To receive our marketing & growth strategies by email: https://bullishbulldozer.substack.com/
To work with Bulldozer: https://bulldozer-collective.com

Most B2B communities are dead Slack groups. Dave Gerhardt built one that people actually pay for and stay in.

In this extract, Dave breaks down the real reasons Exit Five works: charging from day one, staying ruthlessly niche, and treating the community as the product.

He also gets into what kills most communities: spam, low standards, and founders who delegate engagement to an intern after week one.

→ Why charging money is a forcing function, not just a revenue play

→ The difference between quality engagement and vanity metrics

→ Why "community as acquisition channel" is the trap most companies fall into

→ What founder-mode community building actually looks like at scale

→ How Exit 5 evolved from a message board to a full membership business

WHERE TO FIND DAVE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegerhardt/
JOIN EXIT FIVE: https://exitfive.com/

WHERE TO FIND JORDAN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanchenevier/

WORK WITH BULLDOZER: https://bulldozer-collective.com/

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WHAT IS BULLDOZER?

Bulldozer maximizes marketing & sales performance for SMBs and Scale-Ups across their entire funnel. Our hybrid agency/collective model gives us access to the best talent on the market and allows us to act on every performance lever for our clients (Outbound, Paid, SEO, ABM, RevOps, Data…). In 4 years, our strong social media presence, talent pool, and 360° vision of growth have fueled rapid growth and attracted 250+ clients (Aircall, Qonto, Doctolib, Hexa…).

Our ambition for the years ahead is bold: design and operate world-class growth strategies and become a global leader on the topic by 2030.

To work with us 👉 https://bulldozer-collective.com/

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Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

To receive our marketing & growth strategies by email: https://bullishbulldozer.substack.com/
To work with Bulldozer: https://bulldozer-collective.com

Dave Gerhardt is the founder of Exit Five, a paid community of B2B marketing professionals, and one of the most followed voices in B2B marketing. He was previously CMO at Drift and Privia.

In this episode, Dave and Jordan cut through the AI noise to talk about what actually matters in marketing right now: why human connection is becoming a competitive advantage, how Dave built Exit Five from a $10/month Patreon into a full membership business, and why most B2B communities die and what separates the ones that don't.

They also get into Dave's real AI workflow (spoiler: it takes two hours, not ten minutes), the tension between personal brand and company brand, and why obsessing over attribution might be the thing holding your marketing back.

WHERE TO FIND DAVE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegerhardt/
JOIN EXIT FIVE: https://exitfive.com/

WHERE TO FIND JORDAN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanchenevier/

WORK WITH BULLDOZER: https://bulldozer-collective.com/

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WHAT IS BULLDOZER?

Bulldozer maximizes marketing & sales performance for SMBs and Scale-Ups across their entire funnel. Our hybrid agency/collective model gives us access to the best talent on the market and allows us to act on every performance lever for our clients (Outbound, Paid, SEO, ABM, RevOps, Data…). In 4 years, our strong social media presence, talent pool, and 360° vision of growth have fueled rapid growth and attracted 250+ clients (Aircall, Qonto, Doctolib, Hexa…).

Our ambition for the years ahead is bold: design and operate world-class growth strategies and become a global leader on the topic by 2030.

To work with us 👉 https://bulldozer-collective.com/

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Timecode:
00:00 - Introduction

04:40 - Timeless marketing: what can't be replaced

07:00 - Why human connection is becoming a competitive advantage

16:16 - Why most B2B communities are dead Slack groups

17:37 - How Exit Five works: charge money, enforce standards, stay niche

21:43 - Community as product vs. community as acquisition channel

34:12 - Personal brand vs. company brand: how to manage the tension

38:02 - Metrics at Exit Five: revenue, list growth, NPS, churn

41:26 - On attribution: "Fuck no"

44:42 - ROI of content: why Dave stopped asking the question

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

To receive our marketing & growth strategies by email: https://bullishbulldozer.substack.com/
To work with Bulldozer: https://bulldozer-collective.com

In this extract, Alice de Courcy (ex-CMO at Cognism) breaks down how she shifted from lead gen to demand creation and built a content engine that directly drives pipeline:

→ 25 demo requests to close one deal vs. 100 content leads. The math that killed their entire gated strategy

→ How to transition from lead gen to demand creation without going cold turkey and while keeping investors happy

→ The 4 content buckets, the distribution engine, and why "just ungate your content" is not a strategy

WHERE TO FIND ALICE : https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-de-courcy-5205516a/

WHERE TO FIND JORDAN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanchenevier/

WORK WITH BULLDOZER: https://bulldozer-collective.com/

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WHAT IS BULLDOZER?

Bulldozer maximizes marketing & sales performance for SMBs and Scale-Ups across their entire funnel. Our hybrid agency/collective model gives us access to the best talent on the market and allows us to act on every performance lever for our clients (Outbound, Paid, SEO, ABM, RevOps, Data…). In 4 years, our strong social media presence, talent pool, and 360° vision of growth have fueled rapid growth and attracted 250+ clients (Aircall, Qonto, Doctolib, Hexa…).

Our ambition for the years ahead is bold: design and operate world-class growth strategies and become a global leader on the topic by 2030.

To work with us 👉 https://bulldozer-collective.com/

--

00:00 - Introduction

01:35 - Alice's journey at Cognism: from 3M to nearly 100M ARR

03:34 - What changes between early-stage and scale

06:23 - How she earned the CMO title from within

11:59 - Building the team: hiring for attitude over experience

17:39 - What she'd do differently with today's AI

21:17 - The seniority trap

31:30 - Fractional CMO: setting the right expectations

34:44 - Demand capture vs. demand creation

38:04 - Building a content engine that works like a media machine

43:28 - New metrics: demo requests, conversion rates, ACV

44:37 - Why most companies fail at demand creation

47:33 - Distribution: why great content isn't enough

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.