Transforming GTM with Community-Led Growth: A workshop w/ Josh Zerkel
Community isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s one of the most overlooked GTM levers.
If you’re scaling a SaaS product or building globally distributed teams, this session will give you fresh, practical frameworks for using community to drive meaningful business impact.
Join Josh Zerkel, Head of Marketing & Community-Led Growth at Gradual (and formerly Asana, Evernote, and HeyGen), for a tactical workshop on how community can drive adoption, retention, and revenue. With 20+ yrs of experience building strategic community programs, Josh will show you how to embed community into your GTM motion and turn it into a core growth driver.
What You’ll Learn
Why GTM playbooks are breaking and how CLG fills the gap
What community can drive across acquisition, retention, and advocacy
Real-world strategies from Asana and Evernote
A simple framework to build and measure your community-led motion
About the guest:
Josh Zerkel is Head of Marketing & Community-Led Growth at Gradual, where he helps companies scale community with purpose. He has led global programs at Asana, Evernote, CBS News, and HeyGen, driving user growth and millions in pipeline. At Asana, he grew the Ambassador program to more than 25,000 members and helped generate over $94M in community-influenced pipeline.
He is the author of The Community Code, a book on how community powers real business outcomes across marketing, sales, customer success, and product, coming later this year. Josh also writes a companion Substack at thecommunitycode.com, where he shares frameworks, case studies, and behind-the-scenes insights for GTM and community leaders.
About the host:
Sharath is a repeat founder who has built and sold two SaaS products. He previously led community at Product Hunt and now hosts Undefeated Underdogs, a podcast where he interviews ambitious founders and VCs. Sharath is deeply embedded in the startup ecosystem—curious, candid, and always building. Currently he is a fractional community lead at Thera.