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Can a nine-year-old SaaS company reinvent itself as an AI-native services business before the market leaves it behind?
On this episode of Unchurned, Josh Schachter, SVP of Strategy and Go-to-Market Development at Gainsight, sits down with AJ Bruno, Co-Founder and CEO of QuotaPath. AJ started QuotaPath after years of reps asking why they couldn't get paid correctly. Today the company serves more than 1,000 customers and over 50,000 reps. Now it's making its biggest bet yet: running commissions for customers instead of selling them software seats, and eventually pricing on outcomes like improved GRR and lower cost of sale.
AJ and Josh compare notes on how Gainsight and QuotaPath are both moving to AI-native services. They discuss why trust is the real barrier, how to prove causality when many factors drive revenue, why buyers resist outcome-based pricing, and what it's like to build a startup inside your own startup while still hitting plan for the board.
AJ is candid about the stakes: if QuotaPath doesn't make this move, it becomes another forgotten SaaS tool.
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What You'll Learn
- Why so many companies deliberately keep comp plans confusing, and what that costs them
- Why product-led growth failed for a sensitive category like commissions
- How QuotaPath is moving from seat-based SaaS to AI-native services
- What "selling outcomes" actually means, and how incentives can move metrics like GRR
- Why outcome-based pricing is a hard sell, and how a crawl-walk-run approach reduces risk
- How Gainsight is applying the same model to end-to-end renewals
- What it takes to rediscover product-market fit inside a mature company
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Timestamps
0:00 - Preview & Meet AJ Bruno
3:35 - What is QuotaPath? The compensation & commissions problem
5:15 - Why companies keep comp plans confusing
6:20 - Why product-led growth didn't work for comp
8:20 - 10 years in: founder envy and wild pivots
10:34 - The return of hustle culture and in-office startups
13:00 - The pivot: from SaaS seats to AI-native services
16:48 - Selling outcomes: incentives that move GRR
19:19 - What QuotaPath actually runs for customers
21:53 - Why nobody wants to pay for outcomes
23:20 - Building a startup within a startup
25:15 - AI-native services unite
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Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com
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Where to Find the Guest
AJ Bruno: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/
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Where to Find the Hosts:
Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/
Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/
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