The Go To Market Slide (GTM), is the most misunderstood, misused, and mangled slide in the entire startup pitch deck. It’s like the appendix of a pitch; everyone includes it, nobody knows exactly why, and when it bursts, the whole body of your presentation goes septic. Every founder knows they need one. Almost no one builds one that does its damn job.
For years, I have harped on the junk some of you call a Competition slide and while I keep pointing out that Marketing is the most important thing you do as a startup (not my words, the research is in evidence), I’ve never tackled how to fix that worthless Go To Market slide you put together.
What you think passes for a GTM slide in most decks? A bingo card of vagueness:
Creating a strong Go To Market Slide can significantly impact your success.
- “Social media”
- “Trade shows”
- “Partnerships”
- “Influencer campaigns”
- “Press coverage”
Translation? “We’re going to do the things everyone else does, but with no explanation of how, why, or who it reaches, and we’ll spend your money like it grows on an Instagram tree.”
Let’s fix that. Here’s the breakdown of why most GTM slides fail, what should actually be on them, and how to build one that proves you understand your market and can get your startup into it.
Article Highlights
The Fatal Go To Market Slide Mistakes
1. Listing tactics, not strategy
Saying you’ll do “social media” is like saying you’ll “go outside.” It tells me nothing about where you’re going, why you’re going, or what you’ll do when you get there. Are you targeting YouTube short-form product demos? Are you building an SEO-driven LinkedIn content flywheel? Do you have a Substack list of enterprise buyers already in beta? Maybe an OnlyFans account is the way to go. Or are you just going to start tweeting when the product launches?
Investors aren’t looking for what channels you know exist. They’re asking: Do you know where your market is, how they buy, and what gets their attention?
2. No customer acquisition cost (CAC) math
If you say “paid ads” but don’t specify your expected CAC and what you’re optimizing for (signups, sales, trials?), you’re just burning vapor. A good GTM slide should hint at unit economics. If you’ve done tests on Meta ads and your CAC is $17 with a $60 LTV, fantastic (put that in!).
If you haven’t, at least show that you understand which levers drive customer acquisition because FFS you’re going to tell me your GTM plan is to pay for clicks but you haven’t even validated that it will work??
3. Confusing PR with GTM
Public relations is not GTM. Unless you’re launching a celebrity skincare line or a political scandal, PR does not drive predictable revenue (sorry PR firms, it doesn’t, and you know it). GTM is about systematic, scalable, repeatable customer acquisition. That’s demand gen. That’s conversion optimization. That’s sales process and pipeline mechanics. PR is an announcement (which, sure, do) or reputation management (of which you have none yet). It helps, but it’s not a GTM plan.
Let me let you in on another criticism of most PR firms (because I want you to succeed). I press release isn’t worth **** and if I had more asterisks I could use to swear properly enough to drive it home, I would use them. Getting press ALSO requires a plan targeting reporters, developing stories, nurturing relationships, and engaging in interviews. If a firm is pitching you on getting you press, demand to know with whom, specifically (reporters names), how, and when – if they’re withholding contacts like their competitive advantage, go tell them to pound sand – PR isn’t valuable because of who they know, it’s how well they’re known and that they will get you conversations.
4. “Partnerships” without clarity
“Partnerships” is startup-speak for “we talked to a friend of a guy at Salesforce once.” Unless it’s signed, executed, and delivering customers without cost on your part, don’t call it a partnership. Better: explain the integration or if you are paying, explain the affiliate structure or channel revenue-sharing arrangement that proves there’s value.
‘Without cost on your part‘? Yeah, if you’re paying for it, it isn’t a partnership. That should be obvious, and yet you’re going to be inundated by people offering to “partner” with you and then stating their price. Remember that thing I said about pounding sand?
5. No funnel
You need to show how the customer discovers you, evaluates you, and buys. A good GTM slide reflects the full customer journey. It doesn’t need to be complex but at least coherent. Where’s top-of-funnel attention coming from? What gets prospects into the pipeline? Who closes them or how by way of your site or app? What keeps them?
