Podcast
November 7, 2025
Episode 66: The RevOps Archetype Matrix: Know Your Superpower
Learn how to identify your RevOps archetype, build balanced teams, and scale from tactical execution to strategic leadership.
In this episode of the RevOpsAF Podcast, host Matthew Volm, CEO and Founder of RevOps Co-op and Eventful, sits down with Jared Barol, a seasoned revenue and go-to-market strategist whose career spans early-stage startups, public enterprises, and private equity-backed companies. Together, they unpack Jared’s now widely discussed framework — the RevOps Archetype Matrix — a model designed to help operators identify their strengths, avoid capability blind spots, and build balanced teams that scale intelligently across every growth stage.
The conversation bridges multiple disciplines — organizational design, hiring strategy, data architecture, and leadership development — and serves as both a playbook for RevOps leaders building teams and a mirror for professionals looking to map out their career trajectory.
Jared’s career didn’t begin in spreadsheets or CRMs — it began with languages.
“Three of the best RevOps leaders I know all started in the same place — studying other languages and working abroad. There’s something about pattern recognition, translation, and systems thinking that overlaps with what we do in operations.”
After nearly a decade as an entrepreneur — starting six companies across four countries — Jared worked his way through every GTM function imaginable: SDR, AE, frontline sales leader, marketing head, enablement lead, pre-sales manager, and finally, product and go-to-market strategist. That multifaceted experience gave him a front-row seat to a persistent operational challenge: how to hire the right kind of operator at the right stage of growth.
“You’re building fast, you have gaps, and you’re torn between solving an urgent tactical problem or building a longer-term capability. The trick is knowing when to do which — and what kind of operator can actually get you there.”
This led Jared to distill a framework that separates roles (what people do) from capabilities (what they bring) — because businesses don’t scale by hiring more bodies, they scale by orchestrating capabilities that evolve with the company’s needs.
For more on growing your career in RevOps, check out RevOps Co-op Video Series: Breaking Out of the CRM Box: How to Grow Your Career in RevOps.
Before defining archetypes, Jared introduces the OPS framework — Operations, Performance, and Strategy — the three core pillars of any high-functioning revenue operations organization.
These pillars mature as a company grows. A Series A startup might only “report the news” — metrics, pipeline, bookings. A $100B public enterprise, on the other hand, uses its RevOps function to define competitive landscapes, white-space expansion, verticalization, and M&A strategy.
“The framework is the same, but the capability emphasis shifts over time. Early-stage RevOps teams are about adaptability; late-stage teams are about scalability and precision.”
For more on improving your RevOps team dynamics, check out RevOps Co-op Blog: A Framework to Improve RevOps Team Dynamics.
At the heart of Jared’s model lies a two-by-two matrix that categorizes operators based on their focus (technical vs. business) and orientation (tactical vs. strategic). Plot yourself on these axes, and you’ll find one of four archetypes:
Each archetype has distinct thinking patterns and value creation modes. A Systems Architect translates business requirements into scalable infrastructure. A Growth Catalyst sees the chessboard — market dynamics, ICP strategy, and org design. Insight Ops drives clean process execution, while GTM Operators make sure sellers and marketers stay productive and aligned day-to-day.
“The idea isn’t to put people in boxes — it’s to show how complementary archetypes can create balance. Every company needs all four. It’s when one dominates that dysfunction starts.”
For more on building your own personal brand as a revenue operator, check out RevOps Co-op Blog: A Realistic Guide to Building Your Personal RevOps Brand.
Jared and co-creator Steven Daniels developed an Archetype Test that lets individuals and teams diagnose their distribution across the matrix. The test not only plots your archetype but also highlights your growth wings — the logical directions you can stretch into based on your natural strengths.
For instance:
“Just because you’re tactical doesn’t mean you need to become strategic. The fastest growth comes from leaning into your superpower while hiring for your gaps.”
He adds that mentorship is non-negotiable:
“Get a mentor who actually cares about you. Your manager might be on their way to buying a boat — you need someone who still remembers the grind.”
For more on career growth from the lens of a CRO, check out RevOps Co-op Video Series: A CRO’s Insights on Career Growth, Mindfulness, and Revenue Operations.
Jared and Matt discuss the common pitfalls that plague each archetype:
“None of these make someone bad at their job. They just reveal where your instincts can work against you if unchecked.”
By naming these patterns, leaders can design balanced RevOps teams that complement rather than duplicate capabilities.
For more on breaking into RevOps as a career, check out RevOps Co-op Blog: Breaking into RevOps: Key Skills to Accelerate Your Career Path.
One of the most actionable takeaways from Jared’s framework is how capability mix should evolve with company scale. He outlines five archetype distributions by growth stage:
“Your org design should evolve like a portfolio. Each stage of growth demands a rebalancing of capabilities. Too much architecture early kills agility. Too little later kills scale.”
For more on growing your RevOps org as your company scales, check out RevOpsAF Podcast Episode 13: What should RevOps look like as a company scales?
When teams get lopsided, dysfunction follows predictable patterns:
Jared suggests leaders aim for roughly 80% tactical to 20% innovation capacity in aggregate — a mix that keeps the GTM engine running while allowing for meaningful progress.
“If everyone’s firefighting five days a week, you’re not growing. You’re surviving.”
Looking ahead, Jared predicts a structural compression across revenue operations. With AI automating repetitive tasks, RevOps teams will become leaner, more analytical, and more strategic.
“The ratio of operators to sellers — 1:20 or 1:30 — will stretch to 1:50. AI will handle admin work, but RevOps will still be the connective tissue translating insight into action.”
He also cautions against chasing trendy titles like “GTM Engineer” or “AI Ops Specialist” too early:
“Titles are transient. Capabilities endure. Before hiring someone new, ask if you can evolve the talent you already have.”
Matt and Jared agree that the next frontier of RevOps lies not in tool proliferation but in orchestration — how operators architect AI and automation layers to deliver cleaner data, faster insight, and more credible decision-making at the executive level.
For more on the evolution of RevOps, check out RevOpsAF Podcast Episode 2: RevOps is Evolving. Are you?
When asked what currently frustrates him most about the RevOps and AI discourse, Jared doesn’t hold back:
“Every few years, we invent a new title to solve an old problem. Now it’s ‘GTM Engineers.’ Before that, it was ‘Salesforce Admins.’ The problem hasn’t changed — it’s still about capabilities, not titles.”
And when asked to predict what RevOps will look like by the end of 2026?
“We’ll execute with fewer people and fewer tools. The winners will be the teams that figure out how to combine human capability and AI leverage without overcomplicating the stack.”
The takeaway: AI won’t replace operators — it’ll amplify their superpowers, freeing them to focus on insight, judgment, and leadership.
For more on building AI agents for RevOps, check out RevOps Co-op Video Series: Building AI Agents for RevOps: From Data Hygiene to Deal Insights.
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