Final presentation to client organisation - 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝘂𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 [𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀] 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿. Why does it happen - ever wondered? Well, I have wondered of this, and dealt with and am dealing with this - just like many, many of us in the Startup culture. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱? This article combines my experience across 28 years, all my failures and all my successes - in an attempt to find a common theme. Well, in my thought analysis - 𝗜 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝟴+ 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. You may call it Gyan - but this is Gyan rooted in hardcore experience and the burning fire of failure. Read on!


This is a very long article - but tries to establish a framework that can work. That being said, it is not plug and play - it wont work as-is. Every step needs to be changed and adapted to the situation - for there are no ready answers to this problem I have presented here in this article. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭 - 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴, 𝘢 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 95% 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 4 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 10 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 10!

 

 

 

Why Startups Lose Out, & How a Custom-Built GTM Wins

Lessons from 20-25 years of handling GTM across B2B, Startup and MSME plays

Cracking into a new market can be challenging for any startup. It is harder in B2B, and harder still when the target audience is enterprises rather than MSMEs and other startups. Teams approach them regularly, only to fail to open the door. Others get a foot in, get their pitch in, and lose there.

 

That is understandable. The real frustration hits when you get past the first meeting and into the selection zone, and yet someone else, usually a larger company, wins. This is a classic GTM problem. I have been grappling with it for a couple of clients as well, so here are some learnings, in brief, from my 20-25 years of handling GTM.

The case we lost

Let me tell you the first case we lost. It was one of the largest houses in Southern India, for a luxury consumer product. We reached the last choice stage and we were rejected at the last stage. They went with the bigger company, because they had a series of qualifying criteria.

 

Big companies have a list of 8 to 10 criteria: staff strength, team strength, team capabilities, team achievements, company history, company achievements. It is an entire profile that they have built up of the company at the internal level. That is where small companies get stuck.

 

There is no simple way to break this barrier. It is a glass ceiling that many startups and smaller service providers encounter when attempting to enter large enterprises.

 

The model in brief

That glass ceiling is where most startups and small agencies get stuck, and the standard way of pitching will not break it. What follows is the model I recommend, drawn from GTM across B2B, startups and MSMEs. It is not plug and play: each step has to be designed for the company. In brief:

1.       Prove execution, not just capability. Clear the technology phase, then show case studies, company logos and a growth chart.

2.       Start small, but crack it. Take a very small pilot, or customer, and execute it well, then climb the ladder.

3.       Build a strong outreach package. Website, emails, WhatsApp messaging and customer-facing documents, all in place.

4.       Treat it as the complete package. Technology, execution, working capital, internal processes, and the team that demos.

5.       Find the selection parameters. Most companies will not tell you what they are.

6.       Know the competition. Feature by feature, with marketing, sales, technology and senior management together.

7.       Play the numbers. Look at the denominator and scale 10 approaches to 50.

8.       Follow up strategically, and give it time. Keep in touch, keep reminding them you are there.

Note: Not every step carries equal weight in every company and/or industry – and indeed the priority as well as the steps themselves may differ. The above is a generic listing; this model has to be evolved for each use case.

The sections below take each of these in turn.

It's not capability, it's execution

Having cleared the initial demonstration, or demo level - you have to prepare your customer communication in a very, very different way. The standard communication of how good you are will not help. It is not a question of your capabilities or your performance abilities. That question is completely removed at the final level, because at the final level they are not looking at your capability. They are looking for proof or indication of your execution.

 

You have to convince them that you can execute the project. They will look at your working capital availability, your team size and capability, your previous track record and more because executing a project requires some basic funds and all the rest of these factors. Thus the entire customer communication has to change. It has to reflect your technological prowess, your execution capability, your understanding of the customer. All of this has to be reflected.

 

Technological capability can be communicated in technical documents. Proving execution capability is an entirely different challenge altogether. You have to present case studies. You have to present the company logos where you have operated. You have to present a growth chart showing how you grew and proved your capability – and a lot more.

 

That is point one. There are a lot of factors that go into creating a GTM for this. That is why I have been repeatedly saying to all my clients that GTM is not a plug-and-play venture. A GTM has to be designed for each company.

 

But anyway, gyan wali baat chodo, let's come to practical factors.