What a GTM Slide Should Actually Do
Your GTM slide should answer one thing: How are you going to get your first 1,000 (or 10,000, or 1 million) customers? And the only acceptable answer is one that’s:
- Rooted in how the customer already buys
- Mapped against how your solution fits into that process
- Supported by your distribution unfair advantage
Instead of channel names, show customer behaviors.
Instead of “social media,” say:
“We convert users from Reddit threads where this problem is already being discussed. Our founder is active in the top communities. We’ve mapped 14 high-volume threads with engagement >100 comments each. First customers came directly from those.”
Instead of “trade shows,” say:
“We closed 22 customers at DEFCON last year because they demoed the product in our invite-only suite and converted at 31%. Our GTM model now includes two events per year with private-track product activations.”
Instead of “paid ads,” say:
“We’ve run paid search campaigns on 15 long-tail terms with <$2 CPCs, converting to trial at 9.2%. We scale that with a $50 CAC on a $300 ACV.”
That’s GTM. You’re telling me: where your customers are, what they respond to, how much it costs to reach them, and how you’re going to scale that acquisition with real budget planning.
How to Actually Figure Out Your GTM Plan
If you’re struggling to build this slide, good news: the fact that you can’t means you haven’t done GTM yet. And knowing that? Already puts you ahead of the delusional founders who’ve pasted in a logo wall and called it traction.
So how do you really figure out your go-to-market?
1. Interview 500 potential customers.
You’re not Steve Jobs. You don’t just know. Talk to the market (not the customer! The market – people). Ask if they understand what you’re doing. Ask if they think it’s valuable. Ask if they’d be interested and then ask where they hang out, who they trust, how they found their last solution. Don’t guess – map it.
Yes, talk to people. When I kick of an incubator with one of my lectures, I demand that everyone talk to at least 100 people in coffee shops by next week. Random people. If they don’t understand what you’re doing, you can’t go to market; and from those 100 people, some will understand it, some work in sales or marketing, some are in tech, and many will have advice that is new to you.
2. Reverse-engineer from competitors.
Where do your rivals get traffic? What do they rank for? Who refers to them? Use tools like SimilarWeb, SparkToro, SEMrush, BuiltWith. If they’re using a specific channel, they’re doing it for a reason. Figure out what works.
3. Run $500 worth of tests.
Spend a few hundred bucks across 2–3 channels to see what gets engagement. TikTok, Reddit, SEO, cold email, LinkedIn ads; pick based on your customer persona, not trends. Measure CAC, conversion rate, and quality of leads.
4. Build one repeatable motion.
What’s the one thing you can do every day/week that brings in users or customers consistently? Cold outreach? Webinars? Founder posts on LinkedIn? Focus there, not everywhere. GTM is about repeatability, not variety.
What you’re trying isn’t working? Then clearly it isn’t the one thing, stop it (for now) and try something else.
5. Write your funnel narrative.
Walk me through how a customer goes from stranger to buyer. Where do they learn? What triggers the interest? How do they evaluate? Where do they convert? Build your GTM slide as a visual of this journey with your tactics layered in.
Explain How You Go to Market; Not That You Will
Follow that? Listing “Social Media” is effectively only saying that you will do it. You’ll be live and tweet. Well, good for you, I’d hope so.
GTM is not about what you plan to try. It’s a battle plan built from evidence. It’s the slide that tells me: “This founder knows their buyer, where they live, what they read, what they click, and how to get them to buy.” Everything else is noise.
Remember: if your GTM slide could fit any other startup, it fits none. Make it so specific it could only describe yours.
Don’t just pitch your product. Don’t SELL! Pitch your plan to get it into the world.
If you can’t articulate that plan, you’re not raising money. You’re raising hopes (only yours really, but you get the point).
And if you’re wondering how that fits with your total addressable market (odds are your TAM/SAM/SOM slide is junk to so maybe I’ll cover that next), pricing strategy, or CAC: learn funnel math. It’s time your GTM slide grew up because it’s killing you more than it’s killing me having to read it.
Think outside the box.
