Go-to-market strategy
Taking an offer to a market.
ICP, positioning, segmentation and channel mix, for new offerings and new-market entries — the work of deciding who to win first, why they would care, and how they would hear about it.
What it turned on
A go-to-market plan was a sequence of bets about who was easiest to win and hardest to lose, and the bets were usually wrong in the same direction: too broad, too early. What worked started narrow — the one segment where the offer was unarguable — and widened only once the motion had repeated somewhere.
How it went
Four moves, in order.
Picking the wedge
Mapping the market and choosing the segment where willingness-to-pay, urgency and reachability lined up at once. Two of the three was not enough.
Sharpening the positioning
Refining it until it was a sentence the buyer would say back to you unprompted.
Choosing channels by economics
Where that buyer actually was, at a cost that compounded — rather than whatever was in fashion that year.
Instrumenting the motion
So the second launch was cheaper than the first, and the third cheaper again. Most of the value was here and almost none of the attention was.
Contact
Say what you're working on.
Research, a guest lecture, or a question worth thinking about. A few lines is enough to start.
Get in touch →