gtm
Skill1 starsChanged 17 days agoMITView on GitHub
Go-to-market for founders: positioning, category design, beachhead and chasm, launch sequencing, pricing, PLG, marketplace cold start, platforms, growth models, scaling the motion, moats. Use for \"how do we position, launch, price or grow this\", \"who first\", \"why isn't it selling\".
7 other projects use a version of this.
Adopted by
Most recently taken up by
- sorawit-w/agent-skillstheir own version, first seen Nov 1, 2026
- mia-cx/skillstheir own version, first seen Nov 1, 2026
- harshsinghmp/muse-skillstheir own version, first seen Oct 15, 2026
- akachandan1/proofstacktheir own version, first seen Oct 11, 2026
- kkrlstrm/gtm-pipelinetheir own version, first seen Sep 29, 2026
- donatassimkus/claude-ai-skillstheir own version, first seen Jul 23, 2026
Other versions7 projects use a version of this.
Word for word · 0
None found.
Edited · 0
None found.
Wrote their own version · 7
- debpalash/OpenGTM★ 85same name
- kkrlstrm/gtm-pipeline★ 16same name
- mia-cx/skills★ 4same name
- sorawit-w/agent-skills★ 2same name
- donatassimkus/claude-ai-skills★ 1same name
- harshsinghmp/muse-skills★ 1same name
- akachandan1/proofstack★ 0same name
How matches are found. Word for word: the exact same text. Edited: shares passages with this file (“99% same” means 99% of its five-word phrases also appear here; 10% or more counts). Their own version: similar meaning, or, weakest, the same name. We can’t tell which project had it first. Projects are counted among the 200 most-starred candidates, and mentions are links to the repository we found, up to 50 per site, so both counts are a floor.
In this repository16 other files it gives its agents.
- brandingSkill
- business-model-canvasSkill
- customer-discoverySkill
- experimentsSkill
- facts-assumptions-unknownsSkill
- founder-stackSkill
- jtbdSkill
- learnSkill
- marketingSkill
- outreach-sprintSkill
- problem-discoverySkill
- salesSkill
- secondary-researchSkill
- startup-scorecardSkill
- value-proposition-canvasSkill
- where-to-playSkill
The file
We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent
7 rules. 0 are common, 5 are distinctive, and 2 are very specific to this project.
0
Common
Most of the 7 edited versions we read keep these.
5
Distinctive
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
2
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.
- Common
- Distinctive
- Very specific
- Very specific: line 11
Read the venture context if it exists: discovery/00-CONTEXT.md, discovery/LEDGER.md and discovery/FIELD-NOTES.md (own numbers beat book …
- Distinctive: line 13
Place the venture on the stage ladder: searching (no repeatable buyer), one segment working (references, flattening retention) or scaling …
- Distinctive: line 15
If two rows fit, pick the one matching the buyer's or user's latest *action*, not their words.
- Distinctive: line 42
Every method is stage-bound.
- Distinctive: line 45
Every source argues from survivors without base rates.
- Distinctive: line 58
Every answer ends with:
- Very specific: line 77
If the business-books MCP is connected, search_library / read_passage give the original passages behind a playbook.
“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 7 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
GTM
Who to win first, what frame they see you in, how to enter, price, grow and defend. Synthesized from ten GTM books, tested against the founder's own evidence.
Start here
- Read the venture context if it exists:
discovery/00-CONTEXT.md,discovery/LEDGER.mdanddiscovery/FIELD-NOTES.md(own numbers beat book benchmarks). Otherwise ask at most 3 questions: what you sell to whom, stage and evidence so far, the decision at hand. - Place the venture on the stage ladder: searching (no repeatable buyer), one segment working (references, flattening retention) or scaling (several segments, a team to align). Most GTM errors are later-stage tools used too early [Helmer] [Vajre] [Chen] [Moore].
- Route with the table below and read only the matching playbook(s). Never more than two. If two rows fit, pick the one matching the buyer's or user's latest action, not their words. Name other relevant playbooks; don't read them.
Router
| The founder says / needs | Playbook |
| "Prospects can't tell what we do" / "they compare us with the wrong rival" | playbooks/positioning.md |
| "We lose every bake-off against the big player" | playbooks/positioning.md |
| "Nothing fits our product" / "should we create a category?" | playbooks/category-design.md |
| "Who do we sell to first?" / "a few early fans bought, then sales stalled" | playbooks/beachhead-and-chasm.md |
| "How should we launch?" / "quiet beta or big PR moment?" | playbooks/launch-strategy.md |
| "How do we price?" / "free trial, freemium or demo?" / "which side pays?" | playbooks/pricing-and-packaging.md |
| "Should we go product-led?" / "people sign up and never come back" | playbooks/product-led-growth.md |
| "Our marketplace is empty" / "which side, city or team first?" | playbooks/marketplace-and-network-cold-start.md |
| "Should we become a platform?" / "rules, openness, developers, trust" | playbooks/platform-design.md |
| "Growth is flat" / "which metric matters?" / "should we pivot?" | playbooks/growth-model.md |
| "Our channels keep getting worse" / "paid, viral or retention?" | playbooks/growth-model.md |
| "Teams fight over numbers" / "hire more reps?" / "where next?" | playbooks/gtm-motion-and-scaling.md |
| "A funded clone just launched" / "what is our moat?" | playbooks/moats-and-defensibility.md |
| "Lots of interest, nobody switches" / "what do we actually compete with?" | playbooks/jobs-to-be-done-for-gtm.md |
Principles
- Win one narrow, dense, reachable group before expanding. Size it to this year's sales target, not to TAM [Moore] [Chen] [Dunford] [Vajre].
