First M.

Anton van Rhyn

GTM Engineer

Anton van Rhyn

I’m Anton van Rhyn, a GTM Engineer based in Toronto and the person behind First M.

I’ve been building GTM systems from first principles since 2015.

Before I was writing software for revenue teams, I was carrying a number, hiring salespeople and running the systems myself. That combination has shaped how I work ever since: start with the commercial problem, understand what the team is actually trying to accomplish, then build the data, automation or software the problem requires.

I don’t start with a favorite stack.

If the existing tools and data work, I use them. If they don’t, I build what’s missing.

How I got here.

  • Carsy, 2015–2016, was the first clear version of it.

    I built a used car business around dealer auction inventory, then wrote software that crawled the auctions, filtered vehicles, pulled valuation data and imagery, and published roughly 100 consumer listings per day through browser automation.

    The point wasn’t the software itself. It was solving the GTM problem differently: create demand before owning the inventory.

  • Huron, 2016–2019, pushed the same idea into B2B.

    I ran a 20 person research team serving more than 50 B2B clients. We learned that prospect data built around the actual market outperformed simply buying the same database everyone else used.

    So I started building software around the workflow.

  • Wavo ran from 2019 to 2026.

    I built the original product in PHP and Laravel, then designed the data, enrichment and outbound infrastructure as it became a larger GTM platform.

    At its peak, the system supported roughly 1,000 connected customer mailboxes and a mapped market of more than 3.4 million U.S. ecommerce businesses.

    The work went well beyond sequencing. We built data pipelines, enrichment systems, browser automation, APIs, email infrastructure, identity resolution and later LLM workflows that turned unstructured web data into structured company and person records.

Before any of that, I spent years on the other side of the system.

  • At Brave Commerce, I joined as the founding sales lead, carried the number and built the sales process before hiring three reps.

  • At Rogers, I launched Vicinity Rewards and built a merchant sales team of about 15, along with the Salesforce operating model behind it.

  • And at Monteco, a mid-market private equity family office, I evaluated software acquisitions and worked with portfolio companies on commercial strategy.

That experience is why I care about what happens after the system ships.

I know what it’s like to be the rep using it, the manager accountable for the number and the person building the infrastructure underneath both.

What I’m doing now.

First M is where I do that work today.

Most GTM engineering briefs begin with enrichment, scoring, routing and automation.

I tend to start one step earlier:

How much of the market is actually represented in the data you’re about to build on?

A company can be missing completely. Or it can be present while the signals that make it a real buyer live somewhere else.

So I measure the market first, then build what’s missing: buyer models, discovery and qualification systems, data pipelines, signals, triggers, internal tools and the automation required to put the output where the team already works.

That’s one application of how I approach GTM engineering.

The broader pattern has stayed the same for more than a decade:

Start with the GTM problem, figure out what system should exist, then build it.

Working with me.

I built most of this as a founder. The part I want to keep is the building, and I’d rather do it on a team than run a company around it.

There are a few ways that can happen.

I can build and run a system through First M.

I can work embedded with an existing team on a defined GTM engineering problem.

And for the right company and problem, I’m open to joining full time as a GTM Engineer.

Outside the work.

I live in Toronto with my wife, daughter and Norwegian Elkhound.

When I’m not building something, I’m usually on a trail, on a ski hill, scuba diving, or under the hood of one of my old British cars.

The cars are excellent when they work.