What founders get wrong about GTM: 50+ launch lessons

Most founders we meet have the same problem: they’ve built something brilliant, but they’re haemorrhaging money on a go-to-market strategy that isn’t working. Founders rush to scale before validating demand, burn budgets on marketing before proving they can sell, and track metrics that make them feel good rather than ones that predict revenue.

The result? Failed launches, wasted resources, and products that never find their market.

Here’s what we’ve learned, the mistakes that kill GTM strategies and the 3-phase framework that actually works.

The 5 GTM mistakes we see founders make

1. Marketing before you can sell

This is the most expensive mistake we see. Founders spend tens of thousands on Google Ads and content marketing before they’ve figured out their pitch, their pricing, or even who their ideal customer is. They generate website traffic and leads, but their sales team can’t close anyone.

No amount of traffic fixes a weak sales process. Founders should lead sales in the early days, refining messaging based on real conversations, not assumptions. 

2. Pricing based on guesswork, not data

Pricing too high scares customers away. Pricing too low undermines your value and kills margins. We see both mistakes derail launches regularly.

The most common pattern? Founders price based on what “feels right” rather than testing with real customers. They launch at one price point, get poor conversion, and either panic or stubbornly stick with their original number. Testing different pricing models before committing serious budget prevents costly mistakes. Your pricing should reflect value, match what your target market will pay, and maintain healthy unit economics.

3. Launching before product-market fit

“Build it and they’ll come” is a myth that’s killed more startups than bad code ever has.

The biggest cost of premature launches is the momentum lost when you launch to silence. You only get one first impression with your market.

Founders spend months building features nobody asked for, launch with fanfare, and discover their product solves a problem nobody cares about. Startups often wait too long perfecting their product, but when they do launch, they haven’t validated the core problem-solution fit. You learn more in the market than you ever will in planning mode, but only if you’re testing the right assumptions.

4. Spreading too thin across channels

The pattern is consistent: founders try to be everywhere at once. LinkedIn, Google Ads, content marketing, Facebook, Instagram, cold email, all running simultaneously with insufficient budget or focus to generate meaningful data from any single channel.

Successful launches typically focus on one or two channels initially, achieve excellence there, then expand based on success patterns. Better to excel at content marketing and LinkedIn than be mediocre across six channels.

5. Tracking vanity metrics instead of what matters

Website traffic feels good. Social media followers look impressive. But neither predicts revenue.

The metrics that matter are the ones that predict revenue: activation rates, payback periods, and retention cohorts. We’ve watched founders celebrate growing newsletter lists while their business burns through runway with single-digit trial-to-paid conversion rates.

Our 3-phase launch framework

After 50+ launches, we’ve refined our approach to three distinct phases. Most founders try to do all three simultaneously, that’s the mistake.

Phase 1: Validate (4-8 weeks)

Validation confirms market demand exists before you build anything substantial. This phase is about conversations, not campaigns.

What happens: 10-15 deep customer interviews, problem validation, small-scale solution tests, and messaging experiments.

Success criteria: 60%+ of interviews confirm the problem is urgent and expensive; early customers willing to pre-pay or commit to beta testing; clear patterns in how customers describe their pain points.

Resource allocation: Founder-led, minimal budget (€2,000-€5,000)

Before any GTM work begins, we walk founders through structured validation. It helps answer critical questions: Who’s the customer? What problem are you solving? Why now? Most founders skip this step, and pay for it later with poor product-market fit.

The goal is pattern recognition. When 60-70% of your target customers describe the same pain point in similar language, you’ve found something worth building.

Phase 2: Test (8-12 weeks)

Testing means running small experiments across channels, pricing, and messaging before committing to scale.

What happens: Beta launches with 20-50 early customers, A/B testing on landing pages and email sequences, channel experiments, and pricing model validation.

Success criteria: Customer acquisition cost under 12-month payback; 70%+ of beta customers renew or convert to paid; one or two channels showing clear ROI.

Resource allocation: Small GTM team (2-3 people), €10,000-€30,000 budget

We never scale what we haven’t tested. Every successful launch starts with small bets and clear learning loops.

This is where most founders want to rush. They see early traction and immediately want to hire sales teams, launch marketing campaigns, and scale distribution. But scaling untested channels is how you burn €50,000 learning what a €5,000 experiment would have taught you.

Phase 3: Scale (3-6 months)

Scaling happens only when you have repeatable processes and proven unit economics. Too many founders scale too early and burn through runway.

When to trigger: Repeatable sales process (multiple reps hitting quota); positive unit economics (CAC payback under 12 months); 100+ customers with consistent usage patterns; low churn in the first 90 days.

Resource allocation: Full GTM team (5-8 people), €50,000+ budget

What we’re testing now: With the rise of LLM-powered search and AI assistants, we’re experimenting with new attribution models and credibility signals for our content. How do we ensure our expertise surfaces in ChatGPT and Perplexity results? We’re testing structured data, authoritative source citations, and experience-driven content formats. Early signals suggest first-person accounts with verifiable case studies perform significantly better than generic advice.

Success metrics that actually matter

Based on our 50+ launches, here are the metrics that consistently predict success:

Leading indicators: Product qualified lead conversion rate, activation rate (users reaching “aha moment”), sales cycle length by segment, customer acquisition cost trends.

Lagging indicators: Customer lifetime value (LTV), net revenue retention (NRR), monthly recurring revenue growth, CAC payback period.

The single most predictive metric we track? Activation rate, the moment users experience core value. Companies that optimise for activation see significantly higher retention rates than those focused purely on acquisition volume.

When to scale vs validate

The pressure to scale is intense. Investors want growth. Competitors are launching. Your team is eager to move fast.

But scaling before validation is expensive. Here’s how we advise founders:

Clear signals you’re ready to scale: Three or more sales reps consistently hitting quota; CAC payback period under 12 months; 100+ customers with similar usage patterns; positive unit economics validated over three months; low churn rate (under 15% in first 90 days).

Signals you need more validation: Inconsistent customer feedback on value proposition; high churn in the first 90 days (above 25%); founder-dependent sales process; unclear ideal customer profile.

The biggest mistake we see is founders scaling distribution before they’ve proven demand. You can’t market your way out of a product-market fit problem.

Key takeaways

After 50+ product launches, here’s what works:

1. Sell before you market. Prove your sales process manually before spending on campaigns.
2. Test pricing systematically. Run experiments with real customers, not spreadsheets.
3. Validate demand first. Build only after you’ve confirmed people will pay.
4. Focus channels ruthlessly. Excel at one or two channels before expanding.
5. Track predictive metrics. CAC, activation rate, and retention matter more than traffic.

Ready to validate your product idea before committing to a full GTM strategy? Download our Product Development Workbook, it’s the same framework we use with clients to test assumptions and validate demand before launch.

Building your first GTM strategy or refining an existing one? Let’s discuss what’s working in your market.