What GTM actually is

What does 'go to market' actually mean? People say GTM constantly and I still cannot define it. GTM is the whole answer to one question: how does a stranger who has your problem end up paying you and staying. That covers who you sell to, what ... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → I am a founder and I have never sold anything in my life. Where do I actually start? Start by talking to twenty people who have the problem, with no intent to sell, and write down the words they use. Then go back to the ten who lean... Breaking into GTM 5 resources → How do I tell whether our GTM is genuinely working or we just got lucky with a few deals? Luck looks like revenue. Working looks like repeatability. Ask whether you can name the trigger that made each of the last ten buyers start looking... Doing the work 4 resources → What is the real difference between product-led, sales-led and everything in between, and which one are we? The question is not which model you prefer, it is who signs and how much they are risking. If one person can start using the product on a card with... Doing the work 4 resources → When do I stop selling myself and hire the first person, and what kind of person should that be? Hire when you have closed roughly ten to twenty deals yourself, can describe who buys and why in one paragraph, and are spending more than a fifth ... Leading a GTM team 6 resources → How do I turn the thing that worked when I did it into an engine someone else can run? Write down what you actually do, not what you think you do. Record your own calls, listen back, and pull out the four or five moves that keep showi... Leading a GTM team 4 resources → What do the very best GTM teams do that everyone else does not? They treat GTM as a system they design rather than a set of tactics they copy. The best teams pick one narrow group of buyers and go absurdly deep,... How the best do it 5 resources → How do the best companies decide to change their GTM motion instead of just grinding the current one harder? They watch for the signal that effort and outcome have decoupled: same activity, worse conversion, longer cycles, more discounting. That is a motio... How the best do it 4 resources → We are bootstrapped with no money for marketing. What does GTM look like without a budget? GTM without money is not GTM without work, it is GTM where your time is the budget. Pick one narrow group of people you can reach for free (a commu... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → How is GTM different before product market fit versus after? Before PMF, GTM is a learning function and after PMF it is a manufacturing function, and confusing the two burns most of the money startups lose. B... Doing the work 3 resources → We sell to developers. Why does the normal B2B playbook keep failing on them? Because the normal B2B playbook is built to reach a buyer, and with developers the person who decides is usually not the person with the credit car... Doing the work 3 resources → We are a marketplace, not a software product. What actually changes about GTM? You are running two go to markets at once, and they are not equally hard. Work out which side is scarcer (usually supply) and go get it manually be... Leading a GTM team 5 resources → How is AI actually changing what a GTM team does day to day? The honest picture is narrower than the headlines. Research, list building, first draft outreach, call notes and CRM hygiene are genuinely being au... Leading a GTM team 4 resources → What did Indian companies that went global (Zoho, Freshworks, Whatfix, Postman) actually get right about GTM? The pattern is not one clever tactic, it is capital efficiency treated as a design constraint from day one. Indian companies that went global tend ... How the best do it 3 resources →