THE STARTUP JOURNEY / 04 / Go-to-market
Can demand become repeatable revenue?
Connect a precise audience, a credible promise, and a sales motion that works.
Evidence that counts
Qualified demand, conversion, onboarding success, customer retention, and channel economics.
Signals to question
Traffic, impressions, followers, and a pipeline with no buying process.
The principal risk
Scaling acquisition before customers reliably receive value.
Your decision gate
Can the team repeat acquisition and delivery with acceptable economics?
The next proof
Run one focused channel experiment for one segment. Track the path from response to retained customer.
Set the success criterion
Agree conversion, retention, and acquisition-cost limits before increasing spend.
Do not do yet
Broad campaigns, multiple new channels, and a large sales team.
Choose the decision the evidence supports
Proceed when the gate is met. Iterate when the approach needs changing. Stop the current path when evidence undermines it. If observations are missing or conflicting, record insufficient evidence and define the next test.
Connect the decision to capital
Account for the cost of the next experiment, the time it consumes, and the commitments it creates. Product, commercial, and ownership decisions should be assessed together. Use specialist review where technical, financial, or legal judgement is required.