What Is Go-to-Market?
(The Real Answer, Not the MBA One)
Found these gems on Reddit, still laughing out loud.
I've been part of 10+ startups. Consulted for 50 more. And I can tell you one thing: the confusion isn't a joke. It's very much real.
Every article you read will tell you something different. Introduce 64 jargons and do nothing for you except leaving you more confused than you were before.
So let me try differently.
First — Let's Kill the Confusion
GTM is not marketing. GTM is not sales. Marketing and sales are parts of your GTM — like an engine and wheels are parts of a car. But neither one is the car.
Marketing
- Creates awareness & demand
- Ongoing — never stops
- Builds the brand over time
- Reaches the 95% not yet buying
- Content, ads, community, SEO
Sales
- Converts demand into revenue
- Ongoing — never stops
- Works the pipeline
- Closes the 5% who are ready
- Demos, calls, proposals, negotiation
GTM
- The entire strategy — who, what, how, why
- Specific to a launch or market entry
- Coordinates product, marketing, sales, pricing
- Decides which 5% to target & how
- The plan that makes everything else make sense
Think of it this way:
Marketing is how you talk. Sales is how you close. GTM is why you're in the room in the first place.
Marketing and sales are always-on functions. They run continuously. But GTM is strategic and specific— it activates when you're entering a new situation:
New product → Existing market
An established clothing brand launching a line of beauty products. You have customers — but they don't know you for this.
Existing product → New market
A local SaaS tool expanding from India to SEA. The product works — but the market doesn't know you.
New product → New market
A startup launching its first app. Nobody knows you. Nobody knows the category. Maximum GTM risk.
Every time you enter one of these situations, you need a GTM strategy. Not a marketing plan. Not a sales target. A strategy— who are we selling to, why will they care, how will they find us, and what's the plan to make it all work together.
The Pattern I Keep Seeing
Across those 50+ startups I've worked with, the same movie plays out. You tell me if it sounds familiar.
A founder has a vision. They see a problem, they see the product that solves it. Clear as day. So they build.
Especially now, with tools like Claude Code, the building part is faster than it's ever been. So everyone's heads-down building — shipping features, perfecting the product, obsessing over the tech. Because that's the fun part. That's the part that feels like progress.
Without giving a singular thought to: "Who's our customer? How do we price this? Which channels do we use? This is the revenue target, doable right?"
And then the product is ready. It works. It's real. And nobody knows it exists.
That's when the panic starts.
A check-in with the VP of Growth: "We need to sell this product." Then a meeting with the salesperson: "Go get us $$$$$ in revenue."More often than not, these discussions start after the product is made. And that's even worse.
A startup I was consulting for came to me one day. They'd just built a new feature — something their competitors were shipping, something the market was buzzing about. They walked in with a revenue target and said: "This is the number we need to hit. Here's the feature. Now sell it."
I asked: "Who do you want to sell it to?"
Blank stares.
"Why did we build this feature?"
"Because everyone else was building it."
A feature built because competitors have it. No idea who it's for. A revenue target pulled from a board deck. And someone is supposed to "make it happen."
That's not GTM.