Is Your Startup GTM Ready?
Use This Checklist

Is my startup GTM ready?

That's the question I get a lot.
You see, you can have the best product in the world but if you don't have the right go-to-market strategy, nobody buys it.

After building 2 startups and working with over 50 founders, I put together a simple 8-step checklist so you know exactly if you are ready.

Now you're probably thinking - obviously I know that, I built that thing.

But let me explain - You've been building your product for months.
And now you probably have 20 cool features - dark mode, AI, integrations, whatever.

And somewhere in there is the one problem you were actually trying to solve in the first place.

When I built my first startup, I could talk about my product for twenty minutes. But if you asked me what big problem I was solving, I didn't have a good answer.

So, what is the one big problem your product solves?
Write that down.

And I am not talking about the features.
Not the ten things it could do.
The one thing it solves.

And be specific.
Not it "It saves people time" or “It makes people more money".

Write down exactly why people would pay for it.
If you can't answer that, you build a product that does a lot but nobody will pay for.

When you have that big problem on a sheet of paper in front of you - you are already ahead of 90% of founders. Now you need to know who actually has this problem.

A founder in my mastermind built a meditation app.
It helps you relax during the workday.

I asked him - who's this for?
And he said, ...

"Well, everybody can use it. Everybody’s stressed, right?"

It sounds fine but it's not.
This is what "my product is for everyone" looks like:

→ You have no idea who's really going to use it.
→ You have no idea what people actually want.
→ Everything you do becomes a guess.

You use a random headline on your website, you don’t know if you should charge €2 or €20 for your product and you don’t know if you can reach users on Instagram, LinkedIn or via email.

This is why so many startups fail.
The product itself is great, but you just don’t know who your users are.

So, try this quick exercise - it’s the one I use to fix it.
Try to describe your ideal user so specifically that a stranger could pick them out of a room.

So don’t say "People who are stressed".
Try - "Works in an office, has back-to-back meetings all day and is already googling 'how to relax at work' at 3pm".

Do you see how much clearer that already is?

Notice something for a second.
You probably already have someone in mind right now. Somebody specific. Maybe a past coworker, a friend, or someone you've talked to about this exact problem before. That could be your first customer.

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Now, if you want help with all of this - that's exactly what we work on in my startup mastermind. I will help you plan your go to market strategy, you will get personal coaching from me, and you can join a community of founders so you can see what worked for them.

You can join here:

Alright, now step 3 - your product is ready.
But be careful. With "ready" I don't mean that everything is perfect.
I don’t mean that you have built 20 features.

Remember that big problem you defined in step 1?

With ready, I mean that people can use your product and that it solves this exact big problem.

A founder I know spent 3 months building his product.
20 cool features, beautiful onboarding. And when he finally launched, people only really used 1 feature. 1 out of twenty.

That founder was me.
And I would never do it like this anymore.

So cut the dark modes, the integrations, and the fancy AI stuff.
Just build the one thing that solves the big problem, for the one person you described in step 2.

That's what "ready" means.

And I get it - that feels wrong.
Cutting the features you have already planned feels like giving something up. But you're not. In fact, you're making sure you’re focusing on the one thing that is really important. On the thing that people pay for.

And that will make everything easier in the next step.

Before you sell your product and get your first customers, you need to know exactly what to say. And you do it like this:
‍
You take the problem and the person, and you turn it into one sentence:

"We help [ideal customer] who have [problem] achieve [outcome] - without [pain]."

This sentence - this one sentence is what makes people stop and say:
"This is exactly for me. I need this."

And you can use this sentence everywhere.
For your website, your ads or when you talk to people directly.

If we stick with our meditation app for example, a version that nobody buys would be:

"We help people relax during the workday."
Sounds like every other app in the store.
‍
Instead, we say:
"We help people who are stuck in back-to-back meetings all day finally relax during the day, without needing to take a 30-minute break."

Do you see how clear that is now? If you have meetings all day and feel stressed - you know exactly this is for you.

Ok you know what problem you solve, you know who your customers are and what to say. There's one more thing standing between you and your first customer.

You know how much people would pay.

Now, should you charge €20 a month or €100 a month?
Let me save you from a big mistake I once did.

I once built a product for startup founders.
It was a small bundle to help new founders get their first customers.
It cost €500. Guess how many people bought it in 2 months?

Nobody.

The issue was not that the product itself was bad, but that the price didn't match the people I built it for. Early founders don't pay €500 for a product.

So, I did solve a real problem with my product and I did know who my customers were, I just priced it for the wrong people.

And notice - this is exactly why step 2 comes before this.
If your customer is "everybody", you have no idea how much they would pay.

So, look at your ideal customer and think about how much they would pay for your solution. Would they pay €20 a month or €500? Ask yourself honestly - would you pay that price, if you were them?

And don’t worry - for now, you don’t need the perfect number.
You just need a range. That’s totally fine. You can always adjust the price later - right now you just need a number that doesn't scare anyone off.

The next one is simple - because you have already done the hard work.
Step 6 - you have a page where people can buy your product.

We use the same strategy as before.
You don’t build the perfect website where you explain everything you do in detail. For now, you only need a simple landing page.

→ Just use the message you defined earlier and put it in your headline.
→ A sub-headline that explains what it does.
→ Three bullet points that show the benefits.
→ One image or video that shows people what they'll get.
→ And one button - buy now, with the price right there.

That's it.

You don't need a pricing table with four different tiers and you don’t need long paragraphs that explain every little detail about your product.

When people visit your website, you just need to answer the question "Is this for me?"

Now, unfortunately people don’t just magically visit your website and buy your product. You need a plan.

So, step 7 in our checklist - you know how to reach people.

Now, there are dozens of ways to do this - you could us ads, content marketing, communities, or reach out to people directly.

The big mistake I see many founders make is that they try everything at once. They post 2 times on social media, spend 1k on ads and write 3 blog posts. And six months later they still have 0 customers. And they get frustrated.

So instead of picking 5 different marketing channels, pick one.
Pick the one channel where your ideal customers already are.
And quickly test if it works.

For example, if your customers are on LinkedIn, reach out to 10 people who fit your ideal customer profile and see if they’re interested in your product.

For now, you're just trying to find out which channel can bring you one real customer.

Now for the last step - when you show people your product - most of them won’t buy. Unless you have a clear plan.

So, Step 8 - you know how to turn interest into a paying customer.

I cannot tell you how often I’ve heard "Looks cool, I love it" and then people ditched me. That’s frustrating.

The best way to avoid that is to offer people an early bird price.
Something like:

"This will later cost €20 a month, but for you - as an early user - I would like to offer it for €10 a months. What do you think?"

This could also be a free month or free onboarding.
Whatever it is, make it valuable to people.

So, before you reach out to people make sure you have a clear plan how to make "saying yes" as easy as possible.

Now, with this checklist, you know if you’re GTM ready.
Make sure you can check all of these because if you miss even one, you can have the best product in the world but still nobody buys.

If you want help with your GTM strategy - that's exactly what we work on in my startup mastermind. I will help you plan your go to market strategy, you will get personal coaching from me, and you can join a community of founders so you can see what worked for them.

You can join here: