Build Demand While You Fly the Ship
There’s no such thing as starting too early when it comes to using media to build demand
Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter - read by over 52,000 revenue professionals weekly to stay up-to-date and scale their companies and careers. GTMnow is the media brand of GTMfund - sharing go-to-market advice from the top 1% of revenue operators including the 350 executives behind the fund, news, and our viewpoints from working with hundreds of portfolio companies.
Product 💚: Vanta
Your deal is almost closed, and all that’s left is the security review. But when it comes to those lengthy security questionnaires, the endless back and forths between you, your security team, and the customer can often cause deals to stall out, leaving your deal at risk and dollars on the table. With Vanta Questionnaire Automation, go-to-market teams can complete security reviews up to 5 times faster, helping you close deals in less time than ever. Over 8,000 global companies like ZoomInfo, SmartRecruiters and Noibu use Vanta to streamline security questionnaires and close deals fast. Visit vanta.com/gtmnow to learn more about Questionnaire Automation.
Build Demand While You Fly the Ship
Greetings from San Diego! The GTMfund team is down here for our annual retreat with 100+ of our LPs for a weekend together - dinners, boating, content, activities, connection.
Four of us sit in an office in person together every day, when we’re not on the road that is. It’s amazing - we get real time collaboration at a speed and depth that wouldn't otherwise be possible. It’s also how we often brainstorm and create content. So while we’re often dropping into your inbox from the office, this week we’ve still been collaborating on this edition but with a different view.
This is a topic we have countless conversations with founders about - let’s get into it.
Build demand while you fly the ship
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “build the airplane while you fly it.” The same principle applies - build demand for your product while you’re building.
Don’t wait for the perfect product launch to start generating demand. Too many founders spend months perfecting every detail, only to launch into a void of silence. The most dangerous place for a founder is a quiet market because silence means you’re missing the critical feedback needed to iterate and improve. Building demand early ensures you get real-time insights to refine both your product and your go-to-market approach as you scale.
Customer feedback is the lifeblood of startup growth. First comes direction, then speed.
You should be doing this continuously, in parallel with product development. One of the best ways to gather feedback and build momentum is by building an audience.
When you have an audience, it’s easier to move fast.
You have a direct connection to your customers.
You create a built-in feedback loop.
You benefit from owned distribution.
Case study example 1
Adam Robinson, Founder & CEO of Retention, spent months building a loyal audience by posting insights and engaging content for his ICP on LinkedIn. The feedback loop he created through his audience fueled customer discovery.
300 discovery calls in just five months - without a sales team - were conducted with prospects who had been engaging with Adam’s LinkedIn content.
By the time his product launched, Adam already had thousands of interested prospects in his pipeline, ready to buy.
“We didn’t build the product first; we built the audience. Then, we asked them what they wanted, and the product was born from there.” - Adam Robinson
Case study example 2
Anthony Kennada, Founder & CEO of AudiencePlus, hired a marketer before he even had a product. The “audience before product” approach improved target persona understanding and used content as a valuable feedback source.
It sparked intrigue and generated significant buzz. By building an audience early, he made his go-to-market efforts more efficient through education and fostered trust with potential customers.
This built-in audience enabled him to accomplish the following in the first two years, which otherwise would have been far more difficult:
Built an audience of 5,000+ subscribers.
Hosted a three-city roadshow tour in Scottsdale, NYC, and San Francisco.
Hosted 20+ virtual events with thousands of attendees.
Hosted their inaugural CMO Summit last September, with $106B of market cap represented in the room.
Worked with G2 to create the Owned Media Software category.
Developed episodic content, educational content, entertaining content, podcasts, and hundreds of written articles and guides for building and implementing an Owned Media strategy.
Hosted a conference called Goldenhour, with 300 incredible B2B marketers in the room and a live broadcast to thousands, running simultaneously from Brooklyn, NY.
Founder-led media for revenue acceleration
“Founder-led sales” is a common term, but it's often misunderstood as focusing solely on closing deals at the bottom of the funnel. In reality, founder-led media plays a crucial role across the entire funnel. It helps with awareness, pipeline efficiency, customer loyalty and reducing churn.
Adam and Anthony exemplify the power of founder-led media, much like other founders such as Alexa Grabell of Pocus and Mark Kosoglow of Operator. A quick look at their social media presence reveals how active and engaged they are, consistently building their brands and connecting with their audiences.
Founders are now not just executives but content creators, educators, and brand builders.
