For startups · under $10M ARR · Australian B2B

Founder-led sales got you here. It won't get you to $10M.

Sales Playground helps Australian B2B startups build a growth strategy from their own unit economics — then builds and runs the outbound engine it calls for, with senior operators, not a junior pod. Fixed scope, agreed before we start, measured in qualified meetings and CAC.

Sound familiar?

Founders usually land here in one of three situations. If none of them is yours, close the tab with our blessing.

Situation / 01

You're still the best salesperson in the company.

Every big deal needs you in the room, prospecting happens in the gaps between everything else, and the pipeline is really your calendar wearing a disguise. It worked to get here. It doesn't scale past you.

Situation / 02

You copied the visible playbook — and it stopped working.

The cold email templates, the sequences, the "personalisation at scale" stack. So did every competitor. Your buyers now get the same message from six companies a week, and reply to none of them.

Situation / 03

You hired an SDR — or nearly did — and it didn't hold.

Six months of ramp, a playbook that lived in one person's head, gone inside 14 months. Or you ran the maths on the loaded cost and hesitated. Either way, the function still doesn't exist.

What's actually going wrong

None of those three situations is a motivation problem. All three are the same structural problem: your growth motion is built from other companies' playbooks — and buyers can tell.

What we actually do — in the order we do it

Two phases. You can stop after the first one and run it yourself — everything transfers either way.

  1. Phase 1

    The Game Plan — a strategy from your own unit economics

    Four to six weeks. We read your numbers first — CAC, payback, the four ways to grow revenue — then run a sameness audit of you against three competitors, make the choices (which segment, which message, which motion), and put the whole strategy on one signed page with targets and owners. You leave with the page and a 90-day plan, whoever runs it.

  2. Phase 2

    Game Day — we build and run the engine

    Our implementation arm builds the outbound engine your Game Plan calls for: the ICP brief, the messaging architecture, warmed lookalike sending domains so your own domain is never at risk, and a multi-channel cadence run by a senior Australian operator. Launched in 21 days, soft-started at 30% volume to protect deliverability.

  3. Weekly

    Meetings in your calendar, a scoreboard you can read in 30 seconds

    Qualified meetings — against criteria we agree in writing — land in your calendar, briefed. Every week you get one scoreboard: sends, replies, meetings, pipeline value. Every month the playbook updates: what worked gets doubled, what didn't gets cut.

  4. On exit

    Everything transfers — the system was always yours

    Sequences, messaging, domains, data, the playbook document with every refresh in it. When you're ready to hire an SDR, they walk into a working system instead of a blank page — which is how that hire finally sticks.

"Shouldn't we just hire an SDR?"

Eventually — probably yes. Here's the maths on doing it first, before a system exists.

DIY / 01 · Year-one cost
A$110–140K

Loaded first-year cost of one internal SDR — salary, on-costs, tools, data and your management time.

Sources: RepVue · Belkins benchmarks, 2026
DIY / 02 · Average tenure
14 months

Average SDR tenure. The playbook usually leaves with them — and the function resets to zero.

Source: RepVue, 2026
DIY / 03 · Ramp time
6 months

Average time to full productivity — nearly half the tenure is spent ramping.

Source: Belkins benchmarks, 2026

The lesson isn't "never hire" — it's sequence. Asking one junior hire to invent your ICP, messaging and infrastructure from a standing start is how the reset loop begins. Build the system senior first, then hire into a working machine. Several of our clients do exactly that, on purpose, with our help.

What does it cost?

Fixed scope, agreed in writing before we start. You'll hear the exact figures at the kick-off call — here's the shape and level of each engagement.

Growth audit

$Fixed scope · two weeks
The safe first step
  • What's in itYour unit economics read properly — CAC, payback, coverage — plus a sameness audit showing exactly where your outreach blends into the noise.
  • Why it's differentA diagnosis you can act on with or without us; the fee credits toward The Game Plan if you continue within 60 days.
  • What it does for youYou find out where growth is leaking before betting real money on any fix — ours included.
Start with a kick-off

Game Day retainer

$$Monthly · 90-day initial term
The engine, built and run
  • What's in itThe full outbound build — ICP brief, messaging, domains, cadence — run by a senior operator, with weekly scoreboards and monthly playbook refreshes.
  • Why it's differentA fraction of the loaded cost of a first SDR year, live in 21 days instead of ramping for six months — and everything transfers when it ends.
  • What it does for youQualified meetings arrive while you stay on closing and product — and your first sales hire eventually lands in a working system.
Scope it on a kick-off

$–$$$ shows relative investment level. Month-to-month after the initial term, 30 days' notice either side — nobody gets held hostage by their own pipeline.