Margaret Cezar if you don’t, you’re just like everyone else, and that isn’t a startup
Yep. I tell our pitch competitors this all the time. Get specific about who your customer is and how you will reach them. #startups #pitchdeck
Cheers Scott, thanks for sharing this. Two slides founders need to fix: Competition and GTM
I’ve got to clap this
because it’s so accurate.
GTM is rubbish in most pitchdecks.
Here it’s described as a bingo card of bullshit buzzwords.
Prove you know your market:
Who they are
Where they are
How to reach them effectively
What it will cost and how you’ll do it profitably
How you’ll scale
Then you might get investors interested.
Phil McSweeney it’s one that has been bothering me for a decade; and it’s largely why I started harshly criticizing incubators … I figured that by now they’d be setting founders straight (I presumed wrong)
Thanks for sharing!
This. Is. So. Good!
Jeff Hansen I’ll take that. Seriously, thank you Jeff. This has been bothering me for YEARS and I’d hoped that incubators and advisors would actually do something about it, but alas.
Good article. I’ve sat through quite a few startup pitches. A lot of them contain fluff, not facts. But you have broken down the problem well in this article, makeing it easy to understand and therefore fix.
That’s the secret, it’s actually easy to do it well; just make it meaningful and distinct!
Thank you for these!
Thank you for this. I’m going to go fix my GTM slide right now!
Yeah, partnerships are tricky—without revenue or a clear model, they’re just nice to have.
eh… they should be distinguishing.
If you’re an AI for CRM, having a partnership (actual partnership) with Salesforce, is meaningful. Telling me you have a partnership with Google For Startups, is moronic. Paying a dev firm in equity and calling it a partnership, is b.s.
Paul O’Brien I have had countless discussions on GTM with clients that was Deja Vu all over again – mapped to exactly what you said happens. So then I jumped to my own funding deck and reassessed whether I was taking my own medicine. I am making changes right now, so thanks for the concise approach to helping founders truly have a GTM plan.
Jeff Hansen I really only started to see it myself when I worked with more VC Thesis decks than Startup pitches.
When a VC can’t even explain why they’re more compelling than competitors, let alone how they’re going to be known, get relevant deal flow, first, and be considered meaningful, we’re in trouble. Founders, I can excuse (bad advice, crappy startup programs, little experience), but a VC not knowing what they’re doing is alarming as it adversely affects everything.
Paul O’Brien – yep, that doesn’t pass the investor BS meter ….
The very minute an investor asks the Founder to go into their GTM detail, and more importantly why they are taking that tack given what they’ve discovered in the market, then the credibility of 95% of them gets blown out of the water and the meeting becomes very short …..
Any slide should be a “snapshot” of a fair bit of detail that you can back up with numbers,stats,facts should the question be asked – it’s the wannapreneurs that still think that copying and pasting XYZ Inc pitchdeck will have the Investors throwing money at them – and then they become very disappointed, and dare I say it, disillusioned when it doesn’t happen. There is no shortcut to doing your market research …..
The reddit example is great on how to actually put this in action, great post!
Cheers Jason. I can tell who understands the points of my article, and has some experience with marketing, from who doesn’t — in some other channels, I’ve had people actually comment that Reddit doesn’t make sense for them
Examples people! Examples. And if you don’t know how to do that, or understand why and how to go about it, that’s WHY you need someone who does.
How can I make financial projections and attract investors for a project that isn’t fully launched yet but has strong potential and some existing revenue?
Context:
I’m building a startup that currently operates as a project management tool under another company, but it’s much more than that. The product is being tested with real users to get feedback before launching it as a standalone solution. It already includes modules that are not public yet, covering multiple industries and solving real problems that current platforms don’t address.
So far, the project has generated €800,000 in revenue over 5 years while embedded within another business. Now I’m working toward spinning it out as its own brand, but I’m not sure:
1. How to create realistic financial projections when the product doesn’t fully exist yet but has massive growth potential.
2. Where and how to find investors who are open to projects at this stage (pre-seed/seed, not fully launched, but revenue-generating and being validated with users).
I’d appreciate advice from anyone with experience raising capital at this stage or building financial models for innovative platforms.
You don’t. A financial projection, let alone for 5 years, is b.s. for an actual startup, and whomever is telling you otherwise is an idiot who shouldn’t be investing in startups.
