CLS GROUP
No strategy, no focus, no real team.
Growth back. Exit.
OPERATOR · REBUILT AND RAN IT
Go-to-market operator for maritime & offshore tech
Learn fast
in slow markets.
I show you where your sales team should focus. With real buyers, in weeks. Then I execute alongside your team.
Book a call2X EXIT · B2B + B2G
Worked with
- Flagship Founders
- DeepSea
- Vsltec
- Sinay
- Tilla
- Sealenic
You raised money to grow fast. Sales aren't keeping up.
Your board expects big numbers this year.
Your team is busy. Pilots, trade shows, flights. The pipeline barely moves.
So you start asking. Is it the product? The team? The market?
Welcome to maritime.Every team selling into it feels this.Here's why.
Maritime markets are slow and
four problems hit you at once.
- Early pipelineLots of activity. Learning slowly.
- Mid pipelineSome pilots. No next step.
- ClosingDeals slip. Still the right focus?
- CustomersProduct-market fit?
Hiring a VP Sales or more salespeople buys more activity. It doesn't tell you where to focus.You need to solve all four at once. That's what sprints do.
I build sprints with your team and run them from the inside.
One unit of work. One hypothesis. Ruthless focus.
Focus.
One go-to-market angle, with a focused offer, message and target.
Execution.
For eight to twelve weeks, your team and I execute it, then decide: double down, pivot or stop.
Signal.
Every buyer interaction is captured and analysed, so the decision rests on evidence.
I can't shorten maritime sales cycles.But I can tell you sooner which markets are worth your team's time.
No signal, no sprint.
In most teams the signal sits in people's heads, inboxes and half-filled CRMs. Nobody puts it together.
I do, in real time. Every meeting, phone call, email and market signal, read side by side.
Double down. Pivot. Stop.
A decision on every market, every two weeks.
- Double down. Paid pilot with an agreed next step, or a budgeted business case.
- Pivot: new angle. Week 6. The new angle works, doubled down after the pivot.
- Stopped. Week 4.
12 weeks, not 12 months. Three answers.
Buyers are engagingDouble down.
Right market, wrong anglePivot.
No real demandStop.
I ran commercial at three maritime companies. Two exited.
Enterprise B2B and B2G. I owned the number every time.
DEEPSEA
Series A, founder-led sales.
€50M+ exit
CRO · 2X GROWTH
SINAY
Seven markets to decide, ahead of a Series B.
Series B ready
CRO · 7 MARKETS DECIDED
Portfolio workFlagship Founders portfolio, Tilla, Vsltec, FuelFwd, Sealenic and more.
Case study: Sinay. Where to put the team before a Series B.
20+SPRINTS
7MARKETS
8MONTHS
Not every market got the same answer. That was the point.
Several sprints into each market, each with a different angle. The evidence showed where the team should go.
DOUBLED DOWN
PIVOTED
STOPPED
The hardest call.
And the best one.
And the best one.
Sinay knew where to put the team, what to change and what to stop.
Book a callIn their words.
Sinay“
Before Joris, going international meant guessing and hoping. He turned our GTM execution into something we could actually read and decide on. We stopped waiting eighteen months to find out if a market was real. With his push we got ready for our Series B.
Sealenic“
Joris has a unique ability to bring clarity and structure to a sales process. He played a key role in shaping Sealenic's GTM strategy, helping us turn an evolving product and market opportunity into a clear approach to sales and partnerships. Having someone who could connect strategy with execution was invaluable. I can't imagine doing it without him.
Vsltec“
Joris didn't hand us a strategy and walk. He sat with the team and ran it. We opened Northern Europe from Greece and built a repeatable way to find and move deals. He left us with a system the team still runs.
Flagship Founders“
Joris helped us bring structure, coordination, and momentum to international GTM across the portfolio. He combined hands-on sales support with venture-level strategic guidance, creating a practical and repeatable way to support our companies as they entered new markets.
Tilla“
We brought Joris in to run our GTM sprints to go international. Three major logos and one successful financing round later, he's still in the room for the highly strategic GTM work.
FuelFwd“
Joris didn't just advise us. He worked with our first sales hire to accelerate execution, customer discovery, pricing, and deal negotiations. He left us with a repeatable GTM system that still guides how we qualify, pursue, and win deals.
Built for maritime and offshore tech with long sales cycles.
