Startup go-to-market strategy to rein in your boss and get closer to the numbers.

Jul 12

Picture it: you’re sitting in a meeting with the founding team who are presenting their forecast numbers for the next year. The numbers are high. Really high. Like… impossibly high.

Then they’re asked, ‘how did you get to the numbers?’

‘I’m not really a details person, but I know there’s a very real problem that needs to be solved here’, says the founder.

Reader: at this point, if you’ve just joined a startup, alarm bells should be going off.

This exchange may be followed afterwards, when you’re pulled to one side to get the strategy in place, with something along the lines of:

‘Oh - and, by the way - there’s no budget for marketing at this point. Once we’ve got a few sales in, then we can talk about it, but the focus needs to be around getting the product right’.

Gah.

Maybe this sounds familiar?

Perhaps you’ve been that first marketer who, after lifting the bonnet and having a look, you realise there’s no go-to-market plan.

What happens when you realise it’s on your shoulders to create it, to help validate the startup idea and rein in your boss by presenting them with the cold hard facts.

And they say marketing’s all about painting pretty pictures.

The founders’ main role is to sell the dream and to create the vision.

Working out the size of the market opportunity there is - digging deep into the size of the serviceable market - that’s the part that isn’t as fun, but is vital. And, as an early stage employee or marketer, it’s likely something you will get involved in.

Your go-to-market strategy cannot be an afterthought, left in the board minutes.

Creating and getting buy-in for your startup's go-to-market strategy can be more difficult than you’d expect.

Some founding teams can be obsessed with getting the product just right.

Some dismiss the importance of marketing because they don’t quite get marketing’s aim: to drive profitable action.

And, if you’re a new marketer or new to working with a startup, it can be really hard to get your point across that go-to-market strategy is imperative to building product market fit.

In fact, not thinking about it is one of the reasons why startups fail.

I get a messages through to this site now, which is nice that these things are resonating, of course, but it also highlights the very real challenge facing startup marketers looking to prove their worth to founders.

That’s why I’ve started to create a series of downloadable resources such as the Early-Stage Startup Marketing Playbook: GTM edition and now offer go-to-market strategy for pre-launch startups.

(It’s okay, plug over).

What is a startup go-to-market strategy?

A go-to-market strategy for startups is a way of bringing your new product to market. It involves identifying and finding the right customers for your business, and building the right channels to reach and sell to them.

The difference between this and a marketing plan is this: a go-to-market strategy focuses on the new, so that could be launching a new business or launching a new product to a new customer segment.

Marketing strategy, on the other hand, is about achieving long term objectives, it’s ongoing, and it focuses on delivering your value proposition over a longer period of time. It builds upon the good stuff you’ve already learned about your customers.

The biggest mistake startups make with their go-to-market strategies is assuming the go-to-market part comes after a product / MVP is built.

They needs to happen at the same time.
Building your startup go-to-market strategy and your product need to happen in tandem.

It takes time to learn who is likely to be the right customers to go after, whilst learning what they will respond to, and in which channels you can grab their attention.

It literally is not a case of chucking some Facebook advertising. That’s not marketing. That’s not a go-to-market strategy. That’s just foolish.

Go to Market Strategy Marc Andreesen.png

Marketing needs to be involved in, and influence product development. It needs to be involved as soon as possible. The insights they get from potential customers will shape the product, what it will help them to become, and how it will be distributed.

Takeaway: go-to-market strategy takes time. Translate this into something your founder will understand - give them rough timelines, steps that would be involved in learning this stuff, how many customers you need to talk to. Give them examples, not theoretical fluff so they start taking it seriously.

The 12 steps in a startup go-to-market strategy:

Identify who you are selling to
Create buyer personas based on the customer segments you’re targeting
Ask your potential customers the right questions to unlock why they would buy from you
Develop your value propositions, positioning and key messages
Identify how to find and reach your segments
Learn about the different 19 channels available to market to your audience
Understand which your audience uses to learn and buy products like yours
Understand what your current capability/resources to explore one or more channels
Determine your pricing model
Work out the right metrics, based on the stage of your startup, to use to achieve growth
Work out the market opportunity, looking at total, serviceable and obtainable data
Pull all this lovely stuff together and overlay with your business model.

As the marketer, your role is to help push this forward, to drive action needed. It’s up to you to ensure that customer research interviews are happening every single month.

It’s up to you to ask potential customers what channels they use to learn about and purchase a product like yours. It’s up to you to work out how painful is the problem they are attempting to solve.

Without keeping this momentum up, without learning how a potential customer may derive value from your startup’s product - you’re always going to be a few steps behind the business that does put in this hard work.

Go on then; get to work!