A pipeline plan for the Business Development Representative 2 seat
Prepared for the team at Kong
By Vincent Hembrick
Why I built this
I built this for the Business Development Representative 2 role specifically, not as a generic BDR sample. The role is a quota carrying outbound seat that feeds Account Executives across both inbound and outbound campaigns, with phone called out as the first channel and Salesforce hygiene named as the leading indicator of success. Below is the segmented ICP I would prospect into on day 31, the five accounts I would stack rank against that ICP, the four touch sequence I would run against one named persona, and three plays I would layer on top of the cold motion. Everything is framed against Kong's actual GTM and the AI Gateway positioning, not a template.
The buyer Kong's BDR2 should own, cut by company size
500 to 10,000 employees is a wide range. A 700 person Series C SaaS and a 9,500 person post IPO SaaS buy Kong differently, with different buying committees, deal cycles, and pain patterns. Three segments below, each with its own profile, buyer, triggers, and motion. All three share two filters: cloud native SaaS architecture, and at least one AI feature live in production within the last 18 months.
Growth Mid Market | 500 to 1,500 employees
Profile
Series C or recent IPO SaaS in hypergrowth. Platform engineering team of 5 to 15 people. One or two AI features shipped with more on the roadmap. Single existing API gateway just starting to feel AI traffic strain.
Buyer titles
- VP Engineering or CTO (decision maker)
- Director or Head of Platform (champion to buyer)
- Senior Engineering Manager (champion)
Top triggers
- Series C or D funding announced in last 12 months
- First major AI feature shipped in last 6 months
- One platform engineer owns the gateway and is hitting capacity
- Single platform or DevOps role open more than 60 days
Motion
30 to 60 day cycles, simple buying committee, founder or CTO often still in the loop. Phone first, single thread to a champion is often enough. Cadence compresses to 8 to 10 days. Estimated deal size: $30K to $150K ARR.
Mid Enterprise | 1,500 to 5,000 employees
Profile
Late growth or recently public SaaS. Platform engineering org of 20 to 50 people. Multiple AI features in production, AI traffic running 10 to 30 percent of total API calls. Two or three gateways in place, fragmentation cost actively felt.
Buyer titles
- VP Platform Engineering (decision maker)
- Director of DevOps and SRE (multi threaded buyer)
- Director of Cloud Infrastructure (multi threaded buyer)
Top triggers
- New VP Platform Engineering or Head of AI Platform hire in last 6 months
- Multiple platform engineer roles open simultaneously
- Token cost attribution running through manual spreadsheets
- AI governance ask from CISO landing in the platform team's lap
Motion
60 to 120 day cycles, multi threaded buying committee, formal evaluation against AWS API Gateway and incumbent open source proxies. Multi thread VP plus Director by Touch 2, drag in a security stakeholder by Touch 3. Estimated deal size: $150K to $500K ARR.
Enterprise | 5,000 to 10,000 employees
Profile
Post IPO mature SaaS with platform engineering split across business units. Dedicated Head of AI Platform usually exists. Four or more gateways across the org, AppSec and compliance are co buyers on AI governance.
Buyer titles
- VP Engineering or Chief Architect (decision maker)
- Head of AI Platform or Head of GenAI (technical buyer)
- CISO or VP Security (co buyer on governance)
Top triggers
- AI governance mandate from board or audit committee
- SOC2 Type II audit findings on AI traffic logging
- Public Head of AI Platform hire in last 6 months
- M&A integration creating platform fragmentation
Motion
90 to 180+ day cycles, procurement gauntlet, executive sponsor required. Account based, deep multi thread (5 to 7 contacts), often partnered with a strategic AE. Value the executive briefing over the demo. Estimated deal size: $500K to $2M+ ARR.
Segments A and B are the natural BDR2 lane. Velocity is highest, cycles are 30 to 90 days, and one BDR can own the multi thread without senior AE escalation. Expect 60 to 70 percent of daily dials to land here. Segment C accounts surface via inbound or strategic outbound and pair with senior AE coverage. Day one, the daily activity quota gets filled by Segments A and B, with Segment C as a stretch hit when an inbound trigger surfaces.
Segment definitions and deal sizes are inferred from Kong's published positioning and the BDR2 role's velocity profile, not stated in the JD. Segment boundaries (1,500 and 5,000 employees) match standard SaaS GTM cuts and would adjust to whatever Kong's commercial team actually uses on day 1.
Five accounts I would stack rank day one
Five real, named SaaS accounts, all confirmed against Kong's customer logo wall and recent press as not currently customers. Each one is sitting on a current trigger that maps to the AI Gateway and platform consolidation thesis.
All five named accounts sit in Segment C or above, deliberately, to show vision into where Kong's pipeline value concentrates. Day one BDR2 dials will skew Segments A and B with names like Vercel, Notion, Asana, and Confluent. I can rebuild this list to span all three segments on request.
Four touches I would run against one persona
Persona: Director of DevOps and SRE at Datadog (Segment C target, illustrative example). Cadence: 4 touches over 12 days, mixing email, LinkedIn, and phone. For Segments A and B, compress spacing to 8 to 10 days and lead with the phone in Touch 1.
Three plays I would run in my first 90 days
These are tactical, specific to Kong, and not generic SDR advice.
The funded SaaS plus shipped AI feature trigger
Tied to my TAM Map ranking Software Publishers and SaaS first overall (45 of 50) and to Kong's published positioning that every AI call is an API call. The leading indicator that a SaaS account is buyable inside the next two quarters is the combination of recent growth stage funding and a shipped AI feature in production.
Build a saved Sales Navigator search across SaaS companies between 500 and 10,000 employees who have either announced Series C or later funding in the last 18 months OR shipped at least one AI feature in the last 12 months. Layer in Director DevOps or VP Platform Engineering as titles. Run a weekly export, score against the AI Gateway pain pattern, and personalize the opening trigger off the most recent product launch or funding press. Calibration target on a sequence built off this signal: a 5 to 8 percent reply rate against Tier A SaaS personas.
Open platform engineer roles as a proxy for tool sprawl
Tied to Kong's public positioning that fragmentation drives AI failure, and to the consolidation math that the AI Gateway plus Konnect makes possible. The leading indicator that a target is feeling the pain right now is a Senior Platform Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer, or AI Infrastructure Engineer role open for more than 60 days.
A role that has been live more than two months suggests the team is under capacity, which is the exact moment a platform consolidation pitch lands. Pair the trigger with a tactical opener that names the gateway tools the team likely runs (AWS API Gateway plus an internal NGINX is the modal stack at this scale) and offers the consolidation math. I have already run this play structure at Certara against unfilled regulatory writing roles, and the porting to Kong's BDR2 motion is direct.
Same day fast follow on webinar engagement
Tied to Kong's API and AI Summit 2026 calendar, the Agentic Era World Tour, and the heavy webinar program through 2026. Webinar registrants who attend at least 50 percent of a session are the warmest cold leads in the funnel.
Every qualifying registrant gets a personalized email within four hours of the session ending. Not from marketing, from the BDR. Subject line names the session topic, body cites one specific question from the chat or one slide that lined up with the registrant's stack, soft CTA invites a 20 minute call with the assigned AE. Same day fast follow on engaged content typically converts three to five times higher than a 24 to 72 hour follow up. The play depends on tight coordination with marketing, which the JD names as a core function of the role.
If any of this is in the ballpark of how the Account Development team is thinking about Tier A SaaS coverage in Texas, I would value a 15 minute conversation to compare notes on what is working, what is not, and where I would plug in fastest. If the plan above misses the mark, that is also useful feedback for me. Either way, thank you for reading.
Vincent Hembrick