Aaron Ross

Aaron Ross is a best-selling author, sales innovator, angel investor, and Co-CEO of Predictable Revenue, a software and consulting company that helps B2B organizations accelerate outbound sales and triple revenue growth. He is widely recognized as the "godfather of outbound prospecting" and author of the sales bible of Silicon Valley.

Ross graduated from Stanford University and in 1999 was accepted to Stanford Business School, but dropped out to found LeaseExchange.com, an internet startup focused on online equipment leasing. After raising $5 million in venture funding, the company ultimately failed in 2001 during the dot-com crash, providing Ross with early entrepreneurial lessons about startup execution and market timing.

In 2002, seeking to develop professional sales expertise and team-building skills, Ross joined Salesforce.com as employee #150 in an entry-level sales position when the company was still relatively small. During his four years there (2002-2006), he created a revolutionary outbound sales process called "Cold Calling 2.0" that built the enterprise sales development function from scratch. This innovative system contributed over $100 million in recurring revenue to Salesforce and helped the company nearly double its enterprise growth rate. The methodology emphasized sales specialization—separating prospecting, closing, and account management into distinct roles—which became a foundational framework for modern SaaS sales organizations.

After departing Salesforce in 2006, Ross spent a year as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Alloy Ventures, a $1 billion venture capital firm, where he worked on the acquisitions and investments team. In 2008, he relocated to Los Angeles and spent several years experimenting with various business concepts and consulting engagements while refining his sales methodology.

In 2011, facing new family responsibilities and seeking to systematize his knowledge, Ross self-published "Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com," co-authored with Marylou Tyler. The book became a word-of-mouth sensation and has remained #1 on Amazon's telemarketing list for over two years, establishing Ross as a global authority on scalable revenue generation. In 2016, he co-authored a second book, "From Impossible to Inevitable," with SaaS investor Jason Lemkin (founder of SaaStr), which detailed the hypergrowth playbook of companies like Twilio, HubSpot, Marketo, and EchoSign.

Beyond his role at Predictable Revenue, Ross is the co-founder of DataSalad, a B2B marketing data company, and serves on the advisory boards of over a dozen technology companies including AfterCollege. He is married with nine children (through birth and adoption) and works approximately 20 hours per week on business while managing significant parenting responsibilities. An ex-Ironman triathlete and graduate of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, Ross balances entrepreneurship with outdoor pursuits and family life in Pacific Palisades, California.

Aaron Ross operates primarily as an angel investor focused on early-stage B2B software companies, particularly those in the communication software, application software, and business/productivity software sectors. His investment approach is informed by his deep expertise in sales development, revenue operations, and go-to-market strategy.

Investment Philosophy:

Sector Preferences:

Stage Focus:

Value-Add to Portfolio: Ross brings hands-on expertise in building and scaling outbound sales teams, implementing the Cold Calling 2.0 framework, creating predictable revenue streams, and helping founders avoid common pitfalls in go-to-market execution. His advisory work focuses on sales specialization, process optimization, and building self-managing sales organizations.

• Focus on B2B SaaS and productivity tools with scalable revenue models
• Emphasis on companies that can benefit from predictable revenue methodologies and sales specialization
• Preference for founders building sales-driven organizations with potential for hypergrowth
• Value-add through advisory support on outbound sales, team building, and revenue scaling
• Communication Software
• Application Software
• Business/Productivity Software
• Sales and Marketing Technology
• Pre-Seed and Seed rounds
• Early-stage companies where sales strategy is a critical growth lever