Countersign Go to Market Strategy Made Easy

Countersign go to market strategy

this video was brought to you by slide bean founders edition get help from our team in your pitch take your financial models and your fundraising sign up with the link in the description a few months ago we did a great collaboration with steve barks from dream adventures the idea behind that video was getting into one of the most common mistakes we see in pitch decks the market slide and the total addressable market calculation steve insisted on another common problem with the pitch decks that they receive at dreamint the go to market slide steve is one of the managing partners at dream it and an investor himself so there's no one better to tell you what investors expect to see on a deck [Music] thanks kaia for having me go to market strategy a super important item investors really want to understand yet most startups don't really know what the term means they struggle to describe their go to market strategy in a clear and focused manner investors want to see a well thought through efficient go to market strategy and initial customer segmentation so they know when they invest the startup will be focused on early customer segments that they can win most easily using the fewest resources usually when i ask a startup about their go to market strategy i'll hear an answer like well we're doing direct sales or we'll do online sales those are not go to market strategies those are sales tactics let's dive in so you know how to tackle this and blow investors away i hope you like this video and if you do please like and subscribe to the slide bean and dream adventures youtube channels startups need to focus when it comes to your go to market strategy you need to focus your time energy and resources on customer segments where you can get traction and revenue as quickly and efficiently as possible for that you need a well-thought-through go-to-market strategy that includes great customer targeting criteria in order to determine your criteria i want you to think about your go to market strategy like you're going fishing why because i love to fish and most importantly i love to catch fish oh and fishing makes a great analogy in fishing you want to fish where the fish are you want to get fish in your boat when you go out you should be asking yourself this question what am i fishing for and most importantly why for example are you going big game fishing for tuna far offshore why is it you want to catch really big fish you love the fight it's exciting if so you have to be okay with the fact that you may catch nothing there are few tuna out there in the ocean they're 100 miles offshore and often far between one another your boat may run out of gas before you even catch a single tuna but if you do hook in whoa it's gonna be great so your criteria as to why is as follows you want big fish you love a big fight it's exciting and you don't care if you catch nothing so that's your criteria that you have to be comfortable with this is what's called a trophy focused strategy we see it a lot with startups startups try to put a logo wall in their pitch deck filled with trophy fish logos but those trophy fish are hard to find hook and catch the sales cycle for these trophy fish is super long and it's really hit or miss it's the classic 12 to 18 month sales cycle which is really hard to pull off if you only have 18 months of runway also known as your boat runs out of gas before you catch a tuna what if you change your going fishing strategy and take a different approach how about going for a different type of fish that are in the bay close to shore easy to catch easy to boat they're not as big cool and sexy as tuna but you know what you're catching fish and not spending as much time fuel and resources so now my criteria may be close to shore easy to catch smaller size higher quantity and less resource intensive and hey speaking of resources that boat and gas i might not need them at all i could just bootstrap my fishing trip and fish off the dock it's not cool it's not sexy but you know what i'm catching fish kind of like closing customers so my question for you is this if you think about customers like fish what are you fishing for and why those types of customers what characteristics do those customers have that are so appealing the easiest way to figure this out is build your initial customer segment litmus test when you dip your litmus paper in this test has specific characteristics that help you identify the early customer types you should be going after this helps you form the core of your initial go to market strategy so how do you create a litmus test start thinking i know i'm looking at a great customer if they exhibit what characteristics so maybe it's things like the problem you solve takes away a searing pain point and fits exceptionally well with this target customer segment or these early customers will close more quickly as the buyer is usually also the decision maker maybe there's a geographic component all of our customers will be within driving distance that way we can get to them easily have face-to-face interactions and get direct feedback build strong relationships and stay close maybe it's that your price point aligns perfectly with their typical budgets and spending patterns overall think about the markets customers and segments where you can push sand down a hill not up these are segments where your targeting criteria are ridiculously well aligned and you can close customers and build revenue quickly through shorter sales cycles faster adoption and stronger growth with this litmus test you should be able to create a coherent go to market strategy that makes it clear to investors that your startup will be focused on early customer segments that you can win efficiently and this approach is not just for your initial go to market strategy sometimes called a beachhead strategy you can repeat this process to identify your follow-up markets in priority order that way when you speak to investors you can describe how your customer segments and market will evolve over time while at the same time discussing the marketing and sales tactics that you'll employ to execute your go to market strategy remember if your strategy is not finely tuned for all the right reasons the tactics will be a waste of time you'll burn up all your fuel trying to catch the wrong fish i hope you liked this video and if you did please like and subscribe to both the slide bean and dream adventures youtube channels thanks for watching [Music] bye