How to position your startup over time

🔴 Pre-Customers

Strategy → Take a guess

No one knows who you are or what you do.

And you barely know this yourself.

Be flexible and don’t overthink your messaging.

🟠 Early traction

Strategy → Create a clear message of what you do

You have some learning to work with here.

But you are still figuring out where to focus your product and GTM.

So stay flexible, but spend a little more time personalizing messaging to different audiences to see what resonates.

🟡 First phase of growth

Strategy → Create a clear message for a clear target

To scale, you can’t be all things to all people - Time to narrow and double-down.

The experimentation here shifts into channel & model testing for a specific audience.

🟢 2nd phase of growth

Strategy → Focused approach to shaping a real position

By this point, you’ll likely have some solid success in the form of revenue ($1M+)

You’ll also have a lot of data to work with, but also many paths to consider:

→ take product 1 and move into adjacent markets

→ create product 2 and go deeper into existing market

→ position to sell and let someone else figure it out

→ Automate the business and delegate operations

There is no “standard positioning & messaging” strategy to follow when you get to this level.

Your goals and ambitions will highlight the possible strategies to take, along with the variables of your product, sales model, customer segment, etc.

It’s likely a good time to slow down and work with a positioning expert before allocating resources in this growth shift.

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The takeaway for your early stage startup?

🔍 Recognize your startup maturity stage

🗺️ And use it as a guide to your positioning