Minimum Viable GTM

Three conditions must be true before you send a single outbound email or run a single ad. First, your ICP must be specific enough to build a list from: if you cannot filter a LinkedIn Sales Navigator search to your ICP in under 10 minutes, it is not specific enough. Good ICP: 'VP Sales at Series B SaaS, 10-50 AEs, Salesforce user, US-based.' Bad ICP: 'sales leaders at growing software companies.' Second, your core message must pass the 'so what' test: state your value proposition in one sentence and ask a non-customer to tell you back what you do. If they cannot, your message fails. Third, you must have at least 3 reference customers willing to speak to prospects. Without reference customers, your conversion from demo to close will be below 10% regardless of how good your product is.

Before you hire your first SDR or AE, you must be able to measure whether they are performing. This requires four things: a CRM with stage-based deal tracking, defined lead and opportunity criteria (so everyone means the same thing when they say 'opportunity'), baseline conversion rates for each funnel stage, and a CAC calculation you trust. On CAC: many founders undercount by using only direct ad spend and ignoring SDR salaries, tools, and management time. If your CAC payback period is over 24 months, you should not be scaling headcount — you should be fixing pricing or segmentation. Also required: a closed-loop process where every lost deal has a documented reason. This data is what your forecasting and coaching will be built on.

The most common scaling mistake: founders increase spend on a motion that only works because they are personally involved. Before spending more, you must demonstrate that the motion is founder-independent. Run the motion for 30 days with a non-founder executing it. Measure: does the close rate stay above 15%? Does the meeting quality (measured by opportunity creation rate) stay above 20% of meetings held? Does the pipeline generation rate stay within 20% of the founder-run baseline? If any of these drop significantly, you have founder dependency, not a repeatable motion. Fix: build a sales playbook, shadow deals with the new hire for 2 weeks, and implement a deal qualification checklist. Spending on a founder-dependent motion creates expensive problems — you will hire people, watch performance disappoint, and blame the hires rather than the process.

Minimum Viable GTM Checklist: a 12-item pass/fail scorecard with a fix prescription for each failed item, a readiness score (0-12), and a prioritized action plan template for getting to 12/12 before scaling spend.