GTM in the technical era - #NYTechWeek
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ʘ‿ʘA panel on what it actually takes to sell to engineers, technical founders, and product-led teams. Hosted by Exa and Lightfield during NY Tech Week.
Technical buyers don't respond to traditional sales. They read docs, try the product, and form opinions before ever talking to you. The old playbook breaks here. We're bringing together founding GTM leaders to share how they're navigating a shift where the buyer is increasingly technical, skeptical, and self-serve by default — where traditional sales still works, where it doesn't, and how founding teams are adapting in real time.
If you're building or selling to technical users, this is the shift you need to understand.
The panel
Zoë Barnswell - founding member of Cursor's GTM team. Partners with executives at Cursor's largest enterprise customers on AI adoption strategy. Previously a software engineer and technical PM at JPMorgan and AWS. MBA from Wharton.
Aidan Cleary - founding AE at Crosby, the AI law firm. Has lived on both sides of the build/sell divide: spanned product and sales at Radar, then advised infra companies like Baseten and Orb. MBA from Wharton.
Yi Li - Chief of Staff at Lightfield and its first business hire, where he built GTM from zero to one through the 2025 public launch. Investor turned operator; previously on Salesforce's M&A and ventures team and at Emerson Collective. MBA from Wharton.
Andrew Kim (moderator) - Founding GTM at Exa, where he works closely with product and engineering teams in New York. Previously at Unify selling to revenue leaders, and started his career at LinkedIn. MBA from Wharton.
This event is a part of #NYTechWeek—a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem. Learn more at www.tech-week.com.
About Lightfield: Lightfield is an AI-native CRM that remembers everything, then acts on it. It automatically captures and organizes every customer conversation across email, meetings, and notes, creating your team’s collective customer memory. Backed by Greylock, Lightspeed, and Coatue, Lightfield helps companies learn from every interaction and move faster toward repeatable growth.
About Exa: Exa is the search engine for AI. It finds the most relevant content on the web using neural search, powering the retrieval layer behind AI agents, research tools, and intelligent applications. Companies use Exa to keep their AI products grounded in real-time information - from competitive intelligence and lead research to news monitoring and deep web retrieval. Backed by Benchmark, Lightspeed, YCombinator, and NVIDIA.
Guest List
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