In fairness, “startups.”
Most screw up what that means; if what you have is a new business, the answer is that you model the other similar businesses – and the investor is obviously not an idiot for expecting you to.
So, tell us more clearly, what are you doing? (Two sentences max, an elevator pitch)
Thank you Paul! I call it Intelligent Project Marketplace. Ability to use Recommender Systems + AI + ML in a Project Management Web App that simplifies projects into Milestones with simple to understand tasks and the ability to buy/sell/trade/invest on any project or any part of the projects. Of course it has everything needed for users to add sub-users, access levels, billing system, reports, etc.
https://ibb.co/6RGkjfNx
That’s not an elevator pitch, that’s a product description.
So, it’s project management software? Obviously, you could know what to charge for and test some paid acquisition to get an estimated CAC and build and short-term model. Why haven’t you?
Still, it’s also more startup like, I expect, so a long term model is a dumb expectation. No one can know. And investors would know that. You are talking to actual angel investors, who actively invest in startups; not business investors. Yes? I question it because you shouldn’t even have these questions if you are talking to the right people. Seems like you’re not (and why all means, send them out chat with a “WTF?” because you’re clearly off track by way of someone).
You’re right.
The vision is that it would be a marketplace (public / private projects) with pm functionalities, suggestions, reports, investments, and trades.
I didn’t make any paid acquisition as I was testing it with existing customers to get feedback and improve before getting more users.
I talked to some local investors but what they’re offering doesn’t make sense (10K – 10%).
What’s your advice?
Thank you in advance
“existing customers,” so it is just a new business. New features on an existing market. Investors are right to expect a GTM plan, with data, and a model.
My advice is you need to work that out, or hire someone who knows how.
As to investors wanting 10% … That’s an irrelevant assessment. 10% is only meaningful to say if you also say how much you’d be getting. Seed stage is usually 30%-40% so you having a problem with 10% is a red flag – it means the investor is a friend or family, or you don’t want to give up much, or it isn’t much money to matter.
At this point, you need more help, I can’t do this over text
I am available for office hours for my paid subscribers if you want: https://open.substack.com/pub/paulobrien/p/office-hours-and-audits
Paul O’Brien Outstanding. No notes. I will put this to good use 🙂
Thanks!!!
Paul O’Brien because they don’t know how to teach it either.
Most GTM slides collapse because they’re built on assumptions, not lived experience or observable behavior.
Our GTM starts as a memoir,
Part forensic reporting
Part whistleblowing
All designed to relieve shame and signal safety to the exact people we’re seeking:
Burned-out founders who don’t identify with traditional funnels because survival doesn’t look like a sales pipeline.
We’re not guessing where they are, we’re narrating the rescue in real time, using storytelling as a trust bridge and traction channel.
It’s not just GTM.
It’s “come with me, I know the way out.”
That’s what converts.
This is amazing! It has true depth. It goes beyond the surface and gets to the gold!
This is great insight, thanks!
Do you have any examples of how this has all been put together for a killer GTM slide? It’s one of the most important, but everything available online fits exactly this archetype.
Sam Gibbon I’ll look around. They’re rare.
Thanks Paul, much appreciated!
Hahaha, don’t worry folks, this is exactly how our first GTM slide looked too. But have no fear, it’s simple if you understand how it works. You need to identify channels with repeatable success and explain the economics behind. You will have all that info as part of validation process. Don’t forget that most investors don’t really understand the whole GTM process, so don’t try to be fancy about it. Figure out how you will put your product in your customer’s hands and break down the numbers.
Thanks for sharing, Paul
Though we had one set out before launch, I have been desperately thinking of how to revamp it since our chat cos we have now gathered new evidences of customer behaviour and better GTM funnels though we keep adding to it.
Thanks so much for this enlightening read
Sam Gibbon GTM isn’t about your digital marketing tactics. It’s your customer acquisition strategy. Who are you targeting (industry, org size), where are you starting (specific city or vertical), and how are you breaking in (partnerships, pilots, direct sale etc.). It’s about how you’ll land your first set of customers and scale from there
A pleasure to read and learn from. Thank you.