You might be thinking…

  • Consultants don't get startups.

    Mostly true — which is why this isn't consulting in the deck-and-disappear sense. The person on your engagement carries an enterprise sales number right now, has built sales development functions inside two firms, and runs live pipeline work every week. Operator first, adviser second. And if we think you're too early, we'll say "too early — do this instead, free" rather than invoice you for it.

  • We can't afford this pre-Series A.

    Run it against the alternative you're actually weighing: an internal SDR is A$110–140K loaded in year one, ramps for six months and stays around 14. Our engagements are fixed scope at a fraction of that, month-to-month after the initial term, and you keep everything we build. If cash is genuinely too tight even for that, the Growth Playbook is free and the kick-off call will tell you so honestly.

  • We already run outbound. It just doesn't work anymore.

    Then the problem probably isn't effort — it's sameness. The sameness audit will show you your sequences next to your competitors' with the identical lines highlighted; most founders find that 20 minutes uncomfortable and clarifying in equal measure. More volume on an undifferentiated message just burns your domain faster. Different message, sharper segment, protected infrastructure — that's the repair order.

  • Our product is technical. Outsourced SDRs will embarrass us.

    A fair fear — it's what offshore volume shops and AI auto-SDR tools regularly do. Three protections here: senior Australian operators write and run every message, we take three to four clients at a time and never two in the same sub-niche, and if we don't believe we can write credibly for your buyer, we say so at the kick-off instead of learning on your ICP.

Check the fit before you book

This is for you if —

  • You're an Australian B2B startup under A$10M ARR with a live product and paying customers.
  • Real customers have bought from a human — founder-led sales has proven the sale exists.
  • Your deal size can carry outbound — ACV of A$15K or more.
  • Someone senior can take the meetings we book.
  • You want the system to outlive any one hire — including us.

It isn't for you if —

  • You're pre-revenue. Prove the sale by hand first — the playbook is free and we mean it.
  • Your ACV is under A$5K — the unit economics need volume plays we deliberately don't do.
  • Every message needs the founder's personal sign-off. The cadence can't run at that speed.
  • You want activity volume without changing anything about positioning. That's paying to be ignored faster.
The next step — and why it's this one

Twenty minutes on your numbers beats another quarter of guessing.

Step 1Book 20 minutes. Video or phone. Bring last quarter's revenue and pipeline — rough is fine.
Step 2We read the scoreboard together. CAC, coverage, where the growth is leaking — and whether we'd even take the engagement.
Step 3Written note in 24 hours. What we saw, what we'd do next, and exact investment figures if you want them.
Free · no obligation · no pitch unless you ask
The lead magnet · free

Do you know your score?

Twelve numbers decide whether your growth is working. Most founding teams can quote three. Here's what good looks like — sourced.

SB / 01 · CAC payback
12–18 mo

The healthy band for B2B SaaS. Longer, and growth is eating your runway.

Source: SaaS Capital · Benchmarkit, 2025
SB / 02 · Net revenue retention
110%+

Where growth starts compounding without a single new logo.

Source: Benchmarkit, 2025
SB / 03 · Pipeline coverage

Qualified pipeline vs remaining target — the difference between a forecast and a hope.

Industry rule of thumb
SB / 04 · Your numbers
?

If you paused on any of these — that is the gap the Growth Playbook closes.

Sales Playground · the Growth Playbook

Start with the numbers that decide it.

The Growth Playbook is the strategy discipline written down — how to read your own unit economics, why your market all sounds identical, and which growth moves are actually available at your scale. Startup edition, free, no upsell.

  • The four ways to grow revenue — and which one your P&L is quietly voting for.
  • CAC, payback and margin in plain language — the numbers a strategy has to move.
  • The sameness audit you can run on your own website tonight.

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