Barnacles on a Whale

Team GTM!

There’s a lot of drama to unpack from last week. From LinkedIn crackdowns to massive market moves. So, let’just dive right in.

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Data Barnacles on the LinkedIn Whale

LinkedIn just nuked Seamless.AI and Apollo.io's company pages.

This isn't just routine enforcement. This is the opening move in a battle that will reshape how B2B sales and marketing operate for years to come.

What Just Happened (And Why It Matters)

If you've been living under a rock, LinkedIn has finally done what we all knew was coming: they're cracking down on the tools scraping data outside their terms of service. Seamless.AI and Apollo.io are the first casualties in what promises to be a bloody battle for control of professional data.

Let's be honest. We all saw this coming. If you didn’t see this coming then you either didn’t care enough to pay attention or you live in a land of bliss we should all strive for.

The Symbiotic Relationship That Never Was

There are businesses built on the back of every movement and ecosystem. Much like barnacles on a whale, smaller companies cling to these ecosystems and build thriving businesses serving unmet needs.

But LinkedIn's relationship with data scrapers was never truly symbiotic. These weren't cute little barnacles providing a service. They were parasites fueled by VC funding. The whale never consented to this arrangement; it was just biding its time.

What These Data Platforms Actually Did (When LinkedIn Wasn't Looking)

Let's cut through the PR spin and call it what it was. Here's what these platforms were really doing:

• Building parallel databases of LinkedIn's most valuable asset (that's the data YOU generate)

• Scraping profiles 

• Selling access to this data without giving LinkedIn a dime

• Enabling automation that made Sales Navigator look like an overpriced Excel sheet

Companies using these platforms saved thousands on Sales Navigator licenses while building million-dollar pipelines. But as your grandmother probably told you, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Especially when that lunch belongs to a company backed by Microsoft.

The Awkward Truth Nobody's Talking About

LinkedIn isn't just protecting user privacy out of the goodness of their heart. They're eliminating competition. By removing these platforms, LinkedIn positions itself as the only legitimate source of professional data.

Let's state the obvious:

• LinkedIn owns the data (technically)

• They've been warning about this for years (nobody listened)

• Their business model depends on controlling access to this information

• They're backed by Microsoft's legal team (not exactly a fair fight)

With this backdrop, the only thing that is surprising is that it took LinkedIn this long to make this statement. Microsoft didn't spend $26 billion to watch other companies profit from their data lake. This isn't some spontaneous policy enforcement. It's a calculated power move years in the making.

The writing has been on the wall since the HiQ Labs lawsuit in 2017, yet the entire sales tech ecosystem kept building on borrowed time and borrowed data. LinkedIn showed remarkable restraint while hundreds of millions in venture capital poured into companies whose entire business models violated their terms of service.

Who's In Trouble Next?

Let's not pretend that Apollo and Seamless.AI are the only data grifters in town. Open LinkedIn and you'll see non-stop promotions from B2B household names: ZoomInfo, Clearbit, Lusha, Cognism, Clay. They're all selling the dream that their data is somehow magically compliant with LinkedIn's policies. Some actually are compliant. To them, we say, “well done…for now”.

The volume of panic and virtue-signaling is amplifying by the hour. Every sales tech CEO is suddenly an expert on LinkedIn's terms of service (which, conveniently, they've been ignoring for years).

What your options sound like if you’re in their shoes:

• "We're compliant with LinkedIn's policies!" (Translation: We scrape differently)

• "Our data comes from multiple sources!" (Translation: Including LinkedIn)

• "We have proprietary algorithms!" (Translation: For scraping LinkedIn)

• "We're an AI company now!" (Translation: Our AI scrapes LinkedIn)

What Happens Next?

We see three potential outcomes:

1. LinkedIn Domination: Sales Navigator becomes the tax you pay for the privilege of prospecting. LinkedIn positions itself as the all-in-one sales operating system, building capabilities to rival and outperform others.

2. The Underground Data Rebellion: The ingenuity of sales tech knows no bounds. A new generation of harder-to-detect tools to emerge from the ashes of Apollo and Seamless.

3. The First-Party Data Renaissance: Smart companies will invest in generating their own data through content, communities, and events, reducing their dependence on LinkedIn altogether.

The Future of B2B GTM in a LinkedIn-First World

Regardless of your data strategy, it's impossible to refute that data is gold in B2B. Billions in enterprise value have been amassed by creating, aggregating, and understanding this data. Here's what LinkedIn's power play means for your business:

LinkedIn's Transformation Into B2B OS

Let's call this what it is. LinkedIn is executing the most aggressive land grab in B2B SaaS history. We're watching the professional network transform into the Death Star of revenue tech before our eyes.

Think about it. Microsoft didn't pay $26B for a glorified resume database. They bought the most comprehensive professional graph on the planet and they're weaponizing it. LinkedIn isn't just a professional network anymore. It's becoming the central nervous system of modern B2B go-to-market:

• Sales Navigator (Intelligence disguised as a prospecting tool)

• LinkedIn Ads (The professional targeting system Google wishes it had)

• LinkedIn Talent Solutions (Because hiring is just another GTM function)

• LinkedIn Learning (Building a moat by owning professional development)

What's next? A LinkedIn CRM? A LinkedIn sales engagement platform? A fresh take on AI GTM? Don't laugh. The pieces are already there. Microsoft's entire business strategy revolves around owning workflows, and sales is the last frontier they haven't conquered.

