Go-To-Market
Go-to-market is how a product reaches the people who need it, and what it costs to get it there. It covers the motion you choose, sales-led or product-led or something in between, the channels you bet on, and the economics that decide whether growth compounds or just consumes cash. The concepts here cover those motions and the vocabulary investors use when they ask how you will actually sell this.
15 concepts in Go-To-Market
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)The total sales and marketing cost of acquiring one new customer, over a defined period.
- CAC Payback PeriodHow long it takes for the gross profit from a customer to repay what you spent acquiring them.
- User, Buyer, and ChampionThree roles that are often three different people: the one who uses the product daily, the one who controls the money, and the one who argues for it internally.
- Beachhead MarketA deliberately narrow first market chosen because you can dominate it, not because it is the biggest, but because winning it makes the next market easier.
- Product-Led vs. Sales-Led GrowthTwo ways customers arrive: the product sells itself through direct use (product-led), or people sell it through conversations (sales-led).
- Messaging vs. PositioningPositioning is the strategic claim about where you sit relative to alternatives; messaging is the specific words you use to make that claim land with a given audience.
- Sales Pipeline StagesThe named, ordered steps a prospective deal moves through from first contact to closed, each stage defined by a specific action the prospect has taken, not by how the seller feels about the deal.
- Channel StrategyThe deliberate choice of which paths (direct sales, self-serve, partnerships, marketplaces, resellers) you'll use to reach and sell to customers, made before spending on any of them.
- Inbound vs. Outbound SalesInbound sales responds to prospects who found you and expressed interest first; outbound sales initiates contact with prospects who have not.
- Land and ExpandA go-to-market strategy that deliberately sells a small initial deal to get inside an account, then grows the relationship (more seats, more usage, more departments) after the product has proven itself.
- Sales Qualified Lead vs. Marketing Qualified LeadAn MQL has shown enough interest (downloaded something, attended a webinar, fit firmographic criteria) to be worth marketing's continued attention; an SQL has been vetted by a human as having a real, timely problem and budget, and is ready for a sales conversation.
- Customer Success vs. Account ManagementCustomer success is measured by whether the customer achieves the outcome they bought the product for; account management is measured by the commercial health and growth of the account, renewal, upsell, contract terms.
- Founder-Led SalesThe founder doing the selling personally, because at this stage nobody else can credibly promise what the product will become or change it fast enough when a prospect explains why they will not buy.
- Customer ReferenceAn existing customer who will speak to a prospect about their own experience. It is the most persuasive asset an early company has, because it is the one claim the company is not making about itself.
- WedgeThe narrow first use case a company leads with, small enough to be obviously worth buying and positioned so that succeeding at it earns the right to expand into the larger problem.
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