Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of the B2B Go-To-Market Leaders Podcast, Vijay Damojipurapu sits down with Ron Johnson, best known as the creator of the Apple Store, to unpack the thinking behind one of the most influential retail experiences ever built and the go-to-market problem Steve Jobs was ultimately trying to solve.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company had roughly 5% market share despite iconic products and advertising. In Ron’s telling, Steve concluded that Apple’s biggest problem wasn’t product design, software, or marketing. It was go-to-market: Apple didn’t control how customers discovered, experienced, and bought its products.

That insight eventually led Ron and Steve to rethink what a technology store could be. Instead of optimizing the Apple Store around transactions, they designed it around getting products into people’s hands, overcoming fear of technology, and creating an environment where customers could learn, explore, and belong.

They dive into:

• Why Steve Jobs believed Apple couldn’t simply market its way to success and needed to control the customer experience.
• How Ron defines go-to-market simply as how you reach your customers.
• Why Apple chose high-traffic malls despite the higher cost and made accessibility a fundamental part of its GTM strategy.
• Why the original Apple Store measured success through traffic rather than revenue.
• How the Genius Bar, training areas, internet-connected Macs, kids’ tables, and hands-on experiences were designed to reduce customers’ fear of technology.
• Why Ron refused to leave Target for a four-store “test” and told Steve that Apple had to truly commit to retail for the strategy to work.
• How Apple redesigned the store around what customers wanted to do (photos, movies, and music) rather than simply organizing it around products.
• Why Apple hired for “people chops” instead of technology chops and built kindness into its hiring and leadership culture.
• How leaders create belonging by personally investing in their people and why Ron met every Apple Store leader before they started.
• Why the Apple Stores weren’t an overnight success, and how the team continuously changed store sizes, experiences, and merchandising before finding its stride.
• How the iPod became a turning point by giving the massive traffic already entering Apple Stores a product nearly everyone could understand and want.
• What Ron learned from moving too quickly at JCPenney and why he now describes his approach there as arrogant compared with the 18 months Apple spent developing its first store.
• Why your lived experiences, not just your professional experience, can become a competitive advantage in how you lead and build.
• And Ron’s advice to his younger self: recognize when enough is enough, appreciate extraordinary opportunities, and don’t let the desire for “more” prevent you from recognizing what you already have.

Ron’s story is ultimately a lesson in customer experience as go-to-market strategy: great products and great marketing weren’t enough. Apple needed to rethink where customers encountered the brand, how they experienced the product, and how they felt while doing it.

This episode is a masterclass on customer experience, retail strategy, leadership, culture, innovation, and the thinking that helped turn the Apple Store into a global phenomenon.

Connect with Vijay Damojipurapu on LinkedIn

Connect with Ron Johson on LinkedIn

Brought to you by: stratyve.com

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of the B2B Go-To-Market Leaders Podcast, Vijay Damojipurapu sits down with Guy Galon, Chief Customer Success Officer at Obrela, to explore the role customer success plays across the entire go-to-market motion—and why making value visible is especially critical when customers can’t always see the outcomes they’re paying for.

Drawing from more than 25 years across software engineering, professional services, program management, enterprise technology, cybersecurity startups, and customer success, Guy shares how his career shaped his approach to customer relationships, retention, and cross-functional GTM leadership.

For Guy, go-to-market is a system that makes customer value visible at every stage—from sales and onboarding through adoption, retention, and expansion.

They dive into:

• Why customer success can act as an orchestrator across sales, marketing, product, partners, and the customer.
• How selling cybersecurity managed services changes GTM when the best outcome is often one the customer never actually sees.
• Why strong retention comes from combining trusted relationships with a clear understanding of the outcomes customers expect.
• How customer success and sales can share responsibility for expansion while keeping retention firmly centered on customer success.
• Why CS teams should identify, qualify, and track expansion opportunities instead of leaving commercial conversations entirely to sales.
• How case studies, customer referrals, events, and partner enablement connect customer success directly to growth.
• Why continuous feedback loops between CS, sales, and product help companies understand both pre-sale expectations and post-sale realities.
• How Guy approaches high-touch relationships with strategic enterprise accounts while using signals and customer health data across smaller accounts.
• A GTM success story where early collaboration between partners, sales, finance, and CS enabled a complex enterprise customer to onboard in just six weeks.
• Why vendors need to clearly communicate customer responsibilities during onboarding instead of assuming buyers understand what implementation requires.
• How an earlier program failure taught Guy to escalate risks, challenge assumptions, and encourage his teams to speak up before problems become crises.
• Why curiosity, resilience, and deliberately stepping outside your comfort zone are essential for long-term GTM leadership.

Guy’s core perspective is simple: customer success isn’t just about keeping customers—it’s about understanding what success means to them, making that value visible, and aligning the organization around delivering it.

Connect with Vijay Damojipurapu on LinkedIn

Connect with Guy Galon

Brought to you by: stratyve.com

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of the B2B Go-To-Market Leaders Podcast, Vijay Damojipurapu welcomes back Jeff Reekers, co-founder and CEO of Champion, to explore how his perspective on go-to-market has evolved from his years as an operator to building and scaling a company as a founder.

Jeff defines go-to-market as the process of commercializing a solution to an important problem at massive scale, a perspective shaped by his journey from marketing leadership at Aircall to building Champion, a customer revenue orchestration platform focused on turning successful customers into a source of growth.

The conversation dives into the importance of staying deeply connected to customer problems, knowing which customers to say no to, and building a GTM motion where customer success, relationships, and trust become the foundation for pipeline, expansion, and long-term revenue.

They dive into:

• Why solving an important customer problem should be the cornerstone of every GTM strategy.
• How companies lose touch with their customers as they scale, and ways leaders can keep customer understanding embedded across the organization.
• Jeff’s “90 in 90” approach of conducting 90 customer conversations in 90 days before fully committing to a product and market.
• How those early conversations helped Champion validate its thesis, attract design partners, and generate revenue before the product was fully built.
• Why Champion shifted its focus away from smaller, price-sensitive customers and doubled down on upper mid-market and enterprise accounts.
• The critical founder lesson of learning who to say no to, even when it means walking away from potential revenue.
• Why the signature on a contract should be viewed as the starting line for customer success, not the finish line for sales.
• How Champion thinks about “customers to build pipeline” instead of simply using pipeline to acquire more customers.
• Why GRR and NRR are foundational metrics for building a durable, scalable SaaS company.
• How executive dinners, customer experiences, partnerships, and referrals became some of Champion’s strongest growth channels.
• The story behind a three-day customer summit that evolved into a manifesto, attracted hundreds of supporters, and generated new customers.
• Why trust and human relationships may become even more important as AI transforms how companies research and purchase software.
• The difference between scaling from 1 to 100 as an operator and surviving the difficult 0-to-1 journey as a founder.
• Why investing in relationships early creates a compounding advantage throughout your career.

Jeff’s central philosophy is simple: the finish line isn’t the signed deal—it’s the customer’s success.

This episode is a deep dive into founder-led GTM, ICP validation, customer-led growth, enterprise SaaS, retention, and the power of building genuine champions around your business.

Connect with Vijay Damojipurapu on LinkedIn

Connect with Jeff Reekers

Brought to you by: stratyve.com