As a GTM leader, it’s important to brace for the Great Budget Migration. As LinkedIn tightens its grip, every GTM leader will face an impossible choice: pay the LinkedIn tax or become irrelevant. Smart teams are already building LinkedIn-proof prospecting methods and first-party data moats before it's too late.

B2B Data Oligopoly

Remember when ZoomInfo went public at a $8B valuation in 2020? That was just the beginning of the B2B data gold rush. With LinkedIn squeezing out the scrappy upstarts, we're looking at an inevitable oligopoly where a few major players control access to professional data.

The economic consequences are predictable and brutal. Fewer providers mean higher prices, and the remaining players (mostly public companies with hungry shareholders) know it. The era of affordable B2B data is ending faster than free beer at a tech conference.

Your CAC calculations just went out the window. Companies building GTM motions around cheap data access are about to face a rude awakening. It is time to dust off those inbound playbooks and invest in quality over quantity. The spray-and-pray approach to outbound is officially dead. This might be a good thing for everyone except your sales development reps.

Adapt or Die

The entire sales tech ecosystem has been coexisting in a delicate balance, with LinkedIn as the whale. Now that whale is fed up and the ramifications are just beginning.

Sales engagement platforms and AI GTM Bots built on easy access to LinkedIn data are frantically rewriting their product roadmaps. Apollo alternatives are being coded in basements as we speak. The great sales stack reconfiguration of 2025 is underway.

Your beautifully integrated sales tech stack is about to fracture. The tools that survive will be the ones that pivot to LinkedIn-approved workflows or build truly independent data sources. Expect to run parallel processes. One native to LinkedIn and another outside of it. The days of seamless integration between your CRM and LinkedIn are ending, and with them, the efficiency gains we've all taken for granted.

Final Thoughts

The future of B2B data isn't exactly utopian, but it's not apocalyptic either. Those who adapt fastest will thrive. And those who keep pretending LinkedIn won't notice their data scraping? Well, they'll be writing panicked LinkedIn posts about their suspended accounts only to realize a cruel irony. They have nowhere to post them. Like a tree falling in a forest with no one there to hear it. Their outrage will echo into the void.

Market (Money) Moves

McDonald's Restructures for Faster Innovation

TL;DR: McDonald's is revamping its corporate structure to speed up menu innovation and technology rollouts, inventing a fancy "Chief Restaurant Experience Officer" title because, apparently, regular C-suite jobs weren't confusing enough already.

GTM Impact: If you sell into QSRs or foodtech, McDonald's is throwing money at automation faster than they retire failed menu items. Position your solution as the magic bullet that will save them from becoming the Blockbuster of fast food. Suppliers should brace for rapid testing cycles and increasingly desperate demands for cost-saving tech. And if you sell marketing tech, just slap "AI-powered customer experience" on your deck and watch the meetings roll in.

Cloudflare Doubles Down on AI & Enterprise Marketing

TL;DR: Cloudflare spent their investor day trying to convince Wall Street they're not just a CDN anymore, betting big on AI while attempting to shed their SMB reputation and crash the enterprise party where the real money flows.

GTM Impact: If you're in cybersecurity, cloud, or AI, prepare for Cloudflare's sales team to start showing up everywhere like that friend who just discovered CrossFit. They'll be undercutting on price and overpromising on features before you finish reading this sentence. Competitors should update those battle cards immediately and practice saying "but what about their outages?" with a straight face. Selling into IT? Now's the perfect time to make them paranoid about what Cloudflare can't do.

TikTok Shop Expands to Mexico Amid U.S. Uncertainty

TL;DR: With U.S. lawmakers determined to kill their business faster than users scroll through their For You page, TikTok is frantically building their e-commerce escape hatch in Mexico.

GTM Impact: If you're in e-commerce or influencer marketing, congratulations on your new reason to expense a trip to Cancun. For brands who've bet their Q4 on TikTok Shop, it's time to diversify faster than a crypto investor after an Elon tweet. Retail tech vendors should be sliding into those brands' DMs with "let me help you migrate to a platform that won't be banned by the time this email finishes loading."

Revolut & Monzo Expand into the U.S.

TL;DR: UK fintech darlings Revolut and Monzo are crossing the pond, armed with sleek UX and a charming lack of awareness about the regulatory hellscape that is U.S. banking.

GTM Impact: If you're in fintech, banking, or compliance, the British invasion has begun, and they've got massive war chests and zero understanding of how many forms they need to fill out. Expect increased competition in the "we're totally not a bank" space. If your ICP includes fintechs, position yourself as the regulatory Sherpa who can guide these naive Europeans through the compliance wilderness before they burn through their funding trying to figure out what FDIC actually stands for.

Target Faces Sales Headwinds & DEI Backlash

TL;DR: Target is caught in the perfect storm of dwindling consumer spending and becoming the latest victim in America's culture wars, proving once again that mixing retail with social issues is a recipe for quarterly earnings disappointment.

GTM Impact: If you sell into retail tech, supply chain, or marketing, welcome to budget freeze season. Target's leadership is currently hiding under their desks, which means your Q3 deal is about as likely to close as a Twitter user is to read past the headline. Survival tip: reframe everything as "cost savings" or "efficiency".  These are the only words that will get past procurement right now. And if your value prop includes anything remotely controversial, consider the revolutionary approach of just talking about how your product makes money.

Bye for Now:

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