What I Got Wrong About Go-to-Market (and What I Do Differently Now)
Go-to-market works best when product managers treat it as part of product strategy, not a launch activity. Strong GTM starts with a clear understanding of the customer, a focused problem, and a value proposition to align around. Launch is not the finish line. It is the start of learning and iteration. I did not always see it that way. Early in my career, I treated go-to-market as something that happened after the product was “done,” and I paid for that mistake with a hard lesson that reshaped how I approach product leadership today. When Great Products Aren’t Enough I led a small eCommerce company called AbleCommerce at a time when both the internet and my career were still young. Before anyone had heard of us, I created a press kit and spent months calling publications daily, pitching our story and our product. That effort paid off when we won PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice Award, beating a competing IBM product. (Does anyone remember PC Magazine ?) Riding the confidence that comes fr...