Key Steps to Market Your Product

Most companies suck at launching products. They’re like Alice in Wonderland — chasing shiny objects and getting lost along the way. Here’s the 11-step process we perfected after 25 years of product launches (in a collaboration with Jason Oakley): 1. Competitive Research The key to great strategy is to look externally. Take notes on competitor's features and how they grow. Build a database so you can counter-position appropriately. 2. Segmentation A launch aimed at “everyone” will miss everyone. Instead, build a laser-focused Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Follow this chain of thought: What are they craving? → What frustrates them daily? → What job are they trying to accomplish? 3. Pricing & Packaging Even the smallest feature can have a ripple effect on your pricing and packaging. Don’t wait until launch week to figure this out. Before launching, assess things like: Will this be a paid feature or free? Who will get access? What’s the plan for feature gating? 4. Positioning Now it’s time to craft a message that resonates. Speak to their deeper desires, not just their immediate problems. Communicate the outcome your product delivers and why you’re different from the rest. 5. Assemble Your Launch Team You can’t do it alone, and you shouldn’t. A successful launch involves stakeholders across the company. Use the RACI framework to assign clear roles. 6. Clear Objectives Too many teams dive into a launch without defined goals. And that’s why they miss the mark. Set clear objectives and key results. 7. Distribution Channels Many teams fall into the trap of trying to be everywhere; LinkedIn, email, ads, you name it. Reality check: Most startups only have 1-2 effective distribution channels. Find yours and double down on it. 8. Launch Milestones Planning your entire launch around individual tasks will overwhelm you. Instead, focus on major milestones and build a work-back plan. Some key milestones to include: Early access launch → Customer launch → Kickoff meeting. 9. Bill of Materials Your Bill of Materials is the content engine of your launch. Focus on: → Writing the message they want to hear → Designing visuals that captivate and appeal to them → Creating email sequences tailored to every user flow 10. Sales & Customer Success Teams Too many launches fail because these teams are looped in at the last minute. Enable them early with a messaging deck, internal FAQs, and demo materials... And they’ll become powerful advocates for your product. 11. Launch Day Make sure everything is launched smoothly and on time. If you achieve early wins, be the first to celebrate them and rally the team. And don’t forget to keep pushing the momentum forward. There's much more in the deep dive: https://lnkd.in/eB7s6umA If you don't plan your launches, even the best products will fail.

Many founders want to just work on their product until it is ready to launch. Marketing is viewed as starting with the launch. This is incorrect. You should start marketing the day you conceive of the product. You have a problem you want to solve. Write it up and post it on X, LinkedIn, or other social media platforms. That is how marketing starts. Post more. Post every day. Watch for engagement. When people comment or share, post more. Build a following. This takes time, so start early. Have a point of view. Why are existing solutions so bad? What is an undeniable trend that is making your problem worse every day? What are the symptoms of your problem? Become the authority on your problem. Authority and author come from the same root. You need to write. Interact and debate with other experts in your field. Provide opinions and solutions. You will be recognized as an expert when other experts cite, quote, repost and retweet you. Find early users before the launch. When you are ready to launch, you will have a group of people who are interested. Some of them might even want to try your product. And if no one is interested, you have learned something even more valuable. Your product may not be addressing anyone's top priority—time to find a new problem, before you invest too much in the product.

I’ve advised dozens of early stage startups, and as a founder, grown my own startup to a multi million dollar run rate. GTM planning intimidates founders across the board but it’s actually not as complicated as you think! Here’s what to focus on: ▶ Market Segmentation and Targeting    ◾ Identifying and prioritizing the right market segments is fundamental to everything else. ◾ Who is your target market and audience? ▶ Value Proposition ◾ Clearly articulating why customers should choose your product is essential for differentiation and sales. ◾ What is your message? ▶ Product-Market Fit ◾ Ensuring your product actually solves real customer problems is critical for long-term success. ◾ How do you know people want to buy what you’re selling? Have you talked to your customers or potential customers? ▶ Customer Acquisition Strategy ◾ Defining how you'll reach and convert your target customers is vital for growth. ◾ What channels will you use to find customers? ▶ Pricing Strategy ◾ Getting pricing right impacts both customer acquisition and revenue sustainability. ◾ What are customers willing to pay for your product or service? Could you cross-sell or upsell? The key to building an effective GTM strategy is about having a clear focus that defines who you're selling to, what you're selling, why it's valuable, how you'll reach customers, and how you'll make money.  For all of the GTM experts out there: share your thoughts, lessons, and advice in the comments! What have you learned from your own GTM journey?