The impact is evident:
Companies with active founder-led brands on LinkedIn report an average 15% increase in inbound leads compared to those relying purely on outbound tactics.
Posts that include personal stories or insights get 48% higher engagement than those that are purely informational. This is part of why founder-led content works - people engage more when they see authenticity.
Founders naturally bring a unique level of authenticity and brand representation that’s hard to replicate, but the same potential exists for any team member. When employees actively contribute to the brand’s narrative over time, it fosters trust and credibility, influencing every stage of the funnel.
Don’t forget to tag GTMnow so we can see your takeaways and help amplify them.
📹 Upcoming digital live event
The $1B Sales Leadership Methodology - October 10th at 9:30am PST / 12:30pm EST
👂 More for your eardrums
The GTM Podcast - subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
A transformational leader who specializes in data driven GTM, Allison Metcalfe has had a non-traditional path to the C Suite – starting in Account Management, and being a leader in the evolution of Customer Success, Allison has held a variety of leadership roles across sales and operations in some of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies including Jigsaw (acquired by Salesforce), Demandbase, Quotient (NYSE: QUOT) and Liveramp (NYSE: RAMP), which went from $30M to $500M in revenue and IPO under her tenure.
👀 More for your eyeballs
HG Insights has created a comprehensive 32-page report that dives deep into the rapidly evolving world of sales and AI. It covers the adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) in sales, highlights key sales tech leaders, and provides an in-depth analysis of the top 75 trending Sales AI tools reshaping the landscape. GenAI, which generates data or content similar to human creation, is leading this charge by leveraging patterns from massive datasets to produce text, images, and even audio and video. This report is jam packed with data and insights that are incredibly valuable for GTM leaders. We know time is precious, so we went through and extracted the key highlights and takeaways that you need to know.
PLG enables swift customer onboarding, delivering value quickly, and creating upsell opportunities, whether for additional functionality or expanding across teams. By analyzing their install base, Apollo's team can identify prime candidates for growth and ensure human resources are leveraged where they add the most value.
🚀 Startups to watch
Hone - is leveling up the future of L&D by unveiled a suite of new tools to transform employee development. From live Peer Groups in Engineering, Sales, and more, to AI-powered Learning Journeys personalized for each employee, it’s all designed to help teams grow. Plus, they’re introducing DiSC Personality Assessments for better leadership and collaboration, and a Manager Console to track and support development. The new Impact Analysis feature helps measure ROI, too.
Avarra - announced their launch, and this is a next-level team and product we're excited to get behind. We were the second largest investor in their Seed round led by Lightspeed earlier this year. David Knight (CEO/Co-Founder) was Eric Yuan’s right-hand man at WebEx, leading to their $3.2B exit to Cisco. He then transitioned Proofpoint as CPO from anti-spam technology to full-scale SaaS security, $1B+ in SaaS revenue, and an eventual $12B exit to Thoma Bravo in 2021. One of the coolest parts? David organized their launch out of stealth around the GTMfund Retreat this weekend. He'll be giving the first ever public demo of the product tomorrow here in San Diego.
🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week
VP of Sales & Marketing at Esper (Remote - US)
Account Executive (Inbound & Outbound) at Owner (Remote - US / Canada)
Customer Success Manager at Pocus (Remote)
Strategic Account Manager at Vanta (Hybrid - Dublin / London)
Product Marketing Manager, Enterprise at Vanta (Remote - US)
See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.
🗓️ GTM industry events
Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:
GTMfund Annual Retreat: October 4 - 6 (San Diego, CA)
GTM Summit by Pavilion: October 14 - 16 (Austin, TX)
GTMfund Dinner: October 30 (San Francisco)
More Product 💚: Upland Altify
Revenue growth isn’t easy, but it can be simplified. Sustained success demands a strategic approach backed by powerful technology. Altify is the only sales software that seamlessly blends methodology, strategy, and AI into a 100% Salesforce native solution. By empowering sellers with AI-enhanced capabilities, Altify helps uncover hidden opportunities, strengthen customer relationships, and optimize sales execution. Our solutions align sales and customer journeys, accelerate deal cycles, and drive long-term revenue growth - learn more here.
We would argue that there’s no such thing as being too early when it comes to leveraging media to build demand. In fact, starting early allows you to shape your narrative, engage potential customers, and gather feedback that will help refine both your product and strategy.
If you’ll be at Pavilion GTM Summit drop me a LinkedIn DM. See many of you soon for various events!
🤝 Sophie