GTM | Go to market for a product nobody knows about

The shape of this problem

You can demo it and people say yes, and you cannot find the next ten people to demo it to.

Anyone could use it, which in practice means nobody knows it is for them.

The price was a guess and nobody has ever pushed back on it, which is its own answer.

The site explains what it does at length and never says who it is for.

Something went out, got nothing, and you cannot tell whether it was the list or the words.

You are the only person who can explain it, so every deal needs you in the room.

Building more product is the comfortable answer and it is almost never the right one. The thing that is missing is a decision about who this is for, made narrowly enough to act on.

Narrow, say it, send it, read what came back

Four steps, and none of them takes a quarter. The point is to be wrong quickly and in a way you can learn from, rather than right in theory for six months.

Decide who

Narrow enough that you could build a list of them by hand. If you cannot name where they gather, it is not narrow enough yet.

Say it their way

The words the buyer already uses for the problem, not the words the product uses for the feature. This is most of what makes a message work.

Run one channel

One. Properly, with the list and the copy and the follow up behind it, long enough to mean something.

Read the replies

Including the no. A rejection that names a reason is the most useful thing you will get all month, and it usually changes the offer rather than the copy.

What exists at the end

+A written definition of who it is for, specific enough that someone else could build the list.
+A message that has been tested against real replies, not against internal opinion.
+One channel actually running, with the list, the copy and the follow up behind it.
+Pricing you can defend, or at least the evidence that says the current number is wrong.
+Numbers that tell you whether to do more of it or stop, which is the whole point of running it in the first place.

When this is the wrong answer

If nobody has paid yet

That is a product conversation and you should have it yourself. Marketing a thing nobody has bought once just buys you a faster no.

If you cannot change the product

What comes back from the market is usually a request to change the offer. If that is off the table, most of the value is too.

If you want a brand

Identity, naming, a look. Real work, done better by people who do only that. This is about whether strangers reply.

If you sell compliance

MSPs selling compliance framework readiness have a sharper version of this problem, and a ninety day program built for it. Start there instead.

Tell me who you think it is for

Thirty minutes. If the honest answer is that the product is not ready for this yet, you will hear that instead of a proposal.

Book a call How the work goes