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Most B2B software founders do not have a product problem. They have a deal-building problem.
My name is Carson Marr, and I help B2B software founders build bigger, cleaner enterprise deals.
I write for B2B software founders who have real traction, real customers, and a bigger question in front of them:
How do we turn interest into enterprise revenue without turning the company into a sales circus?
Because, it turns out, the best B2B deals are not just found.
They’re made.
They’re made through clearer offers, shorter time to value, risk reversal, better executive conversations, stronger champions, real business cases, and the kind of internal buyer confidence that turns “this is interesting” into “we need to do this.”
That is the world I spend most of my time thinking about.
Over the last ten years, across consulting, private equity, and software revenue work, my teams and I have helped create, advance, and close roughly $475M in B2B deals, with customer outcomes tied to over $1.4B in enterprise value.
More recently, we helped a $5B AI software company generate $104M in qualified pipeline in 60 days, which translated to $100M in ARR in 6 months.
I share these numbers because the internet is full of vague advice. I want you to know the lessons here come from real deals, real pressure, and real executive decisions.
Given this is the internet, and anyone can claim anything, here’s the longer version.
How I got here…
15 yrs old: I made my first deal. Minimum wage to wash dishes at a nursing home. Learned: trading time for money is tough, especially in the 105-degree South Carolina sun. Earned: $5k
18 yrs old: I made my first big deal. Traded 4 years and a lot of money to study business and computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. Value: TBD.
19 yrs old: I made my first underpriced software deal. Got paid to write software for 1Password before it reached a $6.8B valuation. Learned: I like selling software more than writing it.
20 yrs old: I made my first $0 deal. Convinced Mark Rober, the CEO of Cotopaxi, Beyoncé’s choreographer, and a handful of remarkable people to speak at TEDxPenn. We generated 30M views. Learned: the power of a good story. Charged: $0.
21 yrs old: I made my first $500k deal. Hired to generate revenue for a fancy management consulting firm. Learned: trading time for money is still tough, even with air conditioning.
22 yrs old: I made my first equity deal. Bought a stake in a local roofing company. We grew it 3x. The partnership didn’t work. Sold my stake back at cost 18 months later. Learned: even good businesses can become bad deals when the partnerships breaks down. Earned: $0.
22 yrs old: I made my best deal. Married Claire. Three beautiful kiddos later, so far, so good.
23 yrs old: We made our first $10M deal. Sold cybersecurity optimization work to a $10B Amazon portfolio company. Learned: I am less interested in selling “what-if” risk and more interested in selling measurable business outcomes: revenue growth, cost takeout, cash flow, and enterprise value.
24 yrs old: We made our first $50M deal. Restructured sales process for a stagnating $300M B2C e-commerce company. Revenue increased 20%. Learned: what founders call a “sales” problem is usually a focus, offer, or value problem.
25 yrs old: We made our first $100M private equity deal. Optimized sales processes for $1B+ software platforms backed by Insight, TA, Clearlake, and Partners Group. In one case, the work helped unlock roughly $10M in free cash flow, worth about $100M at their 10x software multiple. Learned: small process improvements become extremely valuable at scale.
26 yrs old: We made our next five private equity value-creation deals. Helped take eight figures of cost out of back offices across software companies and rollups. Created roughly $50M of enterprise value each at a 5x EBITDA multiple. Learned: executive buyers love 10:1 math.
27 yrs old: I finally found the pattern in our next $200M of private equity value creation deals. I worked across another dozen software and PE-backed growth efforts, including companies backed by firms like Blackstone and Vista, and companies like Smartsheet, and AWS. We helped generate roughly $200M in enterprise value through sales process optimization.
But the pattern I could not ignore was this:
Great products can still stall when the deals around them are weak.
The budget owner likes it, but cannot explain why it matters now. The champion believes, but cannot mobilize power. The executive team sees potential, but not priority. The seller has activity, but not conviction. The team wants bigger deals, but has no repeatable way to build the story, business case, proof, urgency, and buyer confidence around the offer.
Learned: great products create interest. Great deals create movement.
That became the problem I could not stop seeing, and uncovered the solution I wanted to build.
28 yrs old: We proved the approach inside a $5B+ AI software company. We helped turn strategic accounts into $104M in qualified pipeline in 60 days. Those opportunities developed into $100M in ARR within 6 months.
We did it by building the pieces around the product: outcome-based offers, customer-focused POVs, trust ladders, warm introductions, and deal coaching at scale.
At strategic software multiples, the enterprise value created was enormous.
But the real lesson was simple:
The best B2B deals are not just found.
They’re made.
Today: I help B2B software founders apply that same pattern in order to create and advance their most important enterprise deals of the year.
Sometimes that means sharpening the offer. Sometimes it means building the business case. Sometimes it means coaching the sales leadership, or the champion around a live deal. Sometimes it means building a focused revenue sprint around the accounts and opportunities that could change the year.
For the right companies, our goal is simple: create meaningful qualified pipeline in 60 days, then turn the best opportunities into material revenue within 6 months.
Because great products create interest.
But great deals create movement.
Rooting for your next deal,
Carson