 

Start small, but crack it

A second case. We broke into one of the largest brands in India, very recently. How did we do it? A pilot project. They looked at our technological capability. We did not pretend that we could do what the big guys can do. We said: we have this, which the big guys don't have. We come at a cheaper cost. We built customization and flexibility into the product. That was one of the factors. Without understanding the product itself, I cannot go into more than that. So start small. Take a very, very small project, execute it well, and slowly climb up the ladder in their chain.

 

Push your execution and regularity. It's about execution. Once they are convinced that we can do it – your chances imnprove. It's not about capability, it's about execution.

 

On another account, we reached out to all the big companies and no one supported us. To nahi aur sahi. Aur nahi aur sahi. Then one big company came with one contract for us. We executed it. They gave us a second, we executed that. They gave us a third, we executed that. Today we are present in a large number of their projects. That's the name of the game. Start small, but crack it. And keep approaching for the big projects.

 

Will a risk-share approach get you through the last level?

A question I received: Will a risk-share approach help in getting through the last levels? Where we say we execute and show value, and make money in the next engagements, similar to Alex Hormozi's grand slam offer concept. Does this work in the Indian context?

 

There are no easy answers to this question. A lot of companies have done it. One of the largest Pune-based companies did development for top influencers, A-listers, for free, and then built their business from there. This was told to me by one of the top people in the company, on a personal visit, while we were chatting. So it is a known approach. It is a high-risk approach, but if done well, it can succeed.

 

The first aspect

There are two factors in this. One, you should know the competition thoroughly. That is an absolute. If you are saying that we will give you value, value is a relative concept. Today I am making pasta. If somebody offers me a pizza, I may not value it as much, because my mind is set on the pasta. In very simple terms, that is the concept of value. Value is always relative in nature. So you should know what the customer wants. You should have a deep understanding of the customer and of what the competition can offer the customer. Once you have that, then you can build a value proposition.

 

The flip side is that in the real market, it frequently happens that the customer is just frustrated talking to 20 different people. He does literally a flip of the coin and offers a pilot project to the people he connects with. That is where you connect with the people in the company. How you relate to the person matters. If you like the person you are engaging with, you will receive his or her calls, you will reach out. That builds a different dynamic. And in the decision stage, you are the first name that comes to mind. In marketing, this is called reaching the consideration set. You need to reach the consideration set for this to succeed. The higher steps are always there, but it does make the closures easier.

 

What this does is coalesce the entire financial risk on the startup. Unless you have a very good product, a proper market placement and a proper product-market fit, it can lead to losses down the line. This is a very slow-burn game, and it can lead to success over a period of time. That much is true.

 

The second aspect

This is a straight-off risk trade-off. I call it a risk trade-off because the risk is not being taken by the buyer. The risk is being taken by the seller. This is counterintuitive to how marketing works, because whenever we purchase something, we are taking some risk for the perceived outcome. When I take a subscription of Microsoft 365 at a certain tier, I am taking the risk that I may not use all those features. That is an acceptable risk to me, because I don't want the other options that are there. In this case, the risk is completely reverted. Given that, it needs to be managed properly, because you are saying that you can give us the money after the outcome.

 

Another way to do this: instead of reverting the risk entirely, you can have a special pricing tier, a light model, a penetrative pricing model, where for limited functionalities we do a pilot project at a reduced cost, to lessen the resistance. This has also been frequently chosen as a way. Why I like this over the risk-reversal model is simple: there is a commitment from the customer. If the customer spends money, it becomes a bit more focused. If I get a newspaper subscription for free, I will probably read it, I will probably not. There are online newspapers available for free. Would I go and read them? I am not that kind of person. I take a subscription to two or three newspapers every month, so I feel I need to take at least some value out of it. Even if I don't have the time, I find the time to read that newspaper. That is the concept of commitment on the side of the customer.

 

This is not a theoretical decision. It is a practical decision that needs to be taken by a team: the CTO, because these decisions are driven at the technology level, with the CEO in an advisory role and not really involved, and the head of marketing and the head of sales. It is a multi-dimensional team. Here the entire load of the value demonstration is being taken by technology. This is a tech industry and the tech needs to perform. The fitment of technology matters more than execution at this stage, because it is almost like an MVP. It is not a full-scale, enterprise-wide execution where the whole team's factors come in. You just need to convince the customer that this is a team of five people and we can execute this. After the pilot has succeeded, the customer is going to look at your execution capability and whatever else. That is why customers frequently do pilots. They check the technology. That is the biggest problem in the risk-reversal thing.

