We often think of go-to-market strategy (GTM) as something that requires a lot of resources - from strategy consultants to in-depth research, maybe ads teams and growth specialists as well, and picture a confusing tangle of spreadsheets, graphs, and unexplained numbers.

In reality, it often looks more like one early-stage founder, sitting on her laptop alone, bracing herself to click a button to publish something while desperately hoping for success, followed by the strategy of either ignoring or impulsively checking all notifications.

GTM is vital - after all, it’s the only way that customers will know that your product exists, let alone how to buy it. It can, however, feel intimidating to set up. At our recent cohort day, we were delighted to have Helen Nguyen speaking on this exact topic. With a background of expertise within growth and GTM, including heading international expansion for HelloFresh and achieving incredible results, her insights were extremely helpful and well-tested.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach or scientific formula for GTM, there are more and less helpful ways to approach it, and Helen’s talk highlighted some important frameworks that we thought were beneficial to share.

So if you’re an early-stage founder ready to go to market for the very first time, don’t panic, take a read, and get ready for the journey!

First things first: When are you ready to go to market?

GTM should happen only after you’ve defined your ICP - that’s your ideal customer profile, so the person you want to buy or use your product. If you don’t have an idea of this yet, then you probably need to spend some time working that out, rather than jumping straight into GTM. You also need to have figured out your value proposition - that’s what you’re selling and why you’re selling it, or what problem your product is solving.

If you’ve got those down, then it’s time to go. GTM is a process that helps your ICP understand, trust, and buy your product. It’s how you connect your product and solution to the people you want to use it.

It’s important to remember that GTM is a way for you to find product-market fit. It’s not something you need before you start - in fact, it’s almost impossible to have before you start. For an early-stage founder, GTM is a sprint. It’s scrappy. It’s not a perfect launch plan, and you don’t need to have everything in place.

What does go-to-market involve?

While the exact details of your GTM plan will differ depending on your product, audience, value proposition, and competition (amongst others!), there are a few key components that every founder needs to consider:

1. Channel: By this, we mean, where does your ICP hang out? Are you likely to find them on LinkedIn, or are they Instagram users? Or are they in a completely different space and better reached in community-based platforms or forums? It’s best to think creatively in this way; while right now you’re probably not going to be spending money on ads or influencers, you can still get a sense of where your customers are - and where they aren’t. Get familiar with the places they hang out!

2. What makes your customers care? Your product or solution has value; but how do you communicate this in a way which is impactful and makes it worth caring about? It’s important to try different tactics here, and see how people respond to them. You may think you know what the key messages behind your solution are - but your audience might have different opinions. Trialling different types of messaging can help you see which are the most persuasive or find new angles.

3. How do you signal value? And how much are people actually willing to pay? Figuring out pricing is always tricky, and no one gets it right from the beginning. It may be necessary to isolate different parts of the solution and see the reactions in order to gauge the right way forwards. It will take some iterations in order to really understand your costs and margins - that’s to be expected.

4. Who is your competition? Where are they? What are they doing? In the early stages, it’s best to think broadly about this - if there doesn’t seem to be a direct competitor, how else are things being done? Whatever problem your solution solves, it is currently being handled in a different way; sometimes the biggest competitor is an old-fashioned habit, such as using an analyst or external person, just because ‘we’ve always done it this way’.

5. KPIs: KPIs are vital for understanding success and measuring how your strategy is going. It’s better to think of them as signals and signposts for what’s working and what’s not, and whether you need to move in a different direction. It’s best to think simple in the early stages, such as sending 10 DMs or making one call in a week. If this signal gets confirmation, for example, you send 20 DMs, receive 3 replies, and book one call, then this indicates there’s real interest from your IVP.

At this stage, the most important thing for your GTM is that it’s a start. It’s about getting moving and laying the foundation for future scaling. It’s about testing and learning. It’s about getting going and adapting accordingly.

Early go-to-market tactics can be low budget

GTM might seem like something you need specialist resources for, but you can actually make a significant amount of progress on your own, with minimal budget spend. There’s a significant amount of work you can do on your own, without needing to spend anything.

With a focus on channels and KPIs, you can use tangible tools and see actionable results really easily. It does, however, require a fair amount of personal hustle!

Some of the more affordable ways you can start your outreach include: warm or cold messaging - you can send DMs, use LinkedIn, or even ask your friends to introduce you to people who are in the correct demographic. If you can get email addresses, that’s even better, but for early-stage GTM testing, this is a better approach than paying for ads upfront.

It’s also a good idea to join communities where your audience spends time, which could be anything from LinkedIn groups to subreddits full of complaints. Going in and joining the conversation, understanding pain points, and adding value puts you in a good place to later be able to request product testing and feedback.

Creating a landing page early, for example on Wix, is a good digital smoke test, which doesn’t require design or copywriting skills. The landing page needs to very clearly show what the problem is, as well as what solution your product offers. It’s vital that there’s also a CTA, whether that’s signing up for a mailing list, or a webinar, for example. Having a CTA is important in order to gauge interest levels (do people want to learn more or be updated?) and to test which messaging works.

Having a pilot offer, such as a free trial or a discount, is a good way to put your product out there, understand how it works in the wild, and garner feedback. From these learnings, you can build towards product market fit better and faster than you would be able to without input. Even receiving limited (or no!) results is an excellent learning - you can tell where people aren’t spending time or which messaging doesn’t resonate with them, and use that knowledge to adapt your strategy going forward.

Elements of your plan will evolve over time - when this happens based on learning, you’re only going to improve. There’s no perfect solution, no perfect product, and no perfect way to go about go-to-market, but the best way to get started is to go out there and start testing.

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