First growth hire to a $112M Series C

The problem

parcelLab was an early-stage B2B SaaS entering the UK with no growth function. As the first growth hire, I had to build demand generation and pipeline from nothing, then scale it across 3 markets as the company raised.

What I built

• Built B2B demand generation across Google, LinkedIn, and Meta that lifted conversion rates 125% and generated 60% of the sales pipeline.
• Ran a strategic ABM program (one-to-one, one-to-few, one-to-many) that sourced 5 enterprise wins worth $2M+ in ARR and lifted average deal size 34%.
• Tripled lead-generation efficiency while cutting cost per lead 40%, with HubSpot automation that cut the sales cycle 15%.
• Promoted to Head of Growth, directed expansion into European, US, and Middle Eastern markets and led growth teams across 3 markets.

The result

The work fed parcelLab's Series B and, after international expansion, a $112M Series C.

First growth hire, no growth function

parcelLab was an early-stage B2B SaaS company entering the UK. Sales was running on founder relationships and outbound, which works until the market is bigger than the people in it. I came in reporting to the COO and the Head of Sales for Northern Europe, with one job: make marketing produce pipeline that sales could actually work.

The first thing I did was decide what counted. A first growth hire who starts by buying traffic ends up defending a number nobody agreed on, so I got the qualification and the pipeline stages settled before spending anything meaningful.

Demand generation across 3 paid channels

I built B2B demand generation across Google, LinkedIn, and Meta. Google took the people who already knew they had a post-purchase problem, LinkedIn took the people who fit the profile and did not know it yet, and Meta ran retargeting cheaply enough to keep the other two efficient.

That work lifted conversion rates 125% and ended up generating 60% of the sales pipeline. The channel mix mattered less than the fact that all 3 fed one definition of a qualified lead, so the numbers could be compared instead of argued about.

• Lead generation efficiency tripled, with cost per lead down 40%, using data enrichment and automated outreach
• HubSpot marketing automation built out end to end, which cut the sales cycle 15%
• Every stage instrumented, so a drop could be traced to a step rather than blamed on the channel

ABM, because enterprise deals do not come from forms

The larger accounts never behaved like the rest of the funnel. They did not fill in a form, they did not convert on a first touch, and the buying group had 6 or more people in it who each needed a different reason to say yes. So I ran a strategic account-based program alongside the demand generation rather than trying to make one approach serve both.

It ran in 3 tiers: one-to-one for the named accounts worth a bespoke campaign, one-to-few for clusters with a shared problem, and one-to-many for the long tail. That program sourced 5 enterprise wins worth more than $2M in annual recurring revenue, and lifted average deal size 34%.

Promoted, then rebuilt for 3 markets

In February 2020 I was promoted to Head of Growth, reporting to the CMO, and the job changed. Directing international expansion into European, US, and Middle Eastern markets is different work from running the UK. The system transfers across a border. Almost every assumption inside it does not.

I led growth teams across 3 markets and built specialists rather than generalists, splitting the team by acquisition, retention, and analytics. In that period revenue grew 13% while cost per qualified lead fell 30%, which is the combination that makes a growth function defensible in a board meeting.

What it fed

The early work fed the Series B that parcelLab raised while I was building the function. After the international expansion, the growth metrics and the positioning went into the $112M Series C.

The lesson I took out of it is about order. I spent the first months on definitions and instrumentation instead of on campaigns, and it felt slow at the time. Every number above only exists because that part was done first.

What the people there said