GTMBA Origins: Death of a Salesman. Long live the New Age of GTM

A start-up’s most valuable asset is the Go-to-Market voice who understands the customer and effectively translates feedback to shape company strategy.  Enter GTMBA.

A little backstory:

I SparkNoted most books in High School (I know you did, too), but one I read end-to-end was Arthur Miller’s famous play Death of a Salesman. Simply put, it highlights the struggle for success and disappointment of the American dream.  

For most MBAs (like myself and Chris), the American Dream leads them to spend $250K on tuition over 2 years to get a job in Consulting or Banking, hate the job before it even starts, and quit at 2 years (check out Harvard Business School’s placement stats, > 50% went into Finance or Consulting).  You’ll see comparable stats for those pursuing business careers at the top tier undergrad programs.

I chose a different path.  

At 29 yrs old, I decided to switch careers and jump into SaaS B2B sales.  My friends were shocked.  Literal words: “You got an MBA…to go sell!?”

My response: “Yeah, it’s the most important skill and mastering it will make you have a better life.”

The journey started in business school - I took a class called Entrepreneurial Selling, taught by the legendary Professor Craig Wortmann.  What started as a class that cost an ungodly amount of bid points, turned out to be the best decision of adult life.  I was hooked - I leaned into every bit of extra credit, got a call during the summer of ‘18 to TA the class in the Fall, and ended up working full time for one of the classes’ guest speakers.  

In spite of my classmate’s reaction, I think I was onto something.  If you look at OpenAI and Anthropic’s Go-to-Market / Sales teams, the team composition pops - there’s a lot of Harvard, Wharton, HBS, and GSB grads.  

But why would these people move into sales?  When you work at a start-up or a growth stage company building a new market, especially when selling to a technical audience, your job is to evangelize by truly understanding customer needs, feeding that information to your product and marketing team, and building a flywheel.

Suddenly, you’re not a mercenary sales person (the extreme case: OpenAI doesn’t even pay commissions).  You’re a creative problem solver who understands the voice of the customer better than anyone in your company and can use that knowledge to strategically shape the future of your company. 

There has never been a better time to build a career in GTM.  As two MBA grads in tech Go-to-Market / Sales roles, we’re biased.  But we also have a front row seat to the future - and GTM is changing fast.  

AI is the largest generational shift since the Dotcom boom and is revolutionizing work across all industries.  The Go-to-Market and sales team of the past (think Oracle) won’t exist in 5-10 years.  In the age of AI, the most competitively sought after companies and new age start-ups are looking for people who can apply critical thinking effectively to their distribution strategy.

Sales / GTM of 2024 and beyond need highly intelligent and resourceful problem solvers.

If you’re high potential talent, you don’t need to end up like Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman.  Chris & I are here to change the narrative and share resources on how to have success in the new age of GTM.

Enter - GTMBA.  Stay tuned.

Bisous,

Julian