Just starting

Breaking into GTM

You are trying to land your first GTM role, or you are a founder selling for the first time. Start with what the job actually is.

Understand the job

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 → SDR, AE, AM, growth, PMM, RevOps: what do these people actually do all day? An SDR finds and opens conversations, mostly by email, calls and LinkedIn, and hands over meetings, while an AE runs those conversations to a signa... Breaking into GTM 5 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 → I want to start a GTM career in India but I have zero sales experience. What is the realistic first job? An SDR or BDR seat at a B2B software company is the standard front door, and it is genuinely open to people with no sales background because compan... Breaking into GTM 4 resources →

Who you sell to, and why they care

What is an ICP and how is it different from a persona? People use both words for the same thing. An ICP describes the company you want as a customer: size, industry, what they already use, what has to be true for your product to matter. A perso... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → What is positioning in plain English, and why does everyone insist we have got it wrong? Positioning is the context you give a buyer so that your strengths look obvious. It is the answer to 'what kind of thing is this and who is it for'... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → We have about fifteen customers and they are all different. How do I find an ICP out of that? Do not look at who bought, look at who is happy. Rank the fifteen by usage and by whether they would be annoyed if you disappeared, then take the t... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → How do I write a one-line description of what we do that a normal person actually understands? Stop trying to be clever and name the category first. A stranger needs to file you somewhere in their head before they can care, so 'a CRM for fiel... Breaking into GTM 4 resources →

Build pipeline

I have never sent a cold email in my life. Where do I even start? Start with twenty companies, not two thousand. Pick people you can describe precisely (job title, company size, the specific problem you think they... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → Everyone says do content. What does inbound actually mean for a startup with no audience? Inbound means someone with the problem finds you while they are looking for an answer, and leaves you a way to follow up. For a startup with no aud... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → I am a founder in India and my buyers are in the US. How do I get a stranger twelve time zones away to reply? Distance is not your problem, credibility is. A US buyer who has never heard of you needs a reason to believe you understand their world, so lead w... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → I write blog posts and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong? Usually one of three things. You are writing for a persona you invented instead of a real person you have spoken to, so the piece is generically co... Breaking into GTM 3 resources →

Close deals and price right

I have a call booked with a real prospect tomorrow. What do I do on it? Ask questions and shut up. Gong's analysis of more than half a million calls found the sweet spot is somewhere around eleven to fourteen questions,... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → I have no idea what to charge. How do I pick a first price? Find the right order of magnitude first and stop arguing about the exact number. Are you a ten dollar product, a hundred dollar product, a thousand... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → Founder-led sales sounds terrifying. Why can I not just hire a salesperson? Because you have nothing to hand them yet. A salesperson needs a buyer profile, a set of common objections, a working pitch, a rough price and a de... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → What is a value metric and why does everyone say it matters more than the number? A value metric is the thing you charge for: a seat, a thousand API calls, a gigabyte, a transaction, a resolved ticket. Patrick Campbell's line is ... Breaking into GTM 3 resources →

People worth learning from here

What each one is known for, and where they publish.

April Dunford Toronto
The person most B2B teams learn positioning from, and the author of Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch She turns positioning from a vague branding exercise into a repeatable exercise: list your true competitive alternatives, isolate the features only you have, work out the value those unlock, and name the market segment that cares most. Her Sales Pitch work is the rare material that connects that positioning to the actual words a rep says on a call. PositioningICPSales processCategory design
Pete Kazanjy Atrium · San Francisco
Author of Founding Sales, the handbook that popularised founder led sales Founding Sales is the most concrete text available on the exact stretch most founders get wrong: your first 10 customers, your first rep, and the handoff between the two. He is unusually specific about call structure, discovery questions, and what a founder should measure before hiring anyone into sales. Sales processOutboundGTM hiringEnterprise sales
Emily Kramer MKT1 · San Francisco
Writes MKT1, the reference on how an early B2B startup should actually build marketing She writes the thing almost nobody else does: what the first marketing hire should actually do in what order, how to scope the role, and how to tell a growth marketer from a product marketer when you have budget for exactly one. Her templates and org charts are directly usable rather than illustrative. PositioningInbound & contentGTM hiringICP
Sunil Neurgaonkar Adopt AI · Bengaluru
Host of SaaS Sessions, India's longest running SaaS podcast, and a working field and community marketer He is one of the few India based GTM people publishing at the practitioner altitude rather than the CEO altitude: what a first growth hire actually does in month one, how field marketing and events convert in Indian SaaS, and what a lean team runs instead of a paid budget. The podcast archive doubles as a decade long record of how Indian SaaS GTM changed. CommunityInbound & contentICPPartnerships
Prasanna Krishnamoorthy Upekkha · Bengaluru
Managing Partner at Upekkha and one of the clearest voices on capital efficient SaaS GTM from India He works with dozens of early Indian SaaS founders at the same time, so his public material is grounded in patterns rather than one company's story: how to pick a wedge ICP, what a founder should personally close before hiring, and where India based teams typically stall selling into the US. His framing of efficiency as a GTM choice, not a constraint, is the useful contrarian bit. ICPPositioningPricingSales process
Avinash Raghava SaaSBoomi · Bengaluru
Built SaaSBoomi, the community that most Indian SaaS founders learned go to market inside He is the working example of community as a go to market channel rather than a marketing garnish: how peer groups get built, why a pay it forward norm compounds, and how a conference becomes a distribution asset. Useful if your GTM plan involves earning a place in an ecosystem rather than buying attention. CommunityPartnershipsGTM hiringInbound & content
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The other levels

Doing the work Leading a GTM team How the best do it
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