Everyone talks about differentiation, but hardly anyone tells you 𝑯𝑶𝑾 to do it. Most people (especially founders) think they know, but they forget they have rose-colored glasses on. Here’s how you differentiate and communicate value to buyers. You must do all 5 things. No cutting corners. 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 Understanding customer pain points is crucial because it ensures your product messaging directly addresses the challenges your customers face, making your product indispensable. – Use surveys, interviews and feedback sessions to continuously gather insights. – Map pain points to specific features of your product that alleviate these issues, strengthening your value proposition. – Use customer language in your marketing to reflect their concerns and solutions. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 Sales reps are on the frontline and often closest to the buyers. – Conduct regular debrief sessions with sales teams to gather qualitative data on customer reactions and objections. – Create feedback loops where sales insights inform marketing messages and product roadmap. – Enable GTM teams on the nuances of the value of each product. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 If you don't know your customers, you can't determine how you're different. – Identify and monitor key competitors and analyze their product capabilities and GTM strategies. – Never publicaly bash competitors, but rather highlight strengths of your product that are competitors' weaknesses. – Update competitive insights regularly and have a process to communicate those to the team. 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐬/𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 Leverage the trust and credibility of others to extend your reach in the market. – Engage with analysts and influencers who align with your product’s niche and audience. – Provide them with detailed product demos and use cases to help them understand and advocate for your solution. – Leverage their content and recommendations in your marketing to strengthen trust and authority. 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐈𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 Always be testing to ensure you still have message/market fit. – Use A/B testing on different messaging elements across your marketing channels. – Gather and analyze qualitative feedback on messaging. – Iterate based on performance data, refining your message to optimize clarity, impact, and relevance.

I worked with 100+ early-stage startups. Here's what the winners did differently: ✅ Message market fit first (many of you skip this) Find message-market fit before product-market fit. Most startups burn cash on ads without knowing if their message resonates. Here's the smarter approach: Identify your segments. Run cold outbound tests. Send emails with different messages. See which ones stick. Once you find the message that resonates, then apply it to ads, copy, and all marketing materials. Cold outbound is your best R&D. Here are my other observations: 1. Start doing marketing activities that will bring short-term results but don't forget to set yourself up for scale. Start investing in one of the major growth engines (content/seo, virality, paid, sales) 2. If you position yourself in a specific category, make sure that your tool has the basic functionalities that every customer would expect when they hear the category name. 3. For B2B SaaS don't try to position yourself as the best tool in the category. Better to best for a certain niche and charge a premium than be a commodity product. 4. Don't build your empire on rented land. Invest in owned channels. 5. If you are going to start content and SEO from day one, do it only if you believe that your product won't pivot next 6-12 months and you have the in-house expertise or a deep budget to outsource the work 6. Don't act like an enterprise. Leave PR and brand marketing for later, and focus on product marketing first to understand who loves your product. If you don't know who loves your product, how can you build a brand for them? 7. Leave the ego aside, admit you don't know, and get mentorship. Just because you are a leader doesn't mean that you know everything. Get mentors, and ask your friends or communities. 8. No one cares about how awesome your product is, so stop making everything about yourself when trying to create messaging. 9. Early marketing hire is important. Get a generalist and builder, not a specialist or a generalist but a thinker. You need both ideas and execution at this stage 10. Onboarding is essential. Invest in it. Onboarding is not about giving a product tour. It's about understanding when the user receives value for the first time and creating the shortest way there 11. Don't try to create the best product for everyone. Go after one segment, make them happy and move on to others. Don't create a product roadmap for everyone because you won't 12. Don't jus focus on numbers and distribution. Many founders focus blindly on leads and distributing half-baked marketing assets. Give you marketers time to build great marketing assets and then focus on distribution

Be honest: How many potential customers saw your product yesterday? How many signed up? If you don't know these numbers, you're already losing. Most founders think marketing = money. Wrong. Marketing = conversations at scale. Here's what actually works (tested on 28+ early-stage startups): Step 1: The 3-Second Test Write your one-liner using this formula: [Product] helps [who] do [what] without [old painful method] Examples that work: "Loom lets you send video messages instead of writing long emails" "Calendly makes scheduling calls not suck" Test 10 variations. The one people "get" fastest wins. Step 2: The Shameless Launch Strategy Most founders launch once on Product Hunt and pray. Big mistake. Launch everywhere, but customize for each platform: → Product Hunt: Focus on the maker story → Hacker News: Lead with the technical problem you solved → Reddit: Share genuine struggles and learnings → Twitter: Daily build-in-public threads → LinkedIn: Business impact and lessons learned Step 3: Content That Actually Converts Stop posting about your product. Start posting about: Your journey (what you're building, why it matters) Your failures (what you tried that flopped—people love transparency) Customer wins (before/after screenshots, real testimonials) Raw builds (feature demos, behind-the-scenes footage) Post daily. Batch create on Sundays. Reply to every comment. Step 4: The Manual Outreach Method This is where most people fail-they scale too fast. Start with 10 DMs per day using this template: "Hey [Name], saw your [specific comment/post]. I'm building [one-liner pitch]. Not selling anything-just curious if this sounds useful?" Conversion rate: 15-30% if you do it right. Step 5: The 3-Metric Focus Ignore vanity metrics. Track only: Traffic (unique visitors per week) Conversion (visitors to signups %) Retention (still active after 7 days?) If retention is broken, stop all marketing and fix the product first. Step 6: The 50-User Rule Here's the secret sauce: Manually talk to your first 50 users. Ask: "What were you hoping this would solve?" Their exact words become your marketing copy. Their pain points become your positioning. The Reality Check: → Ugly execution beats perfect planning → Consistency beats perfection → Conversations beat campaigns → Value beats volume Action step: Pick ONE tactic above. Execute it this week. Report back. The founders who take action on this will lap the ones who just save the post. #startups #marketing #entrepreneurship #growth #founders

