Go-To-Market (GTM) for Digital Products

This skill exists to stop: "the product is done — marketing, go get users," followed by ad spend into a funnel that loses half its users at onboarding.

Quick start

Paste the launch ask ("feature is done, launch it") and get back: the retention gate that must pass before any spend, a co-signed positioning statement, the SAVE table, the journey funnel with one metric per step, and the first segment.

🤖 0. HOW TO USE (agent workflow)

A. Sequence check first (the million-dollar rule): Retention → Conversion → Acquisition. If retention of a small organic cohort is unknown, refuse to plan paid acquisition; plan the retention measurement instead. B. Four work zones: 5C analysis → STP + one positioning statement co-signed by Product, Growth, and Sales → marketing mix in SAVE terms → acquisition funnel drawn on the real journey (not a generic AARRR). C. Pick the school: waterfall master plan (big budget, existing channels) vs growth-loop iteration (startup/SaaS: launch small, experiment, learn, iterate). D. Pick the first customer: early adopters with an acute pain, never the mass market on day one. Standard output: positioning statement · SAVE table · journey funnel with a metric per step · the retention gate that must pass before spend · first-segment definition.

1. The sequence rule — Retention → Conversion → Acquisition

Real case from the workshop: a new product lost 50% of users at the first onboarding step. Had the team run ads, every 100 users bought would have yielded 50 who left without understanding the product. Correct order: measure retention on a small organic cohort → fix the onboarding drop (50% → 20%) with UX and engineering → only then scale acquisition, and only while CAC < LTV.