Build it and they will come ... or?

Marketing simplified for go-to-market stage

Jan 18, 2024

Dear GTM Strategist!

ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January 2023, just two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. (Reuters)

Such stories are outliers.

Most founders and growth strategists struggle with getting the first 100 beta users and 10 paying clients.

“Build it and they will come” simply does not work.

Entry barriers are lower than ever (no-code tools and AI), competition is fierce and the chances of becoming the next ChatGPT are slim as an amoeba. 🧫

We have to actively promote our products and bring users to them to get data, insights and initial traction to set ourselves for success. It is unlikely that they will magically go viral.

Whenever I see GTM Strategy written like this outside the e-commerce space, I get goosebumps:

“We will work with 10 influencers and invest $2000 in Meta Ads to the first 200 buyers.”

How to do better?

🎯 Focus on what is mission critical: Do things that do not scale before you can scale them

I made a mistake once.

(OK, more than once 😅)

But this one turned out to be a valuable lesson.

Back in my 20ies, I was working in a marketing agency. A startup working on fitness tracking asked us to help them get their first 500 users and we did what we always did - ads!

What a rookie mistake!! 🙈

When we started advertising, “Mainstream users” started pouring into the application, only to see that 7% of them finished the onboarding and merely 2.6% actually took an app for a spin - did a workout.

What was so terribly wrong there?

With broad social ads, we attracted users who wanted to lose weight but did not even exercise. We burned precious marketing budgets to achieve our KPI:

“Get us 500 registrations and keep your CPI - cost per install lower than $2.”

This KPI led to suboptimal decisions.

Unfortunately, they wasted some of their precious resources, time and budgets, but this is the lesson that we learned:

It was not about the lack of Product-Market-Fit (PMF) - the issue was that we wanted to skip the rule of the game - to first learn from Early Customers.

Your early customers will:

Have high pain points - almost “shut and take my money” scenario;
Use MVPs, understand that they are not perfect yet and generously contribute feedback for you to learn from;
Happily refer the product to others, provide testimonials and help it grow.

Bottom line: Your marketing for getting the first 100 users will look a lot different from what you will do when you are thinking about how to get the next 10,000 users.

But where to find your first users?

Rule #1: Go where the audience is

Do not think of channels just yet.

Instead of juggling through YouTube Shorts, Meta ads, LinkedIn organic and Discords, let’s first agree that there are 7 GTM motions.

Not a 100% rule - but close enough: Early adopters are usually already discussing their burning pain points on social media or actively reading about it. This is a natural start not only for your research but also for your early marketing activities.

GTM teams that nail their communities get hundreds of free registrations as a reward for their valuable contribution to the community. Emphasis: valuable contribution. It is a heavy investment, but it brings long-term dividends.

The other really important GTM motion in the early stages is valuable content generation, aka Inbound. That takes even more work, but it is fantastic for positioning.

Can you do it with other motions?

Sure, as long as you have validated that they are good candidates for you using these methods.

Now, let’s bring it all together.

Rule #2: Make it Simple - 1 offer, 1 channel, 1 audience

It is very simple, yet difficult to do. FOCUS.

In GTM, we are operating on very scarce resources, and every waste is costly to us.

Yet, we have to find a channel, which will predictably work for us.

The biggest mistake we can make is to spread ourselves too thin.

There is always some “latest and greatest channel” - thanks, Hubspot, for feeding my FOMO for more than a decade! ✌️

Take a deep breath, and don’t do it (just yet).

You and I have to stay focused on what is mission-critical based on our knowledge of the audience.

When I launched my best-selling book, the GTM Strategist, we had:

1 Audience: Founders, Product and Growth Leaders responsible for GTM

1 Offer: Online book for $10 & physical copy for $27 (get your copy here)

1 Channel: LinkedIn organic, where we were creating demand for the launch

This is it.

No YouTube shorts, no cold outreach, no paid ads.

The launch was 100% organic.

The simplicity of this plan allowed us to go all-in, reach over 1,000,000 people during the launch, and make it a smashing success.

Now, we reinvest earnings into paid channels and building additional assets.

There is time and space for everything.

Your turn (answer in comments if you can):

Listen to the latest GTM Strategist podcast episode with Alexander Estner (Apple Podcasts | Spotify). We discussed mental barriers, misconceptions, and tackled other GTM myths, such as “We do not have any competition” and “Free trial will fix everything”.
What is mission-critical for you now? If you are thinking of getting 500 beta testers, your plan will be different from raising sales to the enterprise for 10% in Q1 - stop worrying about “how to do marketing perfect” - first do what is mission critical.
Which channels are right for your business? Have you asked your customers yet? Did you research what works well for your competitors?

My turn:

Do you have a cool story to share or a question? Ping me on LinkedIn.
Up for 350 more pages of Go-to-Market best practices? The GTM Strategist book has been out for two months now. Get your copy on Amazon or write to us at order@gtmstrategist.com to get your copy.

“Times have changed, and so have the strategies required to become successful with new products and services. I feel like Maja has been on the cutting edge of such changes and is well-positioned to share everything that only someone who has rolled up her sleeves would be able to do. This book is an MBA in itself that can save you uncountable hours and money on your next GTM phase.”

Pedro Clivati, Head of Growth at Growth at GrowthHackers, verified Amazon review.

Are you ready to dive deeper and work on your Go-To-Market strategy and execution?

Discover my solutions that support your journey from launching to scaling:

🛰️ Explorer: Understand Go-To-Market and develop a winning GTM plan.
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I hope you enjoyed this one!

Hit heart on Substack ❤️ and send it to someone who could benefit from it.

Let’s go to market 🚀!

Maja