Date: 2026-09-10 3:30 PM ET Note creator: Blake Stewart (Me = Blake, Them = Mona) Attendees: Blake Stewart (Founding Journey / Rye Valley), Mona Darwish (Agree, Head of GTM and Sales)
Summary
Discovery and sponsorship call between Blake and Mona Darwish, head of GTM/sales at Agree (e-signature + billing platform, ~3 years old, 130k+ users). Agree automates contract-to-cash; average time-to-payment is 36 hours. Mona moved from Miami to Austin. Call was a follow-up after Michael’s prior conversation with Mona; she has a Monday call with Michael on the Agree side.
Key Agree context: sweet spot is agencies and B2B software companies doing $1M-$2M+ ARR scaling aggressively; below $1M is too small. Primary focus for newsletter/conference spend is companies above $5M ARR. Top acquisition channels: curated dinners (3x/month), conferences and happy hours (100-150 person rooms, then retargeting), cold outbound running in background at 1-5% conversion. Mona is lean and conversion-focused.
Sponsorship options discussed
- Newsletter: $3,000/placement, 60k subscribers, ~55% open rate, ~1% click rate. Audience shifting from VC-backed founders to broader general entrepreneurs. Blake recommends a 2-placement package ($6,000 over two months) for awareness building.
- Founder Deep Dive (YouTube): Hal interviews Agree’s founder (Marty likely candidate) - evergreen educational content. Bundle with dedicated newsletter issue: $7,500 for both.
- Events: NY event mid-October with Ocean’s Talent (offshore hiring); Agree ICP alignment strong (founders hiring offshore have revenue). Co-sponsorship or back-end happy hour proposed.
- Austin agency dinners: Mona launching weekly Michelin-star agency dinners in Austin; offered Founding Journey co-sponsorship/Luma listing - Michael/Blake don’t need to attend.
Mona wants details sent to share with cofounders Will and Marty; Marty is likely the YouTube candidate.
Decisions
None (discovery call; no commitments made).
Action items
- Blake: Send Mona newsletter and YouTube sponsorship details (she’s presenting to cofounders Will and Marty today)
- Blake: Confirm NY event date (mid-October, Ocean’s Talent) and loop Mona in
- Blake: Confirm Austin dinner co-sponsorship with Michael (Mona wants to start asap)
Notable transcript excerpts
“In short, my sales pitch is always help companies get paid faster. And an agency is usually like, yeah. How do you do that? And how fast do I get paid? Because it’s usually the founder or partner or whatever is chasing it down… agree fixes that and fixes the solution while also having a really robust esignature portion.”
“My sweet spot right now, if I’m being real, my focus is companies that are doing above $5,000,000 ARR when it comes to any newsletters, conferences, happy hours, dinners. Or if they're at the $2,000,000, they’re scaling aggressively.”
“I’m gonna be starting to do actually, particularly agency dinners here at least three times a month. I’m gonna try to do one a week… if you guys are down, and you guys have a good network, I’m kind of tapping into the network here.”
See Granola (id: 5ee7917d-3f91-4eeb-a647-b4459d384c72) for full transcript.