How Startups Initiate Their Go-To-Market Strategy - A Panel Discussion
How Startups Initiate Their Go-To-Market Strategy - A Panel Discussion
Insights from Founders of Clodura, Predis and Gyde.
The leap from development to market success is a thrilling journey for startups. Recently, we explored it at an in-person meetup hosted in collaboration with The Product Folks in Pune, India.
We were joined by industry pioneers Tanmay Ratnaparkhe of Predis, Prasanna Vaidya of Gyde, and Kapil Khangaonkar of Clodura. These dynamic leaders shared their behind-the-scenes stories and strategies for acing their go-to-market (GTM) efforts.
Their insights offer a vibrant glimpse into how startups can tackle this critical phase with flair and finesse. Let’s hop in!
Setting Context
Predis
Business type: B2C
What It Does: Predis.ai is a social media marketing co-pilot designed to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) optimize their social media presence. It offers automation and data-driven insights to simplify social media management and enhance marketing efforts.
Challenges in Defining the Target Audience: Predis has faced challenges in clearly defining its target audience. With a current ARR of $1M, they initially adopted a broad approach. As Tanmay pointed out, focusing on high-value users—those most engaged and benefit most from the product—has become crucial for refining their target audience and product strategy.
Gyde
Business type: B2B
What It Does: Gyde is a digital adoption platform (DAP) that assists users in navigating applications with step-by-step voice guidance, bite-sized training videos, and comprehensive help articles. It is tailored for enterprise-level software to streamline user onboarding and engagement.
Challenges in Defining the Target Audience: Gyde co-designed its app with initial customers, which allowed them to align product development closely with the needs of their target audience. This collaborative approach helped them precisely define and understand their user base.
Clodura
Business type: B2B
What It Does: Clodura provides a GenAI-powered sales co-pilot that supports sales professionals by identifying decision-makers, gathering actionable sales intelligence, automating outreach campaigns, and enhancing the sales pipeline with advanced data coverage and accuracy.
Challenges in Defining the Target Audience: From the start, Clodura clearly targeted sales professionals, which streamlined their go-to-market (GTM) strategy and efforts.
Acquiring First Customers
Startups often leverage their networks to secure their initial customers. Predis, Gyde, and Clodura all followed this approach, relying on personal and professional connections to gain feedback and turn early contacts into customers. Launches on platforms like AppSumo also played a role in broadening their initial reach.
Success in the early stages was measured primarily by customer retention and feature usage, ensuring that the product met user needs and provided value. This feedback was crucial for refining their offerings and solidifying their market presence.
Customer Acquisition Channels
Predis relies on marketing and virality, utilizing in-app invitations and sharing features to drive user growth. This strategy has helped them reach a broader audience organically.
Gyde focuses on partnerships and sales. By collaborating with partners and leveraging their network and reach, they effectively target enterprises that benefit from their digital adoption platform.
Clodura employs a sales-led approach complemented by inbound marketing. Their strategy combines proactive sales efforts with inbound leads generated through their marketing initiatives, creating a robust pipeline for customer acquisition.
Activation Strategies
Predis: For Predis, transitioning users to paying customers involves a well-structured drip campaign and three defined customer journeys tailored to distinct ICP buckets. This approach ensures that users receive relevant content and offers based on their specific needs.
Gyde: The primary call to action (CTA) for Gyde is "Book a Demo," reflecting their sales-led motion. Since their target customers are often C-Suite officials from large enterprises, a hands-on demo provides a comprehensive understanding of the product's capabilities and benefits.
Clodura: Implementing a self-service sign-up option presented engineering challenges for Clodura. For example, users initially struggled with the search filter due to habits formed from using other tools. Overcoming these challenges required significant adjustments and led to a balance between marketing-driven self-service sign-ups and sales quotas.
Product-Market Fit (PMF)
Predis
Monitors key metrics for continuous improvement.
Close to achieving PMF, focusing on user engagement and satisfaction.
Future Direction: Continue to iterate based on the behavior of power users, who are the most engaged and derive the most value from the product.
Clodura
Achieving PMF is marked by customers renewing contracts for the second time.
Successfully reached PMF, indicating long-term value and satisfaction.
Future Direction: Maintain a balance between sales and marketing efforts to support both self-service sign-ups and sales-led approaches.
Gyde
Considers customer renewals as a sign of PMF.
Found PMF for the initial customer segment (0-50 customers).
Believes each growth stage requires a new PMF, and they are yet to find it as they scale to larger customer bases.
Future Direction: Continue co-designing products with customers, ensuring alignment with user needs, and gradually introduce self-serve options for supplementary products to complement the main product.
Pro Tips from the Panelists
Focus on Fewer ICPs: Instead of spreading resources thin, concentrate on solving the problems of a select group of customers deeply. This approach can lead to better product-market fit and customer satisfaction.
Invest in SEO Early: Enhancing your online visibility from the beginning can significantly boost your inbound marketing efforts and long-term growth.
Market Early and Iterate: Launching your product early allows for real-world feedback, which is invaluable for iterative development and avoiding the pitfalls of isolated product building.