I've built 20+ products in last 10 years, but they all failed. Some very badly. Why? Because I was addicted to building, not selling. Here's how I broke free from this engineering trap: 1. Recognize the high Building feels like a drug. You're pumped, powerful, godlike. Marketing? It feels useless. No instant gratification. 2. Face the harsh truth Without marketing, your product is invisible. No customers. No money. No food on the table. 3. Reframe marketing It's not lying or pushy sales tactics. Think of it as finding the perfect life partner for your product. 4. Embrace the long game Marketing is slow. It's frustrating. But it's essential. Keep pushing. One more attempt. One more chance. 5. Focus on the right people Don't sell to everyone. Find your ideal customer. Make them run to you. They'll wait in line for your solution. 6. Build relationships, not just products Marketing is about understanding people's needs. Solve real problems. Make their lives better. The engineering mindset is a superpower. But it's not enough. Learn to love marketing as much as building. Your products (and bank account) will thank you. --- P.S. Want to create your next LinkedIn post in under 60 seconds? Try Draftly for free → https://draftly.so

The 7-step strategy I use to secure my first 100 customers in a new market: (Lessons from 20+ years of experience) 1. Define your business framework Don't rush into defining your business. Start with clarity on your desired conditions. Set your optimal business framework: - Online or offline? - Remote or local? - Purpose-driven? - Viral potential? - Talent structure? Focus on what TRULY matters to you. — 2. Deep dive into market research Knowledge is power. Dive deep. Understand your market and potential competitors. R&D: Rip-off and Duplicate (ethically): - Analyze costs and trends - Study successful competitors - Identify potential partnerships Research sets the stage for success. — 3. MVP Mindset + Rapid Fire Testing Test fast, fail fast, learn faster. Get your minimum viable product out there. Iterate based on real feedback: - Source a basic product - Share with your network - Gather and implement feedback Proof of concept is your green light. — 4. Test and iterate to first milestone Use minimal budget to test your concept. Put your focus on gathering crucial data points: - Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) - Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) - Lifetime Value (LTV) - Customer feedback Data drives smart decisions. Use it. — 5. Officialize your product React to market feedback. Then evolve. Reaching the next stage means: - Finding reliable suppliers - Creating your unique product - Investing in marketing that works Build on validated demand. Scale smart. — 6. Feedback and optimize Never stop improving. ALWAYS listen to customers and implement changes based on the feedback: - Offer new options to customers - Expand partnerships - Hire fractional talent Remember: MVP mindset. Execute TODAY. — 7. Accelerated scaling Build on solid foundations: - Set clear KPIs - Hire key team members - Implement operating systems Scale with confidence. The sky's the limit. Which step are you currently stuck on? Let's talk. — Enjoyed this? Join +1000 founders getting scaling hacks every Saturday here: https://lnkd.in/gQCdfvik

We’ve spent $25M+ for clients. But we won’t spend $1 before our 2-step research phase (marketers, steal this): This is our exact research process for helping companies like Loom, Hopin, and Oracle acquire users and cut CAC. Every Marketer should use it. a) Schedule time with Marketing, Product, and Sales. Ask Marketing: 1. Where is your company in your industry? 2. Are you the category leader?  3. Are you David, and is there a Goliath?  4. Are you creating a new market altogether? Ask Product: 1. What’s on the horizon for the next 6-12 months? 2. How will this materially change the product? Ask Sales: 1. How do you talk about the product with prospects? 2. How do you frame the problem you solve? 3. How do you differentiate to prospects? Answering these questions will help you get extremely clear on your product and where you stand. b) External Research – Ask yourself: 1. Do you have competitors? 2. If so, how do their ads look? 3. How do they position their brand? 4. What selling points do they anchor to? 5. Roughly, what’s their monthly spend, and on what platforms? This will help you not go into the market blind when you build your campaigns. Do this, and you’ll know exactly how what your Marketing program should look like in ~1-2 weeks. …and let me know if you have any questions.