‍Your go-to-market strategy should feel out of date every 12 to 24 months. Because the tactics that got you your first 50 users won’t get you to €50M ARR. Over the past 12 years I’ve worked with B2B SaaS companies at wildly different stages. And here’s the one pattern I’ve seen every time:

The best teams rewrite their GTM playbook regularly. Why?

• VC rounds every 18-24 months.
• Moved upmarket? Launched a second offering? Changed your pricing model? Your GTM needs to keep pace.
• The hustle that worked for 10 people breaks when you're scaling to 300. Now it’s about systems, not hacks.‍
• Revenue Plateau. Hitting €2M, €10M, €30M ARR? Congrats — you reached new revenue plateau. Old playbooks break.

Here a few thoughts on how your marketing should evolve as your business grows - from early validation to building something scalable. Because great marketing isn't set and forget. It grows with you.

Pre-revenue -> €1M ARR

You're short on money, time and clarity. Senior hires? Probably out of the budget - and frankly, not what you need yet.

What you do need is a scrappy team of generalists who run fast experiments, speaks in use cases, and knows how to wrangle AI tools to get sh*t done.

Everyone is doing marketing: the founder, the engineer, the intern. It’s all hands on deck. The real job of marketing right now?

• Identify your early users (Early Customer Profile)
• Spot real use cases and patterns
• Build just enough story to connect problem to product

Forget polished campaigns. Right now, the founder is the brand — and the best distribution channel. Check this book: "Founder Brand: Turn your story into a competitive advantage" for some really great tactics.

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€1M–€20M ARR

You've got traction. Now it's getting real. You're starting to see patterns - but let's be clear: they didn't magically appear. You found them. Through customer conversations, scraped data, CRM deep dives, and hundreds of Slack convos.

• Who's logging in the most?
• Where are deals landing faster?
• What use cases keep popping up?

At this stage your Go-To-Market function starts to take shape and you move away from the founder-everything. And how you build your org really matters. Keep it lean... and AI-native. Every seat has leverage.

Here's an example of what your lean marketing team could look like:

• Creator: produces authentic multimedia content. Knows how to prompt the AI, but doesn't let it do all the talking. Brings a real voice, a real flavour. GPT alone can't build your brand. In a sea of same AI-flavoured mush, creators bring perspective and tell the unique story. Vibe marketing!
• ‍Product Marketer: deep in the voice of the customer. Owns the positioning, personas, launches and customer stories. Makes sure the message gets to the right person, in the right way.
• Demand Gen: drives full-funnel campaign orchestration across paid, owned, and earned channels. Converts awareness into sales pipeline and revenue.
• GTM Engineer: Connects the stack. Business partnering your org on solutions and integrations.

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What marketing is focusing on now: Precision & Predictability. You're not going after everyone. You're doubling down on the segments with real urgency and pain.

Still using product-led growth as your key vehicle? Great — keep it running. To avoid revenue plateaus and create predictability, you’ll need to move upmarket eventually. That means:

• 12–24 month contracts → More cash upfront. More runway. Less churn risk. Gives your team space to plan, not panic.
• Multi-seat expansion → One user won’t get you to €50M ARR. Selling into teams = stickier usage and helps you with land & expand motion within the account.

It's a good time to build your presence in the field. Not through crowded trade shows, but through high-impact moments where key prospects and customers actually talk about your solution. A few examples that work really well and won't burn your runway:

• Executive dinners - shared pain, shared wine, real connection. Group your RSVP list by industry or role (e.g. CMOs, Financial Services) so everyone speaks the same language. And keep it really top of the funnel: focus on market trends and shared experiences - not product pitches. Build trust first.
• Private briefings/AMAs - give top prospects a seat at the table and connect them with your PMs or tech leads. Walk them through the roadmap, ask for input, and co-create value.

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€20–€100M ARR

You've got a real business now - revenue, a working funnel and some momentum.

But scaling what works means fixing what breaks ("leaky sales funnel", "inefficient lead gen", "wasteful marketing programs", "channels that don't scale", "shiny object syndrome"). And those revenue plateaus? You'll probably hit them more than once at this stage.

What is breaking most at this stage? Alignment. Silos between Marketing, Sales, Customer Success and regions are silently killing you. Great companies don't just "collaborate" - they operationalise alignment.

This means:

• Shared goals and dashboards
• Joint planning and reviews
• And a culture of documentation - async-first, so nothing gets lost between teams or time zones
  

At this stage you've got real resources, a solid customer base and high ACVs. You can finally afford to run real go-to-market programs - not just marketing campaigns, but full plays that bring together sales, marketing, product and CS.

The first time I ran this kind of program at a €200m scale-up, it felt completely different. It wasn't just scattered initiatives or siloed projects. It was one big machine - everyone aligned under a single campaign umbrella, tracking every stage with clear ownership and common goals.

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What to Take With You?

Marketing will keep evolving, but the biggest shift happens between Seed and Series C/D. That’s where the real leap is made — and where "good" gets separated from "great".

Here’s what to remember:

• Your GTM playbook should evolve every 12–24 months. That’s a sign of growth. If it doesn’t change, you risk plateauing — or worse, losing to faster-moving competitors.
• In the early days, marketing is founder-led. People buy vision, not features. The founder is the brand.
• Build lean teams. Era of AI-powered generalists.
• AI won’t build your brand. Authenticity matters — especially when everything starts sounding like it came from the same prompt.
• Scale up? Run real GTM programs, not just campaigns. That means tight alignment across Product, Sales, Marketing, and CS — planning/working/reporting/sharing the goal as one team toward revenue goals.

Need help along the way?

At GTMCAN, we’re senior marketers operators who’ve done the work, from scaling startups to leading global programs with 200m+ in revenue. Let’s talk.

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