Go-to-market is the sequence of decisions that turn a product into revenue. Here's the structure that works from zero to first million.
GTM is not marketing. It's the compound decision of who you sell to first, how they discover you, why they buy, and what happens after. Get the sequence wrong and every dollar of marketing spend leaks.
1) Beachhead segment (narrower than instinct). 2) Motion (self-serve, sales-led, community-led). 3) Channel (one that compounds, not three that don't). 4) Pricing (packaging before price). 5) Handoff (what triggers a paid conversation).
Self-serve requires product simple enough to activate without a human. Sales-led requires a $5K+ ACV to fund the cost. Community-led requires an audience that already exists. Doing two at once dilutes both.
Set a 90-day window with one channel, one segment, one motion. Measure CAC payback and reply rate. If CAC payback is under 12 months and the channel scales, double down. If not, kill it — don't iterate a broken loop.
Running paid ads before product is retentive. Hiring salespeople before founders have closed 20 deals. Content marketing without a distribution plan. Expanding to a second segment before the first is repeatable.
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