About Me

Hi, I'm Michael.

Sales leader. Startup builder. Hockey and soccer dad.

I help early-stage companies find their first customers and build the sales engine that carries them to scale. The rest of my time belongs to the three people in this photo.

Michael Defoe with his wife and their two sons, standing together in a wood-paneled barn — With my wife and our two boys. Photo: Abbygale Marie Photography

How I Got Here

I didn't start in sales.

I studied Management Information Systems at Washington State University and spent the first part of my career in IT, software and project management at a public school district, an international shipping company and a hospital system. Working inside those organizations taught me how they actually make decisions, and it's still how I sell: understand the problem before you pitch the fix.

Then I found startups. At MediaPRO I was the founding solutions architect and built the channel partner program from scratch. At Vanilla I was employee #8 and the first sales hire, and brought in the first $1 million. At Math ANEX I was employee #6 and grew a bootstrapped company to $1.5M ARR in 18 months before Amplify acquired it.

Today I'm co-founder and head of revenue at LumiJobs and head of sales at Claire by Phronixis, and I advise early-stage founders who need their first customers.

What I Care About

Three things I bring to every team.

Listen first

The best sales conversations start with a question. I go where customers are, hear what frustrates them, and only then talk about a solution.

Build from zero

I like a blank page: no playbook, no pipeline, no process. Three times I've walked in and built the revenue engine from scratch.

Company first

Whatever the business needs, I pick it up: partner programs, customer success, pricing, even CEO and CFO responsibilities when the moment calls for it.

Off the Clock

Family first.

Home is Wenatchee, Washington, with my wife and our two boys. Most weekends during the season you'll find us at a hockey rink, a soccer field or a cross-country course. When we get a break, we travel, from the Grand Canyon to the beaches of Baja.

Let's Talk.

If you're building something and need your first customers, or you just want to compare notes, I'd like to hear from you.

✉ michael@defoe.co in LinkedIn See the Work →