlights

Jun 26 · linkedin

A few highlights from our discussion on next-gen pipeline building with Lauren Schwartz (VP Enterprise Sales, Fivetran) & Kim Graves (Head of Sales, Notion) from 20SALES:

(1) Cold outbound is rough. Seek W.A.R.M outbound:
"W" is for 'within your ICP'.  It’s important to be very targeted, know your buyer, and the tech stack they're using. "A" stands for 'authority or credibility'. Do you have credibility in the space? Have you talked to other companies like them and have insight to share? "R" is for 'relevance'. Why is it relevant to have the conversation now? "M" is for ‘make it personal.’ It can't feel like AI.

(2) Next-gen pipeline building requires a holistic approach: Pipeline coverage should be 4-5x in this market (rather than 3x) and requires rigor around the right channel mix

(3) AI is enabling, not replacing outbound: AI can help automate away many parts of your workflow, particularly non-customer facing ones. The most useful tools today provide data aggregation/enrichment and intent-based signaling.

(4) Partnerships can be an accelerant: Find power in collaborating with complimentary tech (“It’s called a tech stack for a reason”).  Consider other players who could act as an extension of your sales team to help you generate pipeline. If you have prospects with these companies already in their stack, the quality of that pipeline is usually higher.

(5) You are the CEO of your territory: Good sellers know that they are in control of their own destiny. Never assume that the pipeline is going to come from other channels or become overly reliant on marketing or partners.

(6) Find your “Renaissance rep”: Your first sales hires should be very adaptable, great communicators, problem solvers, and process builders. Reps should also be very collaborative and constantly bringing feedback from customers back to the team.

We all benefited from your wisdom - thanks for joining our community of founders & GTM execs at Menlo Ventures!

CC: Kandace Elam

Jun 7 · linkedin

📣 Calling founders and GTM leaders 📣

Menlo Ventures is joining forces with our friends at 20SALES to host a GTM event on 'Next-gen Pipeline Building'. Outbound is getting harder and our experts, Kim Graves (Head of Sales at Notion) & Lauren Schwartz (VP of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran), will help us break down winning GTM strategies in today's AI-first world.

We're bringing together a community of founders and sales execs in-person in SF on June 12th - register here: https://lnkd.in/gDJb_-DE

CC: Kandace Elam

Related Questions

What are some of the companies Naomi Pilosof Ionita has invested in?
How did Naomi Pilosof Ionita contribute to Evernote's growth?
What is the "Modern Growth Stack" Naomi Pilosof Ionita is passionate about?
What is product-led growth (PLG), and how did Naomi Pilosof Ionita pioneer it?
What are Naomi Pilosof Ionita's key areas of focus at Menlo Ventures?
Naomi Pilosof Ionita
Naomi Pilosof Ionita, photo 1
Naomi Pilosof Ionita, photo 2
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Experience

Partner at Menlo Ventures (February 2018 - Present)
Vice President, Product Growth at Invoice2go (July 2014 - September 2017), Product Director, Head of Growth at Evernote (September 2011 - July 2014)

Location

San Francisco, California, United States