Three-step go-to-market plan for SaaS revenue growth

Executive overview

Most founders skip planning and jump to execution — cold emails, ads, social posts — but without a defined target and message, nothing converts. The fix is a three-step go-to-market plan built before any outbound activity starts.

Nail your ICP and manifesto first; only then run a consistent Broadway show to build predictable pipeline.

Build your ideal customer profile

• Vague targeting ("we're kind of this and also this") produces no scalable results.
• Write the ICP down — until it's written, you don't really have one.
• Pull both qualitative and quantitative data; in early stages, lean on pattern recognition.
• Go deep on 29 data points to identify who to target at the next stage of growth.
• Pick one ICP rather than hedging; avoid trying to serve everyone.
• Founders who can sell to their network but can't attract new leads almost always have an ICP and messaging problem.

Build your manifesto

• The manifesto defines your value proposition, messaging, and the movement you're building.
• Forces founders out of feature-thinking and into what they want to teach customers.
• A differentiated story makes prospects choose you over competitors — and choose you now.
• Key elements: an urgent and important problem, macro trend relevance, and a clear call to arms.
• Weak messaging is why hooks don't land, cold email subject lines fail, and leads aren't real buyers.

Run a Broadway show

• A Broadway show is a consistent, repeating drum beat of sales and marketing activities.
• Sporadic channel-hopping prevents channel mastery and never accumulates enough data to optimise.
• Marketing generates pipeline (awareness); sales converts attention to revenue — both need consistent rhythm.
• As you run the show, collect data on what's working and cut what isn't.
• Use that data to iterate on ICP and manifesto until you hit message-market fit, then scale.

Bonus: visualise growth as a flywheel

• Map the full cycle: leads → opportunities → revenue → retention → expansion → referrals → more leads.
• Identify choke points — the one stage slowing the flywheel most — and fix that first.
• Fixing choke points systematically accelerates growth once message-market fit is confirmed.