The gap between strategy and reality
I have seen many go-to-market strategies in my career. Some were created by expensive consulting firms, with hundreds of pages, impressive frameworks and detailed market analyses.
Most of them were never fully implemented.
A good GTM plan fits on one page. If it needs twenty pages, it is usually too complex to live in day-to-day operations.
What really matters
First: customer segmentation that actually segments. “We target mid-sized B2B companies” is not segmentation. It is a description. Real segmentation asks: who has the problem we solve? Who suffers from it enough to act today? Who has the budget? Who decides?
Second: a clear “why us”. In an age of comparability, “good product at a good price” is not enough. What makes your solution irreplaceable for this specific customer? That is the question a GTM has to answer.
Third: the right channels, not all of them. Every company wants to be on LinkedIn, attend events, produce content and run paid ads. The result is usually mediocrity in every channel. Focusing on two or three channels that really work for your audience beats spreading thin.
The most common mistakes
Starting too late. Many companies start the GTM process when the product is finished. That is too late. Customer contact, market validation and sales preparation have to happen in parallel with product development.
Too much internal validation. The product team, management, investors, everyone is excited. But are the customers? Internal enthusiasm is not market proof.
Too little measurement. “We’re doing content marketing now” is not a strategy. How many qualified leads should content generate, and in what timeframe? No goal, no learning; no learning, no progress.
What I have learned in practice
At a scale-up where I was responsible for go-to-market, we scaled the company by 400% in nine months. The key was not a brilliant idea, it was the consistent execution of a simple plan.
We prioritised two customer segments instead of eight. We worked two channels instead of five. We measured and adjusted weekly. And we decided faster than the competition.
Simplicity beats complexity. Almost always.