It started with SE burnout. It ended with a toolkit for the entire GTM team.
It’s 2 PM on a Tuesday. An urgent, 200-question security questionnaire lands in your inbox, blocking your highest-value deal. An AE is Slacking you for a competitive battlecard that doesn't exist. Your forecast is due, but three key deals are stalled waiting for technical validation.
I’m Ryan Musser, founder of oper8r, and I've lived that scenario more times than I can count. After a decade in the trenches of technical go-to-market teams at startups like Segment, Intercom, New Relic and Statsig, I saw how easily this chaos leads to burnout and missed quotas.
The Domino Effect of GTM Friction
What starts as a small issue for one person quickly cascades into a systemic problem for the entire revenue team. This isn't just an individual feeling of being overwhelmed; it's a series of interconnected breakdowns that stall growth.
It often begins with a single, tactical request:
- An Account Executive (AE) gets a tough technical question from a prospect. They need an answer fast to keep the deal's momentum.
- They turn to their Sales Engineer (SE), who is already swamped. The SE is trying to finish a massive RFP and build a custom POC plan, so the AE’s request goes into a queue. The constant context switching is mentally draining and creates an instant bottleneck.
- While the AE waits, the deal stalls. They can’t find the right material from Sales Enablement, whose one-pagers are out-of-date because the product and competitors are moving too fast.
- RevOps sees deal velocity slowing and pipeline data getting messy. AEs, frustrated by rigid processes, start tracking deals "off-book," making it impossible to get an accurate forecast. In fact, 83% of RevOps professionals say accurate data is essential, but only 12% are satisfied with their ability to access it.
- Finally, the Sales Leader looks at the forecast and sees deals pushed to the next quarter. They’re missing their number not because of a bad product or a lack of effort, but because internal friction and repetitive work are grinding the revenue engine to a halt.
This cycle of delays, missed quotas, and team burnout is rampant in fast-growing startups. I knew there had to be a better way.
The Breaking Point: Scaling to $25M ARR with a Tiny Team
This pain became my obsession while leading the Solutions Engineering team at Statsig. As the 17th employee and first SE, I helped build the GTM motion that grew the company from $400k to $25mm ARR in just two years. We sold a deeply technical product, and our small team was at the center of every single deal.
The demand was enormous. We were buried in demos, follow ups, questionnaires and POCs. To prevent the entire GTM team from hitting a wall, I built an internal AI-powered tool to handle the workload. I called it AskSE.
AskSE was our secret weapon. It scraped our technical docs, blogs, and security pages to give our entire GTM team-AEs, SEs, and leadership-instant, reliable answers. It automated the busy work so we could all focus on what mattered: high-value, consultative selling. We proved that we could accelerate sales without burning everyone out.
The Birth of oper8r: The GMT Toolkit
After seeing the impact of AskSE firsthand, I realized this wasn't just a Statsig problem. It’s a universal GTM problem. Every startup faces the same challenge: how to empower your team to move faster and close more deals without getting bogged down in repetitive, manual work.
That’s why I started oper8r.
oper8r is the evolution of AskSE. A GTM toolkit that breaks the cycle of friction and creates a better, faster operating rhythm for every role:
- For the Account Executive: Instead of waiting for answers, you get instant competitive positioning and technical details. You keep your deals moving, spend more time selling, and hit your quota without the constant back-and-forth.
- For the Sales Engineer: Reduced "quick questions" and fire drills. You escape the "RFP scramble." Tedious questionnaires are handled in minutes, not days, freeing you to focus on strategic POCs and the complex challenges that actually win deals. You are no longer a bottleneck; you are a force multiplier.
- For Sales Enablement: You can create and update high-quality content like battlecards and one-pagers 47% faster. Your materials are always fresh and relevant, empowering the field with information that closes deals.
- For RevOps: Processes no longer create friction. Because the right way is the easy way, AEs and SEs keep the CRM updated. Your data is cleaner, your forecasts are more accurate, and you can focus on optimizing the revenue engine.
- For the Sales Leader: Your team operates as a single, efficient unit. You hit your forecast, reduce churn from burnout, and build a scalable GTM motion that turns busy work into closed-won deals.
Imagine it’s 2 PM again. That same RFP still lands. But this time, a first draft is ready in minutes, your AE has the competitive intel they need, and you are free to focus on strategy. That is the new reality.
You've seen how GTM friction grinds teams to a halt. The best way to understand the alternative is to see how oper8r eliminates the busy work holding your own team back. Sign up and let your team focus on winning again.