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Clay All Day: From Curious to Clay Studio
Our CTO, Peter Modest, shares the story of how demandDrive became a Clay Studio partner, and the journey from first experiment to millions in ROI that got us here.
We’re thrilled to announce that demandDrive is now an official Clay Studio partner! To celebrate, I want to give a peek behind the curtain and share how this partnership came to be.
demandDrive has been in the business of building pipeline and driving sales for 15 years. We’ve seen every tool, every trend, every “revolution” in sales tech. Clay is different. And here’s the journey of how we figured that out.
If you want the tactical deep dives, check out our posts on the 5 layers of GTM engineering, how Clay Ads unlocks ABM on Meta, and our Clay sales playbook for internal buy-in. This post is the story behind the story.
The timeline
From first experiment to full partnership in under two years.
2024
The Spark
Noah Burkholz, our VP of RevOps & GTM Strategy, starts talking about Clay. A lot. We begin experimenting with sequences, testing what’s possible. As an org, we’re finding our footing in the AI space; our engineers are contributing to open source MCP projects and weaving AI into our processes. Something is clicking.
Early 2025
The First Win
We deploy automated research for our manufacturing division to power our own prospecting. The efficiency gains are immediate and honestly kind of shocking.
Mid 2025
The Expansion
We start automating other parts of the business through Clay, adding intelligence in strategic ways to accelerate success across key programs. Not just doing more, but doing things smarter.
Late 2025
Going Enterprise
We upgrade to Clay Enterprise. The toolkit gets bigger. The ambitions get bigger. We’re not just using Clay; we’re building on it.
January 2026
The Tipping Point
Clay has now represented millions of dollars of ROI for our business. The math is undeniable. We decide to go all in.
February 2026
The Handshake
Lindsay, Dan, Peter, Noah and Tad spend two packed days at Clay HQ in New York. Whiteboards. Coffee. Big ideas. Clay starts to see demandDrive as an ideal partner. We’re a revenue organization to our core. We’ve been modeling ROI for clients for 15 years. Everything comes back to pipeline.
March 2026
Clay Studio. Clay All Day.
It’s official: demandDrive is now a Clay Studio partner on the Clay Partners page. Deep integrations. Daily conversations. New friends who feel like family. This isn’t a vendor relationship; it’s a partnership firing on all cylinders.
Our shared philosophy: Sometimes simple is smartest
We’ve built some genuinely mind-boggling agentic workflows with Clay – complex, multi-step, deeply integrated systems that push the boundaries of what’s possible with today’s tech (and sometimes those boundaries are hard to find). But here’s the thing: some of the simplest workflows we’ve deployed have produced the highest ROI. And we think that’s worth celebrating, not hiding.
On one of our first partner calls with Clay, I was making this exact point that some of our least flashy Clay tables produce transformative results for clients in highly technical verticals. Nancy Mottice didn’t miss a beat: “Unsexy is the new sexy.” It’s become a mantra for 2026 and it captures everything about how we work together.
In the race to showcase the coolest, most complex uses of Clay’s capabilities, it’s easy to overlook the opportunities to ship simple, inexpensive, scalable workflows that deliver massive value right now. We never overlook those. We add complexity and deeper integration when – and only when – we can model the ROI to prove it’s worth the investment. That discipline is what 15 years of pipeline obsession teaches you.
A partnership that feels like family
On a personal note, I always find the best partnerships are the ones that don’t feel like a calculated corporate arrangement. A team that we didn’t even know a few months ago is now one we talk to every single day about the most exciting opportunities and the coolest stuff happening in GTM tech. That’s what makes this partnership so much more than a vendor agreement.
The partnership with Clay has extended our demandDrive family in the most positive way. We are so proud and so happy to be part of Clay’s journey to the top!