The most common GTM mistake is hiring execution-oriented leaders who force a pre-existing playbook onto a new company. Each company's customer journey is unique and requires a first-principles approach to design a GTM motion, rather than cutting and pasting a strategy that worked elsewhere.

Stop targeting the ambiguous "mid-market." Your strategy, hiring, and ACV must align with either a marketing-led SMB motion or a sales-led enterprise motion. Blending them leads to failure as they are distinctly different games.

Instead of a rigid plan, early-stage companies should establish core GTM "tent poles": a defined ICP, answers to the four essential questions of value, and an engagement model. These elements provide structure but can be flexibly adjusted based on market feedback without causing the entire strategy to collapse.

"Path dependency" is when past decisions, like adopting the MQL waterfall, constrain current strategy even though the market has changed. GTM teams get stuck trying to optimize a legacy, linear framework for today's non-linear buyer, preventing real innovation and ensuring suboptimal results.

For new CPG products, a methodical go-to-market approach that builds momentum in one strategic channel before expanding is superior to a wide, initial push. This creates a steady, predictable growth curve and avoids massive spikes and crashes in demand and production.

The process of defining a GTM strategy isn't just about choosing which segments to target; it's equally about deciding which ones to ignore. Failing to actively say "no" creates fuzziness, dilutes resources, and leads to misaligned sales and marketing efforts downstream.

Girish Redekar simplifies go-to-market strategy into two buckets. Are you "harvesting" existing demand from people already searching for a solution, or are you creating demand for a new category? Sprint0's early traction came from focusing solely on harvesting demand where their ICP was already active.

A bifurcated GTM strategy can de-risk entry into different market segments. For large enterprises with entrenched systems, lead with AI agents that integrate and augment existing workflows. For the more agile mid-market, offer a full-stack, AI-native replacement for their legacy tools.

Early on, Kadence acquired customers by optimizing for keywords like "desk booking Microsoft teams." As the company moved upmarket to chase larger ACVs, they found their ideal enterprise customers were no longer using Google for discovery. Their GTM motion successfully shifted to high-touch channels like events and dinners to land larger clients.