Connor J. Laughlin

$159M+ influenced pipeline, built from zero infrastructure.

I came in as TSI's first digital marketing hire and stayed 11 years, 4 promotions, and one acting-CMO seat. Everything in this manual is a system I built and still run: positioning, demand, attribution, pipeline inspection, governed AI. Every number resolves from a governed claim register, and the largest one is on this page.

The story of how a comic-book kid ended up running a nine-figure influenced pipeline takes three minutes. It starts with a Palm Pilot and a man named Tom Bedecarre.

FIG_002 [ Signal to touch ]Where a buying signal enters, which tier it lands in, and who has to answer it.

Contents

Contents.

Section 1Revenue systems13 entries
1. Revenue operating system from zero.235 words
  The funnel definitions, lifecycle stages, routing, and reporting that turned scattered activity into one system.
2. Governed AI operating layer.229 words
  A multi-agent layer that stages GTM work behind human approval gates and audit trails.
3. The wiki humans and agents share.378 words
  A knowledge base compiled once from the company's sources, with an approval tier on every page people and agents read.
4. Ghost pipeline detector.238 words
  Pipeline reviews stopped rewarding optimism once close-date drift and stage aging were instrumented.
5. Signal-based demand engine.221 words
  Buying signals routed to a tiered response model, with a defined window on the highest-priority ones.
6. Platform narrative and ICP intelligence.228 words
  I built the positioning framework on five pillars and the ICP research that justifies them.
7. Post-acquisition GTM bridge.230 words
  Marketing integration across acquired brands, web properties, and a regulated Canadian business unit.
8. Marketing analytics architecture.206 words
  Web analytics and CRM joined into one performance ledger that reconciles itself.
9. Leadership and team operating system.191 words
  How a near-zero-budget function became a board-backed team with an international model.
10. Outcome-first narrative architecture.166 words
  Each claim in the messaging system carries its proof and its approval state.
11. Two-function marketing operating model.193 words
  Splitting marketing into a demand function and a narrative function, with governance thin enough to ship through.
12. Enterprise digital presence rebuild.195 words
  We rebuilt on one architecture, then put a schema under the content so pages stopped being hand-built.
13. Strategy memo: how I think before I build.
  The questions I answer before writing a line of a plan.
Section 2Builds1 entry
1. Builds.
  The software I ship, named and dated.
Section 3The operator3 entries
1. How I move.
  Speed and taste usually trade against each other. These are the habits that keep both.
2. How I make ambiguity legible.
  Turning fog into something a team can act on.
3. How I scale judgment.
  How judgment gets out of my head and into something someone else can run.
Section 4Writing4 entries
1. Building the machine while running it.687 words
  The long version, written while the system was still being built.
2. What happens after the signal fires.1,091 words
  How buying signals became a routing model with response windows attached.
3. Messaging that survives scrutiny.1,036 words
  Why messaging falls apart when the proof behind it isn't governed.
4. Absorbing an acquisition without breaking it.1,463 words
  What it takes to merge an acquired product into a GTM motion that already exists.
Section 5Journal1 entry
1. Notes from a working life.
  Personal essays: work, Chicago, dogs, football, and what AI is doing to all of it.
Section 6Resume1 entry
1. Resume.
  First digital marketing hire to VP of Marketing and GTM, with the roles, dates, and systems attached.
Section 7Appendix5 entries
1. Story.
  Writer, then builder, then executive, and how those three keep feeding each other.
2. Now.
  A snapshot of right now: reading, watching, playing, building.
3. Plates.
  A few rolls of film, screened to the manual's ink until pressed.
4. RevOps capacity planner.
  A working reverse-funnel calculator that turns a revenue target into the volume you would need.
5. Colophon.
  Type, stack, and the design language this manual borrows from.

Site figures.

Every number on this site resolves from a governed claim register. The ones that don't clear the gate aren't here.

Years building GTM systems: 11. First digital marketing hire in 2015 through VP of Marketing and GTM, 2026.
Regulated verticals: 5. Regulated business lines run as one GTM operating system, with an international footprint.
Acquisitions integrated: 7. Marketing integration across 7 acquisitions, including a regulated Canadian business unit whose compliance requirements Connor learned and operationalized.
Chapters published: 17 chapters. 1 of the 17 is written in code rather than markdown, so it carries no word count.
Words published: 8,760

Questions I get asked.

Why leave after more than a decade in one place?

I built the machine there from the ground up, and I've run out of ceiling. The next chapter should be somewhere AI-native or software-led, where GTM systems and hands-on building are central to the strategy instead of a side effect of it.

Are you technical enough to call yourself a GTM engineer?

By training I'm a marketer. In practice I build with Python, TypeScript, React, SQL, APIs, retrieval workflows, MCP integrations, and agent orchestration, and I prototype the system myself before asking anyone to staff it. The edge is knowing which piece of GTM friction is worth automating and which decisions should stay human.

Are you too senior to still build?

I do both. I've operated at acting-CMO level and still write the workflows, prompts, dashboards, and automations when speed or clarity needs it.

Email Connor

Open to VP of Marketing & GTM, Head of GTM, VP Revenue Operations, and GTM engineering roles at AI-native B2B SaaS and PE-backed growth companies that build the tools of change. Chicago, hybrid or remote.

Read the resume

Contents.

Site figures.

Questions I get asked.

Contact