How Domitille de Saint-Exupéry (CMO at Lemlist) Turned $1.2M into $31M in New ARR
The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
Ramp Strategy: Start Small, Iterate, Scale
She explains starting with one channel (search), one geo, testing, then expanding to LinkedIn and other formats.
#332 | Dave is joined by Domi de Saint-Exupéry, CMO at Lemlist, a bootstrapped $40M ARR sales engagement platform, to break down exactly how she turned $1.2M in marketing spend into $31M in new ARR in 2025. Domi shares the full breakdown of every channel, agency, influencer strategy, and partnership play that drove results. This includes how they went from $0 to $500K in paid ads, why partnerships are the most underrated B2B growth channel, how they built a micro-influencer program, and what AI use cases are actually working (and which are overrated). If you want real numbers and real playbooks, this one's for you.
Timestamps
- (00:00) - Introduction: $1.2M in spend, $31M in new ARR
- (03:33) - What Lemlist does and how the company got to $40M ARR
- (06:48) - Going from $0 to $500K in paid ads: what triggered the shift
- (11:03) - How to execute paid ads well: outsourcing vs. in-house, and scaling by channel
- (17:18) - LinkedIn ads creative: why "on-brand and safe" was the wrong approach
- (21:48) - Mistakes made in paid: Snapchat, Spotify, and channels that didn't work
- (25:18) - The micro-influencer playbook: how to find, brief, and measure creators
- (36:44) - How influencer content compounds with paid ads and outbound (the Julio story)
- (42:14) - Partnerships: why $450K went here and why it's the most underrated B2B channel
- (50:44) - AI in marketing: what's overrated (content generation) and what's actually working
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