a16z
Published on Jul 15, 2017
World-class companies aren’t built on technology alone; even the very best products don’t sell themselves. That’s why a smart go-to-market and sales function is critical to capturing market share and growing the company to scale and profitability. (This is true even for products that have a viral, “bottom-up motion” from a loyal base of grassroots users in the enterprise).

But whether top-down or bottom-up, how do you actually build your go-to-market model and sales strategy? How does — and should — the process, the people, and the organizational structure evolve with it? Many first-time startup CEOs and sales heads at startups wait too long to build these out because they don’t recognize what’s needed early on and don’t know what comes next. What...

a16z
Published on Jul 15, 2017
World-class companies aren’t built on technology alone; even the very best products don’t sell themselves. That’s why a smart go-to-market and sales function is critical to capturing market share and growing the company to scale and profitability. (This is true even for products that have a viral, “bottom-up motion” from a loyal base of grassroots users in the enterprise).

But whether top-down or bottom-up, how do you actually build your go-to-market model and sales strategy? How does — and should — the process, the people, and the organizational structure evolve with it? Many first-time startup CEOs and sales heads at startups wait too long to build these out because they don’t recognize what’s needed early on and don’t know what comes next. What would such an operation look like at scale?...