Take an Indian product to the world

Sell to the US or the Gulf from Bengaluru or Chennai, and be trusted doing it.

5 steps, 20 questions underneath, read for leading a gtm team

1. 1
   Who you sell to

   Picking a customer worth chasing, and knowing early when a deal is not one.

   How do I get the team to actually use the ICP instead of nodding at a slide and then doing what they want?

   The gist An ICP that lives in a deck is decoration. Make it operational: turn it into fields in the CRM, into the lead scoring, into the list an SDR is allowed to prospect, and into a disqualification reason that a rep is rewarded for using. Then put teeth on it, publish win rate and cycle length split by in-ICP and out-of-ICP so the cost of ignoring it is visible to everyone every month. Reps follow incentives, not documents, so if off-ICP deals pay the same commission you have already lost the argument.

   📄 A Framework for Defining and Refining Your ICP Five questions you can answer this afternoon from data you already have, including the underused one about what objections churned customers gave y... 4 questions on who you sell to →
2. 2
   Positioning and messaging

   Making a buyer understand in one sentence why you exist and why you are the one to pick.

   We are changing our positioning. How do I roll it out without breaking the pipeline mid-quarter?

   The gist Sequence it: sales first, marketing second, brand last. Reps carry the new story to live deals before the website changes, because they can adapt in real time and you get feedback in days. Give them the new pitch, the objection handling and the migration line for existing customers who bought the old story, then sit in on calls for two weeks. Change the site and the collateral once the pitch has survived contact. And decide upfront what you will not change, existing customers should hear an evolution of a promise they already bought, not an announcement that they misunderstood you.

   📄 A Product Positioning Exercise A five step exercise you can actually run in a room this week, ending in the market frame of reference that makes your strengths obvious. This is t... 4 questions on positioning and messaging →
3. 3
   Brand and narrative

   The founder story as a GTM asset, a point of view that sells, and earning trust selling from India to the world.

   How much of my budget should go to brand versus demand?

   The gist Anchor on the total first: median B2B SaaS marketing spend runs around 8 percent of ARR, with venture funded companies spending roughly double what bootstrapped ones do, so know which company you are before you argue splits. Inside that, the useful question is not a ratio but a floor, a share of spend you commit to future demand and refuse to raid when a quarter looks thin. Early on, demand capture will and should dominate because you need proof the machine works at all. As pipeline coverage stabilises, shift steadily toward the 95 percent who are not in market, because that is where cheaper pipeline comes from in year three.

   📊 2026 Spending Benchmarks for Private B2B SaaS Companies Median marketing spend around 8 percent of ARR and sales around 15 percent, split by funded versus bootstrapped, from a survey of over 1,000 privat... 4 questions on brand and narrative →
4. 4
   Pricing and packaging

   What to charge, what to charge for, how to package it, and how to change it later without losing people.

   Should I price in rupees for India and dollars for everyone else?

   The gist If you sell to Indian SMEs, price in rupees, include GST in the displayed number, and support UPI and domestic cards, because dollar pricing on a card that fails on recurring charges kills conversion. If your buyer is an Indian enterprise with global operations, or your product is global first, dollars are usually fine. Expect India pricing to land meaningfully below your US list price, and think of that as segmentation rather than a discount. What you must avoid is a single global price that is simultaneously too high for Tier 2 India and too low for a US enterprise. Use geo-based pricing pages, set the expectation clearly, and make the India tier a real package rather than a cheaper version of the same thing.

   📄 SaaS Pricing in India: The Rupee vs Dollar Dilemma India Deals with the mechanics nobody else covers: UPI AutoPay versus international cards for recurring billing, GST and tax invoice differences, geo-IP ... 4 questions on pricing and packaging →
5. 5
   Partnerships and alliances

   Tech and integration partners, co-selling, co-marketing, when a partnership is real, and your first partnerships hire.

   When should we hire our first full time partnerships person, and what do we pay them?

   The gist The trigger is workload and money, not a funding round. When partner conversations stop fitting into a founder's evenings, roughly 15 to 25 active partners or 50 partner conversations a quarter, or when partner sourced revenue is already 5 to 10% of new ARR, you are late. Pay them like a seller with a longer fuse: roughly 65 to 75% base with the rest tied to partner sourced revenue plus a program health modifier, because pure sourced comp in year one pushes them toward quick referrals and away from the integrations that pay in year two. Hire someone who has done zero to one before, not someone who inherited a mature program with a team of eight.

   📄 Head of Partnerships: The 2026 Role and Hiring Guide The only guide we found with concrete hiring triggers (15 to 25 active partners, 5 to 10% of new ARR partner sourced) and a real comp split, plus a... 4 questions on partnerships and alliances →