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.

Founders must consider their sales motion (e.g., PLG vs. enterprise sales-led) when designing the product. A product built for one motion won't sell effectively in another, potentially forcing a costly redesign. This concept extends "product-market fit" to "product-market-sales fit."

A more effective mental model than PLG vs. SLG is analyzing which activities create new demand versus which ones harvest existing demand. Both sales and product can serve either function. Creating demand is always the harder, more critical challenge for any revenue engine.

Successful companies like MongoDB don't choose between PLG and enterprise sales. They build a unified go-to-market system that recognizes developers need self-service frictionlessness while large, regulated enterprises require sophisticated, high-touch sellers.

The traditional sales discovery question "How do they buy?" focused on the procurement process and economic buyers. In a Product-Led Growth (PLG) motion, the crucial question is about the *usage journey*. Sales must analyze user behavior signals within the product—like downloads or manual views—to understand when and how to engage effectively.

A common PLG pitfall is assuming the user base will naturally springboard into enterprise deals. Often, the enterprise buyer is a different person with different problems. This oversight can cost companies years, as they have to build a second, separate sales motion from scratch.

Traditional sales discovery focuses on the formal procurement process. In a product-led growth model, understanding 'how they buy' means first analyzing how customers are using the product before any purchase. This pre-purchase engagement is the new starting point for the entire sales motion.

Figma avoids role confusion by assigning its high-velocity, product-led growth (PLG) "upgrade" motion exclusively to its SMB sales team. This allows mid-market and enterprise reps to specialize in a purely strategic, sales-led process without being distracted by transactional deals, ensuring maximum focus.

In a PLG model, initial sales outreach should be purely helpful. The pivot to commercial conversations about SLAs, hosting, or premium features should be triggered only when user signals indicate they have reached a testing or pre-production stage. This aligns the sale with the user's critical moment of need, replacing the traditional focus on meeting an economic buyer first.