Avoiding the Pitfalls and Seizing the Opportunities in Crafting a Go-to-Market Strategy for a Startup Technology Company
By Lyn Blanchard, FCMC
Launching a new technology company is an exhilarating journey filled with both promise and peril. Among the most critical determinants of success is the Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy, the comprehensive plan that defines how a product reaches its target customers and scales revenue. A well-crafted GTM strategy aligns the company’s product, marketing, sales, and customer success teams toward a common goal: market penetration, adoption, and growth. Yet, despite its importance, many startups falter at this stage, often due to missteps that are ...
Find Your Beachhead: The Smart Way to Launch a Startup in a Crowded Market
By Lyn Blanchard FCMC
In the world of tech startups, ambition is never in short supply. Founders are wired to think big, aim high, and talk in total addressable markets. But the truth is, no startup—no matter how brilliant—launches into the full market on day one.
Instead, the most successful founders do something counterintuitive: they narrow their focus. They pick a small, specific, under-served segment of the market—what military strategists might call a beachhead—and go all in.
It’s a strategy made famous by Geoffrey Moore’s classic Crossing the ...
Before You Build: Why Validating the Problem Is the Startup Step You Can’t Afford to Skip
By Lyn Blanchard, FCMC
In the race to launch a startup, most founders are product people at heart. They dream in features, design mockups, and sprint through backlogs with contagious optimism. But somewhere in the frenzy of building the “next big thing,” a fundamental question gets skipped:
Does anyone truly care about this problem we’re solving?
It’s a dangerous assumption—and one that has quietly sunk countless startups.
Validating the problem, not the solution, is the real first act of a successful go-to-market strategy. Yet in the rush to ship an ...
Know Thy Customer: The First—and Most Overlooked—Step in Startup Success
By Lyn Blanchard, FCMC
In the early rush of launching a technology startup, founders are often swept up in the thrill of building. The code is shipping, the landing page is live, and beta users are trickling in. But beneath the excitement, one critical question often remains unresolved: Who, exactly, are we building this for?
If you're a founder and can't answer that in a sentence or two, you're not alone. The truth is that many early-stage startups launch without clearly defining their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), a strategic oversight that can quietly sabotage ...
What’s holding you back?
One of the most amazing stories I read in 2012 was about Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic free fall from a specially made helium balloon. He is an example of habits for business success. His successful jump from 128,100 feet / 39.040 meters on October 14 broke several records not the least of which was becoming the first person in free fall to break the speed of sound - exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier flying in an experimental rocket-powered airplane.
Check this short video clip and see what I mean -
Felix had a vision all his life of ...
Why you need a strategic vision
Let’s step back for a moment from the practical and expedient work we do every day and wear a philosophical hat for a moment. Let’s look to examine the deeper motives that drive us in being a successful entrepreneur. Let's look a why we need a strategic vision.
As we all know, and surely realize, many people often have lofty ideas and set lofty goals. We do so because there is a greater purpose in much we strive to do, even though it is not always or immediately apparent.
Before we dig deep into our “selves” to see what greater motives lie ...
