Mark Gainey explains why vision and go-to-market strategy are different things. Vision is your long-term goal, like Strava's aim to unite global athletes. GTM is the focused, tactical plan to get there, like starting with just cyclists. Most founders either confuse the two or mistake their first product for the whole company.
Chapters
Don't confuse go to market with vision. Okay? Vision. Vision is the long term dream, right? It's the holy grail. It's the brass ring. It's that thing that as a company you should be aspiring to get to, but you never quite get there, right? Go to market. That's a strategy. That is a waypoint along the journey to get to the vision At Strava, from day one, we can show you the business plan. Our vision was this idea of what would it be like to bring this global community of athletes together. Because we believe that that's what inspires you to keep going, the people who keep people active. But our go to market was, let's go deep with this niche in cycling. I've seen way too many entrepreneurs. They do one of two problems. Number one, they immediately think that their vision has got to be their go to market. They try to basically be everything to everybody. Or I see the opposite problem. I often see entrepreneurs who take their initial product idea and they think that's the company. Remember, as entrepreneurs, you're in the business of building a company, not a product. The product is a means to the end. So again, don't confuse these two. They're really important and you need them both. You need them both for the company. You need them for investors, you need them for employees. This is what inspires everybody.
