pm-gtm-plan

Go-to-Market Plan Skill

How this skill behaves (read first)

This is a generative deliverable skill, and "write a GTM plan" is where an AI assistant defaults to a generic launch checklist — announce, blog post, social, email, press — with no strategy underneath. The deeper mistakes: treating GTM as a one-time launch rather than a living system, stage-skipping (bolting a reseller network or paid-acquisition engine onto a company with 8 customers), ignoring timing (seasonality, B2B budget cycles, market readiness), and funnel-forcing buyers through a pipeline on the company's schedule. A GTM plan that doesn't fit the company's stage burns the resources that should be going to the actual foundational work.

So this skill gates hard:

1. Establish context — GTM readiness (is demand validated?), company maturity stage, customer/business-model type, and timing conditions.
2. Apply the always-true core — GTM as a system of five interlocking components, stage-appropriate execution, channel-as-cost-structure, timing awareness, non-linear buyer journey.
3. Surface the context-dependent decisions (stage tactics, channel model, business-model motion, entry timing, partnerships) with trade-offs; let the user choose.

Then it hands off to pm-okr-metric-validity-audit (are the launch metrics valid, not vanity?) and pm-assumption-rigor-audit (is demand really validated, is the timing window real, will the channel actually work?).

Scope: this skill owns the go-to-market plan and its launch execution. It defers product strategy to pm-vision-strategy, positioning and competitive set to pm-competitive-analysis, pricing strategy to ux-pricing, buyer-journey/funnel analytics to pm-analytics, and post-launch experiments/learning to pm-experimentation-ab.

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Step 0 — Establish context before planning

Ask if not known; state the assumption if proceeding without an answer:

• Is the product GTM-ready? No GTM plan repairs a product without validated demand. Readiness test: have real customers paid (or seriously committed), used it repeatedly, and can you explain why they bought and what would make them leave? If not, route back to validation (pm-discovery, pm-experimentation-ab) before building channels and pricing.
• What's the company maturity stage? Level 1 early traction (3–5 customers, manual) → Level 2 demand generation (5–25, one channel experiment) → Level 3 efficiency (25–100+, 2–3 proven channels) → Level 4 scaling TAM (platform/partnership decisions). Stage is set by context, not just customer count — business model, ticket size, customer type, and relationship complexity (3 enterprise contracts ≠ 3 consumer signups).
• Who's the customer / what's the business model? Consumer/prosumer (self-serve, product sells itself), SMB (weeks, light sales support), enterprise (6–18 mo, multi-stakeholder, consultative); and B2B / B2C / B2G / B2B2C — each changes the motion.
• What timing conditions apply? Seasonality, B2B budget cycle, first-mover vs. fast-follower position, and technology/regulatory readiness. Name these before setting the calendar.