Co-founder + Managing Partner at Everywhere Ventures 🚀
Every founder has a slide that says, “We’ll acquire customers through content marketing, paid social or partnerships.” And in 2025, nearly every investor has learned to ignore it 😿 The old go-to-market playbooks are not working anymore. The channels are saturated, the costs are high and the returns are diminishing. From where I sit as an early stage investor, a generic GTM plan is no longer a sign of preparation - it’s a red flag. It shows a founder is ready to execute someone else’s old strategy, not discover a new unique one tailored to their own business. Founders who are successful finding their first customers and raising capital are demonstrating something else entirely - not a polished plan, but a series of insightful discoveries. Here’s what I see actually working to prove you can access a market: ✔️ A Portfolio of Scrappy Experiments. Before you can find a scalable channel, you need to prove you can find ANY channel. The most impressive founders show up with stories of things that don't scale. They acquired their first 50 users by building a free tool that solved a tiny problem for their target user or by personally engaging in a specific Subreddit or Slack community. This proves you have the creativity and grit to find customers where others aren’t even looking. ✔️ A Founder Who Is the Distribution Channel. Early on, your most powerful GTM advantage can’t be bought because it’s actually YOU. Investors are looking for a founder with a unique ability to reach the market. Are you an expert with a following in your industry? Have you built a deep, trusted network that represents your initial customer base? Show how your personal brand and unique insights give you an unfair advantage that no amount of ad spend or marketing can replicate. ✔️ Mastery of a "Micro-Funnel." Instead of a broad, leaky funnel, demonstrate that you can dominate a tiny, efficient one. Prove that you can convert a very specific persona from a very specific source with incredible efficiency. For example: "We can turn a clinical research coordinator from a specific LinkedIn group into a qualified lead for $15." This level of precision is far more impressive than a vague, top-down plan to capture a massive market. It shows you have a data-driven foundation from which to grow. The goal of an early-stage GTM isn't to prove you can scale, it's to prove you can learn. Your first GTM strategy shouldn't be a playbook - it should be a lab notebook full of weird and (hopefully) winning experiments. 🙌🏼 Shout out to Alex Iskold from 2048 Ventures for teaching me a lot about funnels over the years and what he calls 'magic moments' 🙏🏼
Interesting example (i.e. clinical research coordinator). Are you investing in clinical trials?
Probably the most insightful thing I've read about marketing in some time
So much truth here. The old GTMs are saturated and dead. Great thoughts Jenny
This is the most critical—and most overlooked—distinction in early-stage GTM. The chase for the illusion of scale before earning precision is where most companies die. The "lab notebook" analogy is perfect. Before anything becomes a "process," it has to survive the chaos of the early market: weird channels, non-scalable motions, and raw, human-first insights. What most founders miss is that these early experiments are the raw materials for their GTM system. If you're not documenting the learnings, you're not building a system—you're just guessing louder. Curious — what’s the scrappiest, most unexpected GTM experiment you’ve seen work?
this is such valuable insight, Jenny. Id love to apply it in in-house roles in corporate america too- too often leaders are so worried about scale that they miss the plot completely. Taking a portfolio of scrappy experiments AND mastery of a micro-funnel with me. THANK YOU! Great post
This is great, I had the same feedback for a founder recently. Can you share more on this magic moments idea?
The early-stage founders I’ve seen succeed are usually the ones in the DMs with their users, testing value props in real time and showing up in niche spaces where people still speak plainly. We’ve run everything from low-lift explainers to scrappy email experiments just to figure out what actually gets someone to lean in. The most useful signal has always been some version of, “Oh wait, I’d actually use this.” That’s the moment you know there’s something worth building around. Appreciate how clearly you put this.
Such a big yes to your #1–portfolio of scrappy experiments. Willingness and success with experimenting goes on to demonstrate the kind of learning needed in the team throughout the first few phases of building a business. A big intangible de-risking element in my book.
I LOVE that you mentioned the bit on founders who show up with stories of something that didnt scale, we really need to stop pretending every idea we try works
Design Lead @ Newsreel | Building UX for Media Literacy | Bridging Fine Arts & Technology for Civic Engagement
2moThis resonates so much. Early stage isn't about having the perfect plan - it's about proving you can learn faster than anyone else in your space. The failures matter just as much as the wins. Shows you can actually iterate based on real feedback, not just execute a predetermined strategy. Thanks for saying what we're all feeling about those old playbooks 🤙