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Firsthand: How I Bet On Clay (And It Bet On Me)

review.firstround.com · 5,202 words · saved by 1 readers

I joined Clay as one of its earliest employees and a reluctant marketing hire. This is how, over the last three years, we built a role around my strengths as a storyteller, scaled past $100M ARR, and created a brand that startups study.

The morning I signed my Clay offer letter, I shut my laptop in defeat. When the last startup I worked at had shut down almost a year prior, I thought I’d go all-in on cultural journalism and filmmaking. Instead, I was joining a ten-person B2B data company to write about cold email. I told a friend not to be surprised if I left in a month. Three years later, I’m still here — and the job I feared regretting became one that I love. When I joined, Clay was a simple spreadsheet tool; now it’s a major AI company. We’ve grown from 10 to 400 employees, $1M to $100M in ARR, and $50M to $5B in valuation

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