Good morning 👋
Every now and then you read a piece that is so good that
Today we’re breaking down one of those pieces (here is the full article).
It’s about building a GTM motion from scratch, and it’s something that all investors, founders, and operators should know how to do.
Let’s get into it.
P.S. 💰 Are you a full-time investor AND do you want to get paid more?
Today’s highlights
How to build a GTM strategy from scratch
How celebrities are becoming VCs (and VCs are becoming celebrities)
The FTC goes after a challenger bank
When smart people are bad employees
TOP
How to build a GTM strategy from zero 📶
I read this piece by Maja Voje in Growth Unhinged 3x yesterday.
It’s one of the best articles I’ve read to help you think clearly about GTM, building scalable sales systems, and scaling to millions.
It’s a slow news day for venture (headlines still dominated by the election), so instead I’m recapping the biggest takeaways from this article:
Before there is an ICP, there is an Early Customer Profile: An easy way to think about this is that your early adopters are not the same as your ICP. Early adopters are easy to work with, they can self onboard, and they will usually provide great product feedback(even if you don’t ask for it). Your ICP is much harder to close, they are pitched regularly, you will often have to onboard them yourself, they require proof of work, and they would make great logos to share on your homepage.
Nail differentiated positioning by doubling down on your unique vale proposition (UVP) and unique selling proposition (USP). As barriers to entry have dropped, the value of positioning has inversely risen. The only way to stand out as a new entrant is to communicate 10x value compared to existing solutions for your target customers. Understanding the competitive alternatives, how your ICP is currently solving the problem, understand the evaluation criteria, then ask how good is an alternative in solving this problem.
Create a GTM masterplan to secure traction without breaking the bank. The prior step should give you TONS of data and signal on what is working / not working. Once you figure out what IS working, your job is to apply pressure to that strategy, and expand the GTM plan in a way that creates momentum without running out of cash.
This is the condensed version, but if you work at all within the GTM function, you should read the full piece.
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LINKS
🙅♂️ When Smart People Are Bad Employees: Ben Horowitz’s timeless observations
🥴 Why Your Product Idea Sounds Too Complicated: Andrew Chen believes when it’s easier to describe what you do, it’s more memorable, spreads faster, onboarding is more efficient and customer acquisition is cheaper
🏥 The “Why Now” for Healthcare: Digital Native discusses why healthcare finds itself at the intersection of technological, demographical and cultural shifts
⁉️ VC Pitch Questions and Answers: 4 free lists you can read if you’re a startup founder and worrying about the questions investors will ask
TWEET
HEADLINES
VC funding for European femtech reaches record heights (Pitchbook)
AI, Data Center And Energy Startups Get Large Capital Infusion In October (Crunchbase)
How celebrities became VCs and VCs became celebrities (Fortune)
The FTC comes after neobank Dave for misleading marketing, hidden fees (TechCrunch)
Faber launches third VC fund with $34M first close, aims for $64M (TechCrunch)
CHART
RECS
Superpower: The most-useful health membership I use with 100 lab tests, health dashboard, a full hour review with their medical team
POLL
What part of the company building process is the most difficult?
Thanks for reading this far and giving us a little bit of your attention this week.
Feel free to unsubscribe whenever this stops becoming valuable to you.
- Clay
RESULTS
Here are the results from our poll question in yesterday’s piece:
Who did you support in the election?
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Trump (10)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Kamala (15)
25 Votes
