Blox Life: An Interview With Abdallah Al-Hakim

Welcome to Blox Life! This interview series shines a spotlight on Armorblox team members - chronicling their daily work, highlighting their achievements, and sharing their advice for people who wish to pursue similar careers. 

In this interview, we’re delighted to speak with Abdallah Al-Hakim, who leads demand generation strategy and revenue operations at Armorblox. Abdallah is a builder, baker, and biker who loves to find out how things work (and also loves alliterations, apparently). Take it away, Abdallah!

Q. Can you tell us something about yourself?

My name is Abdallah. I have been at Armorblox since December 2019. I knew Anand Raghavan from my previous company (BlueJeans Networks) and he sold me on the idea of joining a new startup! I have a PhD in biochemistry, so my path to revenue operations has clearly been an eventful one. I am a hipster baker, because I loved baking even before the work-from-home era that made everyone a baker! I also like cycling, rowing, and being near the ocean in my spare time.

Q. What is your current role at Armorblox? What does a typical day (or a typical week, if you can’t fit everything in one day!) look like for you?

I run demand generation and revenue operations and wear many hats on a typical day. My most common activities include running marketing campaigns, managing reporting and analytics, and supporting sales in their systems of operations. I help define the target personas Armorblox serves, ensure all systems are integrated and functioning, and run and optimize experiments to make the most effective use of our budget.

I like to think of myself as a doctor (which I technically am) who is making sure the Armorblox revenue heartbeat is regular and strong.

Q. Why did you decide to join Armorblox?

I am a builder and I saw the opportunity at Armorblox to build revenue operations and demand generation almost from scratch! I was at my previous company for 5.5 years and was also naturally looking for something different. Revenue operations is a new field and I was excited that a company would hand me that responsibility. 

It was an interesting and exciting challenge to build something from scratch while also taking care of eventual and inevitable scale. As an early-stage employee who joined at the company’s Series A level, I was also able to have a larger impact on its future. What pushed me over the line was the vision of the company that DJ shared with me during the interview stage.

Q. What is an accomplishment at Armorblox you’re proud of?

I can’t pinpoint any one thing, so I will list out a few examples that are both abstract and specific. I am proud that I’ve been able to build a strong foundation for revenue operations that enables quick execution while also allowing for tracking all results and key metrics. With budget restrictions that are a reality for all startups, our team has built a diverse number of demand generation channels including social, email, syndicated content, and events, to name a few.

I am also proud to have conceptualized and built a marketing stack that tracks and attributes everything with a great degree of sophistication. If revenue operations is able to answer questions like ‘what channels are working, why are they working, etc.’ with a great degree of confidence, then something somewhere is clicking.

It has been an interesting and exciting challenge to build something from scratch while also taking care of eventual and inevitable scale. What pushed me over the line was the vision of the company that DJ shared with me during the interview stage.

Q. What’s one thing you wished you knew when you started your career in this role (at Armorblox or in general)?

Explaining complex processes in simple terms is more difficult than I thought it would be. From simple acronyms like MQL and SAL and how different companies define them differently, to seeking alignment across sales and marketing to pursue projects that meet the company’s goals, there are challenges that I have learned to get better at only by facing them.

Q. Do you have any advice for people who aim to pursue a career similar to yours?

If you have a growth mindset and always want to keep improving how things work, then this is a good career for you. Also, be prepared to work in the background and only (mostly) be noticed when things go wrong. Like a referee in any sport, you know you’re having a good impact when no one notices your involvement and the game flows smoothly.

We hope you enjoyed getting to know Abdallah a little bit better! Armorblox is hiring across all teams, so if you’d like to work with Abdallah, check out our open roles below.