Join Nate Matherson as he sits down with Stephan Cizmar for the fifty-fifth episode of the Optimize podcast. Stephan is a co-founder and partner at ER Ventures, an operator-led venture fund. He is also an operating partner at Blackhorn Ventures and was previously the co-founder and chief strategy officer of LANG. In our episode today, Nate and Stephan delve into the intricacies of outbound sales strategies, focusing on the importance of personalized touches and the timing for initiating an outbound sales motion. Stephan shares his unique journey from management consulting to becoming an accidental investor and offers insights on building and measuring successful outbound sales teams. Stephan also discusses the critical aspects of outbound sales, including crafting effective sequences, targeting the right personas, and leveraging tools to enhance deliverability and engagement. Listen to hear why he emphasizes understanding the ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and iterating on messaging to cut through the noise in crowded markets. In this week’s deep dive, Stephan shares valuable lessons on standing up outbound sales motions, building an outbound team, and how early-stage companies can measure success. He gets tactical, offering case studies and examples of what works and what doesn’t in the realm of outbound sales. Rounding out the episode, Stephan and Nate cover topics like the role of AI in outbound sales, the importance of social proof, and best practices for hiring and ramping up BDRs. Closing the episode is our popular lightning round of questions!

Stephan is a serial entrepreneur and operator with experience scaling B2B software companies from zero to IPO.

Prior to co-founding Lorimer Ventures, Stephan co-founded and scaled Lang.ai, a no-code ML company for customer support, through it’s Series A. Before Lang.ai, Stephan was Vice President of Product Strategy at Unqork as well as the Head of Corporate Strategy at Yext, a company that he helped take public (NYSE: YEXT). In addition to being a General Partner at Lorimer, Stephan is an Operating Partner with Blackhorn Ventures, a multi-stage Industry 4.0 firm.


Stephan holds dual degrees in Economics and Science, Technology, and Society from Colby College and lives in Brooklyn.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephancizmar/