Are you pre-revenue and trying to figure out how to get your first customers? After advising dozens of early-stage startups at UC Berkeley’s Skydeck incubator, I find myself repeating the same advice on go-to-market (GTM) strategy (that is, the process of getting your first product “out there” and getting your first customer and first sales). Here’s what I tell those startups:
1. Target one customer segment first (yes, just one)
Your product probably has a dozen plausible applications across many different customer types. It can feel smart to keep your options open — why close any doors?
But selling to everyone is selling to no one. Rather, you need to identify and target a “beachhead” customer segment. Ideally, this is a target customer with a massive, unaddressed pain point and that includes many customers with the ability and strong desire to pay for your solution on an ongoing basis.
Write down your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): B2C or B2B? What are their biggest problems? What does a typical customer look like? Then focus on that segment — and specific individual prospects within it — until you’ve proven your product has real legs.
One more thing: these target customers must actually have the money and motivation to pay you directly. Products that depend on building a network of direct and indirect customers before they deliver value are notoriously hard to market and scale. Don’t go there if you can avoid it.
Remember that your goal is to launch and build your business, not just make revenue by hook or by crook. So don’t get distracted by oddball opportunities that fall in your lap along the way. Easy revenue from the wrong customer type is a trap. Stick to your ICP — unless what you learn along the way makes it clear you need to pivot entirely.
(This is essentially the “Innovator’s Dilemma” problem. Read that book, or at least a good summary of it — it’ll clarify why this is such a common problem.)
2. Simplify your value proposition to one core benefit
You need to be able to say, in one sentence, how your product is BETTER than the competition. Better, as in:
- Faster
- Cheaper
- More scalable
- More reliable
That’s your value proposition. And like any good brand promise, it only works if it’s relevant to your customer, differentiating from the competition, and credible. (I go into this more in my article on brand strategy.)
What is NOT a value proposition?
- Being new!
- Being AI-driven!
- Being the only <incredibly specific product> in all the known universe!
- Being an all-in-one solution!
Features don’t sell. Benefits do. You need to provide a real benefit — one that you can imagine one customer (or influencer or journalist) credibly talking up to another prospective customer.
While we’re at it: “all-in-one” usually means “does everything poorly.” Focus on one thing that actually delivers value, and the virality follows.
If you don’t know how you are better than the competition, go find your competitors and figure it out. Seriously — that research is your job right now.
Once you know your value proposition, you need to say it EVERYWHERE: in the first sentence of every sales conversation, in every pitch deck, in the headline of your website, on every page of your website.
3. Validate product-market fit through real world conversations
Most early-stage founders don’t actually know their market. They have a hypothesis about what customers want, but they haven’t tested it against real humans yet to see if there’s real demand.
Know your market. Have direct conversations with prospective customers — not surveys — to find out about their needs and real problems or pain points. Identify the one thing you can do to alleviate that pain.
Take advantage of ALL your networks to get warm introductions to real, live people with the problems you want to solve. Do not be shy. Go in to understand, not to sell. Selling will follow naturally if they think you have credibility to solve their problems.
And for Skydeck startup founders: if you have not used the Skydeck Slack to describe your value proposition and ask for help finding people with the problem you are solving, you are not doing enough. Stop reading this and go ask for referrals.
4. Use low/no-cost marketing to attract customers
Don’t run paid acquisition campaign before you’ve proven that your product works. That just burns cash that you’re going to need later!
For B2C startups, build a product with a tight, single-purpose use case that can support word-of-mouth or virality. Your product needs to make its case in 20 seconds, if not faster. Maybe you need to pay an influencer to get the word out, but you need a product that sells itself.
For B2B startups, the best low-cost active strategy is to direct outreach via personal networks or LinkedIn, backed by a website that clearly states your solution and primary benefit promise (see above). Often the best passive marketing strategy is creating educational content that helps prospective customers with their real problems, which can attract customers via SEO and GEO.
Wrapping up
- Find one specific customer segment with a real, painful problem
- Focus your value proposition on a single, credible benefit
- Validate product-market fit by talking to real people
- Market cheaply until your product is proven
Ready for the next step?
Once you’ve nailed your core segment, avoid the Top 5 Startup Marketing Mistakes and audit your digital presence using my guide to Website Pitfalls to Avoid.