Pay.com.au, a fast-growing Australian payments platform, was hitting diminishing returns on inbound lead generation ahead of their IPO. They needed an outbound channel but didn't know whether they needed 3 or 20 BDRs. Pointer Strategy started with 3 reps who were booking meetings within 3 days, validated the model, then scaled to 16 through a single-day hiring event and rapid onboarding — reaching 130+ meetings per week within a month, with individual reps booking up to 11 meetings per day.
The Key Question
How does a pre-IPO startup build and validate a large outbound sales team from scratch — without the risk of over-hiring or under-hiring?
About Pay.com.au
Pay.com.au is an Australian payments platform that had just raised their pre-IPO round. With strong product-market fit and thousands of inbound signups every month, they were growing fast and preparing to open international markets.
The Situation
Pay.com.au had an incredibly strong inbound engine. Thousands of signups were coming in every month from paid and organic channels. But the Head of Growth was seeing marginal diminishing returns on every additional dollar invested in inbound. The ceiling was real.
The next lever was obvious: outbound. They could target their ideal client profile directly — specifically the segments with the highest lifetime contract value. The Head of Growth was tasked with building this channel from nothing.
The Challenge
Pay.com.au's total addressable market was massive. Their product could serve virtually any business owner in the country. Ironically, that made outbound harder, not easier. When everyone is a potential customer, knowing exactly who to call first — and what to say — requires precision.
The team had put financial modelling together that the CFO had approved, but it was built on assumptions. They didn't know if they needed 3 BDRs or 20. Hiring too many too fast meant burning cash on unvalidated channels. Hiring too few meant missing the window before IPO.
They came to Pointer to solve this problem.
The Solution
Phase 1: Validate Fast (Week 1)
We put three BDRs into Pay.com.au's offices within days. These weren't remote contractors — they worked full-time alongside the team, embedded in the operation so they could start building systems and processes with the Head of Revenue Operations from day one.
They were in the CRM and on the phones within three days. By day four, they were booking two meetings a day. That was enough to validate the model — the unit economics worked, and the CFO's assumptions held up. This is the core principle behind testing outbound before committing to headcount — prove the motion works with real data, then scale with confidence.
Phase 2: Scale Through a Hiring Day
Because we knew the model worked and the team needed to grow, we moved to our preferred method for building large teams: a [hiring day](/recruitment).
We brought in 25 top BDR candidates for a full-day assessment event. This wasn't a panel interview — it was a structured assessment designed to test how people work as a team, evaluate attributes you would never surface in a standard interview, and build team cohesion from the very first day.
From those 25, we selected the best 6. All offers went out that evening. All six started on the exact same day, at the exact same time — deliberately designed to reduce the management burden of staggered onboarding and ramp. Senior leadership invested one day in the hiring assessment; Pointer handled everything else — sourcing, screening, logistics, and candidate management.
Phase 3: Ramp and Expand
Simultaneously, we worked with Pay.com.au's new BDR manager to support all reps in improving their conversion rates and meeting volumes. Within a month, the team was booking over 130 meetings a week with ideal client profiles. Individual reps were cracking 11 meetings per day — an exceptional rate that reflected both strong product-market fit and a well-built outbound motion.
That number continued to grow. We onboarded another 7 reps just weeks later, bringing the total outbound team to 16.
Parallel Tracks: Building Beyond Outbound
While the outbound operation was scaling, Pointer was simultaneously supporting multiple growth channels:
This wasn't a single-channel engagement. Pointer operated as an extension of the growth function — across hiring, enablement, and operational support.
The Results
| Metric | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time to first meetings | 3 days |
| Initial meeting rate | 2 meetings/day by day 4 |
| Peak individual performance | 11 meetings/day |
| Team meeting volume | 130+ meetings/week within one month |
| Total reps hired | 16 (3 initial + 6 hiring day + 7 expansion) |
| Hiring day conversion | 25 candidates assessed, 6 hired — all starting same day |
| Channels built | Outbound, Partnerships, Marketing |
Pay.com.au went from zero outbound operation to 130+ meetings a week in under a month — with every hire validated and every channel measured for ROI before being scaled.
The speed was only part of the story. The real value was in the risk reduction:
The Outcome
Soon after these channels were built and producing, Pay.com.au announced their IPO. The outbound operation that started with three reps on phones became a core growth engine — validated, scalable, and built to last.