At the early stage, you need to iterate on your go-to-market (GTM) as fast, if not faster, than you’re iterating on your product. Here’s why: before investing a ton of engineering resources into building a product, it’s critical that you validate there’s a market for what you’re building. Customer feedback is crucial.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with over 100 portfolio companies in my time as an Operating Partner at Gradient and I’ve seen many early-stage, technical founders struggle with how to approach prospective customers and land design partners. Some common mistakes include building the product before getting sufficient feedback from prospective customers, conducting outreach that’s not targeted, and simply not doing enough activity to hit your GTM goals.

That’s where GTM Sprints come in. This agile methodology forces early-stage companies to embrace experimentation and quick iteration to validate product-market fit and generate sales leads faster.