- The real competitor is what the buyer does today: a spreadsheet, an assistant, an agency, or nothing [Christensen] [Dunford] [Moore].
- Sell the progress the buyer wants. Features are proof, not the pitch [Christensen] [Bush] [Dunford] [Ramadan].
- Fix retention before you buy acquisition. A leaky product makes every channel look broken [Ries] [Chen] [Bush] [Vajre].
- Decide with cohorts and observed behaviour, never with cumulative totals [Ries] [Parker] [Chen].
- Being first is cheap. Owning the frame buyers use, or the densest network, is what lasts [Ramadan] [Chen] [Helmer].
- Every method is stage-bound. What wins today becomes tomorrow's trap [Helmer] [Vajre] [Chen] [Moore].
- Positioning and GTM are CEO decisions. They move roadmap and price, not just copy [Dunford] [Ramadan] [Vajre].
- Deliver everything the pitch implied. The gap between what was sold and what was experienced shows up as churn [Moore] [Bush] [Vajre].
- Every source argues from survivors without base rates. Frameworks are hypotheses to test, not laws.
When the experts disagree
| Tension | Go with A when… | Go with B when… |
| Existing frame [Dunford] vs new category [Ramadan] | Seed stage, little cash, and an existing category or subsegment can explain the product | A real shift, no budget line yet, a product different in kind, and money for several concentrated pushes |
| Quiet testing [Ries] [Lavingia] vs lightning strike [Ramadan] | Value is unproven, or fewer than ~100 paying customers: sell one by one and launch later as a thank-you | Value is proven in a segment and the market must learn the problem. Sequential, not rivals |
| Beachhead by pain [Moore] vs by density [Chen] | Value comes from the product plus a whole product sold to institutions | Value comes from other users. Bottom-up B2B needs both: a dense team inside a pained segment |
| Price off competitors [Moore] vs off value [Bush] | Checking a price before selling to mainstream pragmatists | Setting the price in the first place. Set it with Bush, then sanity-check it with Moore |
| Winner-take-all [Ramadan] [Helmer] vs many winners [Chen] | Parker's conditions hold: supply-side scale, strong network effects, costly multihoming, little room for niches [Parker] | Markets are local, fragmented or niche-rich. Plan for several winners |
| Learning speed as an edge [Ramadan] vs no Barrier, no Power [Helmer] | Explaining takeoff momentum | Judging durability. Learning without a Barrier gets copied |
Output contract
Every answer ends with:
- Recommendation: the call, specific to their business.
- Deliverable: the artifact (statement, shortlist, sequence, plan, table), filled in.
- Why: the framework(s) behind it, credited [Author].
- Assumptions to log: each as a ledger item (
A#,[ASSUMPTION, E0]) with the cheapest test and the evidence bar. Hand off to/experimentsor/customer-discovery. Grades: E0 opinion · E1 told story of past behaviour · E2 observed behaviour/artifact · E3 commitment (time, intro, next step) · E4 money. - Next action: one thing this week.
Research
Web-search only for current external facts: competitors, their prices, platform fees and rules, channel costs, market data. Cite each as [FACT — url, date]. Never web-search for "what the books say"; the playbooks are the method. No source means [UNKNOWN] plus a research step (/secondary-research).
The books are thin on emerging-market GTM (low ARPU, cash or COD, assisted selling, vernacular onboarding), on services businesses, and on AI-era distribution (AI search, agent buyers, near-zero build cost). Say so, reason from first principles, label it [ASSUMPTION].
Hand-offs
- Before:
/problem-discoveryand/customer-discovery(is the pain real?),/jtbd(the job),/where-to-play(which market opportunity),/value-proposition-canvas(fit). - Ownership lines: positioning strategy lives here and messaging copy in
/marketing. Price level, value metric and packaging live here; offer construction (bonuses, guarantees, naming) lives in/marketing; discounting and negotiation live in/sales. Names and identity go to/brandingonce the frame is set. - After:
/sales(founder-led selling, pipeline, scripts),/marketing(channels, content, campaigns),/business-model-canvas(revenue model, unit economics),/experiments(test design),/facts-assumptions-unknowns(ledger),/startup-scorecard(readiness). /learnto teach any framework here;/founder-stackto re-route.
Go deeper (optional)
If the business-books MCP is connected, search_library / read_passage give the original passages behind a playbook. Not required.
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