This is for you if
- You're at €2M to €10M in revenue
- Your deals land in several countries and take nine months or more to close
- You sell complex hardware, software or data to technical buyers in enterprise or government
- Your sales team is busy everywhere, and nobody can say where to focus
This isn't for you if
- You close deals on one call or a free trial
- Your sales cycle is under three months
- You need to fix your product, not test a market
- You don't want to talk to buyers
Backing companies like these? I also work across VC portfolios.
One market. Or every market your team works.
Multi-Sprint
Test every market your team works, several at a time, with a decision every two weeks. Your team ends up where the evidence is. Down to the winners by month six. Your team runs it by month eight.
I take on two to three companies a year
Single Sprint
Test one angle in one market. You get the evidence and a clear decision: double down, pivot or stop.
Fixed fee, from €20K
For investors
Sprint Fit Assessment
Fixed fee per company
Will sprints help your portfolio companies focus, learn faster in slow markets and execute more efficiently? I assess each one together with its founder or sales lead. You get one page per company and a clear answer: run sprints, yes or no.
A yes leads to a Single Sprint or a Multi-Sprint.
Book a callNEXT START: AUGUST 2027
What founders ask before they start.
Taken from real conversations, not from what I wish they asked.
What are you, exactly? A fractional CRO, a consultant or a coach?
An operator who has owned the number.
I've run commercial as CRO. Here I build the system that lets your team own it.
I design the sprints, get your salespeople in front of real buyers and read every conversation.
Every two weeks I put a decision on the table, with the evidence. You make the call.
I set up the weekly routine and the data behind it, and test your team against real buyers.
I leave when your team runs it without me.
What do you need from us before we start?
Three things. The rest is on me.
A sales team, not only the founder. Quick on their feet and up for testing. Most angles miss the first time. The right team takes the feedback and goes again.
Two days a week per salesperson for every sprint, in the calendar before we start. Any less and the answers come too slowly to act on.
Full access to your go-to-market data, wherever it sits today.
I bring the system, the speed and a ruthless focus on getting each sprint done.
What do you mean by a market?
A vertical in a country, a pocket of customers or a list of named accounts.
Offshore wind developers in Denmark is a market. Port authorities in Canada is another. Each sprint tests one go-to-market angle in one market.
Most teams sell into many of them at once, scattered. The sprints tell you which ones deserve the next year.
Have you done this in my market?
Usually not. That's the point.
At Sinay: seven markets decided in eight months. Some doubled down, some pivoted, some stopped. The method travelled. The market knowledge didn't. It never does.
You know your market better than I ever will. I bring the system for finding out fast whether a market is real. You bring the domain.
Who makes the call every two weeks?
You do. Every time.
I bring the evidence, tell you what I read in it and argue if I think you're wrong. Then you decide: double down, pivot or stop.
What I own is that the decision gets made on time and on evidence, not after another month of hope.
How long are you here?
Depends on the engagement.
Single Sprint: 8 to 12 weeks, one market.
Multi-Sprint: 6 to 8 months. Down to the winning markets by month six. Your team runs it by month eight.
Either way, I start with what's already there. No reinventing the wheel.
What do we keep when you leave?
Decided markets, a tested team and a backbone that keeps running.
Every market has a verdict and the evidence behind it, including the ones you stopped.
Your team has been in front of real buyers every week. You know who can open a market and who can't.
The weekly routine and the data live in your CRM. Your team runs them the week after I leave.
Joris.
2X EXIT · GO-TO-MARKET OPERATOR · ROTTERDAM
I've spent my career selling maritime tech. On the ground in Latin America and the US for CLS, then building DeepSea's global sales team and owning revenue through its exit.
Dutch, direct by default, impatient with slow decisions. I bring energy and focus into a team, and I hold people to what they commit to.
Execution first. I'd rather fail fast and fix it than plan for a year. That's what I built into the sprints. I run them inside your team, with all your go-to-market data behind every decision.
If you want to keep doing it the old way, I'm not your guy. If you believe go-to-market in maritime can be leaner, faster and smarter, we should connect.
Where should your team sell next?
Book a 30-minute call. For founders and investors.
I'll start with one question: where does your team sell today, and which of those markets would you bet the next year on? Then I'll tell you if I can help.
Book a call30 minutes. No slides. Promise.