IT

Startup go-to-market support for the seed stage

Seven glass spheres on a surface, only one joined to a small crystal cube by a lilac thread

Which go-to-market channels should you pick?

One or two, wherever your customer already is. Each channel sits where it usually sits for a seed-stage startup: tap a point to see when it works and where to start.

Positions are indicative: they depend on your market, your price and how easy your customer is to reach.

slowSpeed of first resultsfast

lowCost and efforthigh

SEO

What it is
Getting found on Google and in AI answer engines for the questions your customers already ask.
When it works
When people search for the problem in their own words and you have months ahead of you: results come slowly, then compound. Write to be cited, not just clicked: Pew Research (US, 2025) found users clicked a result in 8% of visits with an AI summary on the page, against 15% without.
First step
A map of the real questions, and one page that answers the most important of them brilliantly.
SEO for startups

How do you set up a 90-day go-to-market plan?

Foundations, then iteration, then focus. Ninety days is enough to know which channel to keep, as long as you measure from day one.

  1. Days 1–30Foundations

    • Ideal customer and message on one page, in your first customers' words.
    • Tracking and key events across site and product, tied to their sources.
    • Website and funnel: one page per promise, one clear action.
    • One or two channels on test, with budget and pass mark set in advance.

  2. Days 31–60Iteration

    • Numbers read every week, one change at a time.
    • Onboarding: getting new users to their first result faster.
    • First content, built on customers' real questions.
    • Retention cohorts: who stays, and which channel they came from.

  3. Days 61–90Focus

    • Double down on the channel that brings customers who stay.
    • Cut the rest, even the fun bits.
    • A written playbook: what works, what it costs, who runs it.
    • Decide what to bring in-house and what not to.

What changes in the product at seed?

The product stops being a proof and becomes the place where customers you've never met turn up. Three things have to hold.

Scalability
Errors monitored, backups tested, performance measured on the key flows. You don't need an architecture for millions of users; you need nothing to break silently.
Onboarding
You can't walk every customer through by hand any more: the product has to explain itself up to the first result. It's often the lever that lifts every channel at once.
Analytics
Product events tied to channels: knowing not just how many arrive, but who stays and where they came from. Without it, go-to-market runs on gut feel.

If the product needs rebuilding to cope, we start with SaaS development. As it keeps growing, the next stop is scale-up.

What is a go-to-market strategy, and what goes into it?

It's the written decision on who to sell to, what to promise, at what price and through which channels, with the numbers that tell you whether it's working. It isn't a document to hand over; it's a plan you change every week.

The numbers to watch

Two rules of thumb common in SaaS, from David Skok's metrics: a customer's lifetime value (LTV) should be more than three times what it costs to acquire them (CAC), and that cost should be recovered in under twelve months. They're heuristics, not laws: they help you tell early which channel to keep.

What we do

Within the group, My Web Lab builds bespoke websites and web apps in Next.js and runs technical and content SEO, Google Ads campaigns and tracking. We set the plan with founders and then run it: growth marketing, Google and Meta ads, SEO and the startup website. Before this stage comes pre-seed; every stop is on the map of startup stages.

Questions about go-to-market

SEO or ads for a newly funded startup?

It depends on how much time you have and how sure you are of the message. Ads answer in days but charge for every click; SEO is slow but compounds. Many startups run a few ads to validate the message and build SEO alongside.

How much should a seed-stage startup spend on marketing?

There's no right percentage for everyone, and public benchmarks disagree. Set a test budget per channel with a ceiling on cost per customer, and only scale where customers stay. The rest of the money belongs in the product that keeps them.

How do you find your first ten customers?

Almost always by hand: direct outreach, your own network, communities where the customer already is. That's Paul Graham's advice in 'Do things that don't scale' (2013). Scalable channels come later, once you know what to say and to whom.

Product-led or sales-led growth?

Product-led if the value shows on its own within minutes and the price is low; sales-led if several people sign off, with contracts and integrations. Plenty of B2B startups start by selling by hand and add a free trial later.

When should you hire your first marketer?

When one channel works and needs someone to grow it every day. Hiring someone to find the channel usually costs more: find it first with a partner or the founders, then hand it over.

Further reading

Closed the round and want channels that actually work?

We start from your customer and ninety days of real numbers.

Let's talk