A go-to-market plan says who you sell to, what you tell them, where you'll reach them, what you'll spend, how you'll measure it, and what your board will see. Write it in the first month and start running it in the second. Your next board meeting is never more than about eight weeks away.
We've written these plans and then run them, for startups before and after their raise, inside companies, and at our own agency. Here's the plan in the order we build it, the 90 days that start it, what's live by day 45, and how it hands over to the team you hire.
Most marketing after a raise starts with the channels: the ads, the posts, the emails. MKT1's Emily Kramer calls that the engine. But an engine needs fuel, and the fuel is what you actually say. Krithika Shankarraman, the first marketer at Stripe and OpenAI, studies the problem first and only then runs experiments. So below, steps 1 to 4 work out what to say, and steps 5 to 9 build the engine.
Series A go-to-market, in numbers
- 6 to 8 weeks: how often a Series A board meets, and each meeting needs a marketing update (Unusual Ventures).
- 3 to 6 months: how long it takes to hire your first marketer (First Round).
- About 12 months: what a wrong-fit first head of marketing costs from start to re-hire (Libby Weissman).
What you'll learn
- The nine steps of a Series A go-to-market plan, in the order we build them
- A 90-day roadmap you can copy
- What to stop doing after the raise
- What's live by day 45, and how to market a conference
What should a Series A go-to-market plan include?
1. Your buyers, in their own words. Pull your closed deals and list who used the product, who argued for it, who held the budget and who signed. Then go where those people talk shop, in industry forums, on Reddit and on calls, and write their problems down the way they say them. Those phrases become your headlines.
2. The competitor audit. Take your closest rival apart: site structure, content, search rankings, traffic sources, the keywords they win. You're looking for where they spend and where they've left a gap you can own.
3. The position you can own. Shankarraman's definition is worth keeping on the wall: "A brand is an expectation that you create within your audience." Name the category you can lead and use those exact words on every page, every post and every pitch, until buyers, press and search engines repeat them back to you. Consistency is what makes a new category stick.
4. The message for each buyer. Each buyer type gets its own page and its own proof. A CFO needs a different reason to believe than an operations lead. Know who has to trust you first. A buyer who hears "new technology" may picture a painful change to how their team works, and an experienced leader explaining the work will do more than another product announcement. Put your prices and packages where people can see them.
5. The website. Build it to earn trust in the first few seconds and then give every buyer one clear way to reach you. Relaunch it before you spend on ads, so the paid traffic lands somewhere that converts.
6. The CRM, before any ad runs. Lifecycle stages, lead scoring, deal stages, routing and attribution from every ad account. Skip this and all you can count is form fills. See who should set up HubSpot after a Series A.
7. Two channels, then add. Start where your buyers already look, run each channel long enough to judge it, and add the next one as each pays back. Make them feed each other: press you earn gets promoted with paid, and your best blog posts become retargeting ads.
8. Your founders and your events. The CEO's voice is a channel. So is every conference your buyers attend. Turn founder, team and customer conversations into video, posts and email. One good interview can become a short film, a written case study and a few clips. For each show, warm the attendee list before it, run meeting campaigns during it, and retarget everyone after.
You don't even need a booth. We've sent teams to conferences with no booth at all, run targeted ads to the companies attending and sponsoring, and geo-fenced the venue before and after the show. On budgets under $500, those campaigns have driven hundreds of thousands of dollars in deals.
9. The budget, the targets and the board report. Spend by channel, the number each channel owns, what a customer may cost, and the slides the board sees every six to eight weeks: spend against targets, pipeline, and what each customer cost.
Your first 90 days after a raise
| Days 1 to 30: quick wins, then plan and build | Days 31 to 60: launch | Days 61 to 90: run and report |
|---|---|---|
| Quick wins first, then your buyers' words and the competitor audit | Ads, analytics and automation live by day 45 | Run campaigns in your first two channels |
| The positioning and the message per buyer | The first campaigns, judged on deals | Boost and retarget the CEO's best content |
| The brand and the website | The first board-ready marketing report | Plan the next conference, before, during and after |
| The CRM, tracking and dashboards | Cut what isn't producing pipeline | |
| The budget, the targets and the meeting cadence | Write down the hiring plan |
What should you stop doing after the raise?
- Judging marketing by clicks and form fills. Judge it by pipeline and by what each customer costs.
- Briefing five vendors yourself. Give one owner the plan and the people.
- Running channels nobody can measure. If the CRM can't see it, fix tracking first.
- Waiting on the hire to start. The search takes months, and the plan can't sit still that long.
What's live by day 45?
We go after quick wins in the first weeks, while most agencies are still writing their plan. In the first 30 days, we set up the brand, the website and the CRM. Your buyers' words go into the positioning, the positioning goes onto the site, and the CRM is built around how you actually sell before a single ad runs. By day 45, the whole growth system is live: the ads, the analytics and the automation, all connected, so every campaign is judged on the deals it brings in.
After that, the work settles into a rhythm. Every two weeks your leadership team gets 30 minutes with us, your CEO gets a monthly session, and there's a written update in between. Each month brings new content, a board-ready report, and a campaign around the next conference, and your CEO gets a voice on LinkedIn and in video.
Paid media still starts small: tests on LinkedIn and Google first, and a new landing page or a bigger budget only once a test has earned it. That one rule saves founders a lot of money.
How do you market a conference?
Before the show: post that you're going, boost the post to the people on the attendee list, and put up an event page with a meeting scheduler. During: run a short brand video campaign aimed at that same list. After: retarget everyone who watched or visited, email a follow-up with a meeting link, and give sales the list of companies that engaged with the ads. If one show's list is too small for LinkedIn to target, combine the lists from several shows.
When the plan needs a team
The hiring plan in days 61 to 90 is where this gets real. Write down the first roles, then fill them before the plan outgrows the people running it. We help clients hire for those roles, and until they're filled we manage the PR firm, the video crew and the freelancers, so everyone reports to one owner.
Key takeaways
- Build the plan on your buyers' own words and one position you can own.
- Set up the CRM and attribution before you spend on ads.
- Treat your founders and your events as channels.
- Report to the board every six to eight weeks on spend, pipeline and what each customer cost.
- Don't wait for the hire. Start the plan now and hand it over later.
FAQs
How long does it take to build a go-to-market plan after a Series A?
Aim to finish it before your next board meeting, which at Series A comes every six to eight weeks. Our standalone plan, with the brand strategy, takes 45 days.
Who should own the go-to-market plan?
Whoever will be held to it. If that person isn't hired yet, someone has to hold it now, because the search takes months.
How many channels should a Series A startup run?
Start with one or two where your buyers already look, and add the next as each one pays back.
Do we need a brand before a go-to-market plan?
You need the position and the message first. The look can follow, as long as it fits the strategy.
What should the board see?
Spend against targets, pipeline, and what each customer cost, with the story behind the numbers.
Final thought. The plan is the first thing your marketing does after the raise. Get it running well before your first marketing hire walks in, and that person starts with something that works.
