In this new AI agentic world, where your product and those of your competition likely improve impactfully many times a year, ensuring your messaging is on point across all of your GTM touchpoints matters more than ever. Meet the missing brain for B2B go-to-market teams.
Let's be honest: most B2B companies are rubbish at articulating why their product matters. The symptoms are everywhere—generic outbound emails that never get replies, sales calls that ramble off-message, and marketing materials that bear little resemblance to what customers actually care about.
As someone who's spent years in the GTM trenches, I can tell you this isn't just annoying—it's expensive and momentum killing. When your go-to-market efforts are disjointed, you're burning cash on ineffective outreach, prolonging your sales cycle, and ceding valuable market-share to your competition.
The Messaging Gap Nobody's Talking About
Until now, there's been no system of record for what I consider the essential elements of product-market fit:
- Who are we targeting?
- What is our offering?
- Why does it matter to them?
- Why should they buy it now?
- What examples prove our value?
These questions form the foundation of an effective go-to-market strategy, yet most companies approach them haphazardly—storing answers in Google Docs that nobody reads, slide decks nobody updates, or worse, just letting each department wing it.
In my career, I've seen firsthand how the companies that nail their messaging (think Salesforce, Gong, Zoom, etc) outperform those that don't. It's not just about having a better product—it's about communicating its value in a way that resonates consistently across your prospect and customer interactions.
Enter Octave: The Missing Brain for Go-to-Market
Octave is building what I call the "messaging marketing brain" that all organizations need to ensure their go-to-market is on message and effective, especially in an AI world where your product innovation (and your competitors') changes every 30 days.
What makes Octave revolutionary is how it leverages AI not just to synthesize and store your messaging framework, but to actively:
- Synthesize data points from all your customer interactions
- Identify what resonates with different ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles)
- Adapt messaging in real-time based on what's working
- Deploy that messaging through APIs to all your execution channels
The days of manual, inconsistent messaging are over. Octave takes all of your content today, does 80% of the work analyzing it, and presents you with a synthesized view of your ICPs, value propositions, and references. More importantly, that magic is available via api to be used across all your execution channels and applications.
From Agency Secret Weapon to Enterprise Game-Changer
Performance marketing agencies were quick to recognize Octave's potential. One agency founder told us, "I used to hand-write every outbound email because personalization is everything. Now Octave lets me send unlimited messages to unlimited clients with better results than I could achieve manually."
But what really excites me is how enterprise customers are discovering new use cases. One unicorn company is exploring how to use Octave to micro-target users during product trials, sending hyper-personalized in-app messages based on actual usage patterns.
Others are using it to generate account plans—before approaching a new enterprise account, Octave can automatically create tailored messaging for each stakeholder based on the company's value proposition.
Beyond Outbound: The Brain Behind Everything
While today's primary use case centers on revolutionizing outbound email (a notoriously broken channel), Octave's vision extends far beyond this. Soon, it will:
- Power personalized PQL (Product Qualified Lead) nurture campaigns
- Generate tailored account plans for ABM efforts
- Ensure consistent messaging across all marketing channels
- Provide insights into which messages are resonating with which audiences
The most exciting part? Through upcoming integrations (including an embedded partnership with Clay), Octave will seamlessly extend its brain to every execution channel in your go-to-market stack.
Why I Personally Backed This Team
I spent six months with founders Zach and Julian before investing—a testament to how carefully we evaluate sales and marketing tech. Having been in the trenches of B2B go-to-market for years, I've developed a healthy skepticism toward solutions in this space.
What convinced me was watching potential customers' reactions when they saw Octave in action. Their responses weren't polite interest—they were genuine "holy shit" moments as they realized how transformative this could be for their business.
With a technical founder who deeply understands AI infrastructure, a go-to-market expert who's lived this problem, and a clear vision for becoming the central brain behind all messaging, Octave is perfectly positioned to create an entirely new category in B2B software.
The Future of Messaging Is Here
In a world where AI is changing the landscape daily, having a consistent, adaptable messaging brain isn't just nice-to-have—it's essential for survival. Whether you're an agency managing multiple clients or an enterprise with complex product offerings, the ability to quickly adapt your message and ensure consistency across channels will separate the winners from the also-rans.
Octave isn't just another marketing tool—it's the missing system of record that B2B companies have needed for decades. And in typical Bonfire fashion, we're thrilled to be backing this team as they build something that fundamentally transforms how businesses communicate their value.
The message matters. Now you have a brain to manage it.
Read more about our investment into Octave and their fundraise announcement in Business Insider.