 

So it works and it doesn't work. That is why I said: it depends.

 

The third side

The third side of this risk-reversal strategy is that if the pilot is successful, despite not getting converted into a full execution, the startup gets a logo, a case study and a successful handover to its name. Converting that into a revenue stream is then the job of core marketing from there on, within the constraints defined above.

 

You will need a strong outreach package

Third, you will need a strong outreach package. Outreach does not mean taking appointments or calling. It starts with your website. It starts with all your customer-facing communication: the emails you send, your WhatsApp messaging, your customer-facing documents. If you have existing customers and you are communicating with them, that entire package needs to be in place.

 

It is a very small thing, but one of the largest companies in the globe reached us through our website. They liked what we had on it. We were able to communicate to them what they wanted to read about, and they reached out to us.

 

The story of that website: it was for a hardcore automation field, logistics automation, PLC-level programming. The website structure was built over seven to eight months of deep consultation between me, the CTO, the chief engineer and the sales head. There were five or six of us involved. Then we met several customers, we engaged with them, and we understood what we had built.

 

We didn't manage to close that contract. They stopped because they did not find our executional capability to be deep enough, despite our having a product that could meet their standards. Otherwise they wouldn't have been talking to us. The product level was cleared. The executional level failed.

So the entire customer-facing package needs to be in place.

 

It's a package

The thing is, your product is a package. There is the technology. There is the executional capability. There is the company structure, the working capital requirement, the internal processes. Then there is an in-depth understanding of the market, and an in-depth understanding of the customer. There is the outward-facing GTM package, including your website, your team's training, and the person who is speaking, whose knowledge should be there. The cadence of the approach. It is not one thing alone. The marketing package should be in place. All of these have to fall in place for sustainable success – only the percentages and the priorities have to be altered

 

One of the clients we lost, we lost because the demo staff was not able to convince them. We had the best product in the market. We didn't close that client only because the queries were not handled properly by the person giving the demo from the sales team. That's it. We ticked every box. We lost it on that one parameter.

 

Because it's a jungle out there. There are five others like me doing the same task. In some things they are doing a bit better than me, in some I am doing better than them. Where the customer needs and our advantages match – closure happens! So it's the complete package that matters.

 

The parameters nobody tells you

Execution and technology are not the only two parameters. That is why the problem arises. And not every company will reveal what those parameters are. Some companies do. They will give you a list of performance parameters that you have to meet. Most companies don't. That is a standard process that should be there, but it isn't. Yes, I agree: the dice are loaded against startups. But that's the way it is.

 

Know the competition

Finally, know the competition. Know it in and out, in depth, in detail. This is not something you can do in one day, two days or three days. It is going to take a couple of months. It will require a dedicated team mapping every feature, every micro feature, every workflow, every aspect of your product and your company against the competition, and knowing where you can convince the other company that you are the better fit.

 

But remember, at the end of the day, what matters is execution. Once technical suitability has been established, technology alone is rarely sufficient to win a large enterprise engagement. The decision increasingly shifts towards execution capability, organisational depth, track record and financial resilience. I cannot emphasize this enough.

 

At the selection stage, in such major projects, when you are talking to CEOs, they are looking at execution capability, track record, depth of the company, and working capital requirements. That is where your networking with the people inside the company comes in, the people who can be your marketers over there. Because it's a purchase committee you are dealing with. If they are convinced about you, they will be positive.

 

At the end of the day, it comes down to somebody asking somebody, "Who do you think can do it?" It's a CEO saying, "Vishal, do you think this PR agency can execute? Who would you recommend out of these two?" I said number one and not number two. It's my neck on the line. If number two doesn't succeed, the fellow is going to ask me.

 

That is why networking matters. That is why follow-up matters. But at the end of the day, it's execution. And that is where understanding your competition matters.

