Building a product is only half the journey. The real challenge for a startup is delivering value to customers, driving retention, and establishing a repeatable growth model. In a recent webinar hosted by The Top Voices, GTM expert Ted Chalouhi provided a detailed breakdown of how to launch a product the right way and avoid common early-stage mistakes.
Speaker
Ted Chalouhi is the Founder and CEO of Duku AI. He previously led go-to-market teams at Uber, Deliveroo, Tripadvisor, and Foodbomb. With over 20 years of experience in sales and growth across B2B and B2C startups, he has helped scale companies from pre-seed to exit.
Why Startups Don’t Make It to the Growth Stage
Around 75% of startups fail to pass the Series A stage, and another 75% don’t make it through Series C. The core issue isn’t lack of revenue — it’s poor retention. Without it, growth becomes a “leaky bucket”: startups attract users who quickly churn. Yet investors and founders often focus on growth rates, overlooking the key metric — customer return. It’s much easier to accelerate growth after achieving strong retention than to scale first and struggle with churn later.
Three stages of GTM maturity
The GTM maturity model consists of three sequential stages: Product-Market Fit (PMF), Go-to-Market Fit (GTMF), and Growth & Moat.
1. Product-Market Fit — Scaling Without Value Is Not an Option
At this stage, the key objective is to understand who the product is being sold to and why. Sales should be treated not as a revenue engine, but as a research function. The main focus is not revenue growth, but whether the customer reaches the so-called "aha moment" — the point at which they clearly recognize and experience the product’s value. Examples include: in Slack, sending 2,000 messages; in Dropbox, adding one file to one folder on one device; in HubSpot, activating five or more features within the first few weeks. If the user doesn’t reach this point within 30–90 days, they are likely to churn. That’s why it’s critical to align teams around identifying and accelerating this moment. Customer retention and time-to-value matter more than early sales.
2. Go-to-Market Fit — Repeatability Matters More Than Speed
GTMF means the company has:
- a working acquisition channel (e.g., inbound in the mid-market segment),
- a validated ideal customer profile (ICP), sustainable unit economics (LTV > CAC, with a payback period under 12 months),
- consistent customer retention.
If growth outpaces repeatability, key metrics start to decline: CAC increases, churn rises, and funnel quality deteriorates. If retention is strong and unit economics are healthy but growth is slow, the company is scaling too cautiously. It’s important to grow at a pace that maintains quality. A common mistake is trying to scale across all segments at once. Instead, the company should identify a proven cluster (e.g., mid-market inbound) and double down on it.
3. Growth & Moat — Scale Only What’s Proven
Once the model is stable, the company can move into the growth stage. This involves automation, systematization of processes, and ensuring repeatability. However, even at this stage, it's crucial not to overestimate the maturity of the model. A common scenario: a startup finds GTM fit in one segment but scales sales into others without additional validation. The result — increased costs and deteriorating metrics. Instead, the company should:
- continue testing experimental segments based on clear hypotheses,
- scale the team only when a repeatable formula is confirmed,
- track the impact of each new hire on retention and CAC.
GTM Is a Company-Wide Responsibility
GTM is not just about sales. Sales teams should act like product managers — conducting discovery and feeding insights back into the product. Marketing is responsible for lead quality, not just lead volume. Customer Success must ensure customers reach the “aha moment” within the first 30–90 days. Product and engineering should eliminate friction points that affect retention. Compensation for sales and CSMs should reflect not only deal closures but also whether the customer actually realizes value.
Practical Techniques
Daily film reviews — structured debriefs of sales calls and objections — help refine the ICP, improve messaging, and identify weak points. Monitoring retention graphs is equally important to understand where users drop off and what drives churn. In the early stages, pricing should not be the focus; the priority is proving real value. Sales at this point are not about scaling, but learning. The sales team should only be scaled after achieving repeatability.
Conclusion
Go-to-market is not a launch day — it’s a structured process of discovering and locking in growth. It starts with validating customer value and identifying the “aha moment,” followed by building a repeatable sales model with sustainable economics. Only then is it time to scale. A common mistake is chasing growth without a proven model. A successful GTM requires discipline, focus, and alignment of the entire organization around delivering customer value.