 

Even if there is a lacuna in the execution part, let's say a company doesn't have enough working capital, and the other person knows it. Bhai, teen lines hain, real story. Teen mein se ek line band hai, do hi line ka output chal raha hai, toh how can they meet our production targets that we need for the intermediate material line? Real story. Steel longs. That customer could not provide us enough. Yet we went ahead. Why? That is where the competition mapping came in. They were able to convince us of what they could do and the other person could not. It was a different variety of steel already produced, and the other person was not able to prove that he could do it. That's the difference.

 

But for that you should know your competitor inside out, feature by feature, mini feature by mini feature. This is not a job for marketing alone. It is a job for marketing plus sales plus technology plus senior management. This is how you build a strong network. This is how you build a strong GTM.

 

It's a game of networking

Finally, it's a game of networking. In order to reach there, it is just a function of the number of contacts. In my experience, conversion ratios can vary substantially depending on the size and nature of the company being approached. The larger point is that smaller companies generally need to work with a much larger prospecting denominator. You need to outreach more and more and more.

 

Look at the denominator. How many companies are there in India that you can target? How many of these have you targeted? How many companies are there in other markets that you can target? How many of those have you targeted? What are you doing about the ones you have not targeted? Approach them.

 

Among those you have targeted, who are an absolute no, and who are to be approached again? If so, when? How?

 

It's just a function of this: if you have the technology, and this is a big if, if you have the executional capability, then it boils down to the other parameters. One of the first things you should be looking at is: am I doing enough outreach?

 

If you are approaching 10 people, scale that up to 50. India has over 7,000 corporates and about 33 million enterprises. India alone. So go deeper into your market and start more approaches. Increasing the number of strategically qualified approaches improves the probability of finding an opportunity. If you approach in a strategic fashion, which you already are, then what you are not being made aware of is the selection parameters, and that is unfortunate.

 

One of the earliest pieces of advice I got in sales, from my first boss and from a close friend a bit older than me, was a simple question: "Vishal, how many calls are you making per day?" I gave him a number. He said, "Just increase that number and watch the magic flow in." I did that. It took me three to four months of hard effort, and eventually I was able to achieve 95 to 100% of my targets. Then, once I understood the rules of the game, I could bring my number of calls down and look at work-life balance and all that.

 

Follow-up is key

Just because you failed once doesn't mean you will fail the second, third, fourth or fifth time you try. I approached one customer 23 times before I managed to open the door.

 

Follow-up matters. Regular, strategic follow-up matters. Follow-up is not picking up the phone, or WhatsApp, or an email and sending a cadence message every three days, every four days. It is strategic. Keep in touch. Send them the odd greeting message. Whenever you have developed something new, send them a message: this is what we developed, this is just to update you. Keep reminding them that you are there.

 

The longest closure cycle I know of in SaaS took two years and 10 months of follow-up. I don't think that customer was going to wait two years and 10 months for a solution. Obviously they had gone ahead with something else. But we managed to crack it. It took us two years and 10 months.

 

There was a place once where I failed. When they got stuck, they hired me again. This happens. This happens all the time. If you fail, try again. There is no harm in trying. It only means that you need to increase your number of follow-ups. And, two, you need time.

 

The hard reality

There are times you will fail, and there are times you will fail repeatedly, again and again. That's the nature of life. That's the nature of business. If you fail, get up and try again. This is exactly how we managed to turn around one company. We just kept at it. We just kept at it. We just kept at it. Main itna gyan de raha hoon, main das baar karunga toh aath baar main isme fail hounga. That is the reality. That is the hard reality.

 

Conclusion: the complete package

There is no single lever that leads to market success – it is a customized package that needs to be evolved. There is the technology, the executional capability, the company structure, the working capital requirement and the internal processes. There is an in-depth understanding of the market and of the customer, the outward-facing GTM package, and the cadence of the approach. It is the complete package. That is why GTM is not a plug-and-play venture, and why a GTM has to be designed for each company.

 

Clear the technology phase, then prove execution: case studies, company logos, a growth chart. Start small, but crack it, and keep approaching for the big projects. Know your competition feature by feature. Look at the denominator: how many companies you can target, how many you have targeted, and what you are doing about the rest.

 

The dice are loaded against startups, but that's the way it is. If you fail, try again. There is no harm in trying. Increase your follow-ups, go deeper into your market, and give it time. For us it took 23 approaches to one customer, two years and 10 months to one closure, and three and a half years to cross break-even.