Over the last 20 years, we've built two $100M+ companies and made hundreds of mistakes along the way. Everything we do runs on our GTM Operating System frameworks. We even wrote a book called MOVE — which became a WSJ best-selling book on go-to-market, quoted by Geoffrey Moore (author of the iconic Crossing the Chasm).

Our mission: help 100,000 businesses run on GTM OS to build profitable companies. We're at about 3,000 now so we have a long way to go.

We also run the GTMarketplace — connecting CEOs with 100+ certified fractional CMOs, CROs, and ops leaders all over the world who know the GTM Operating System.

With that intro, let's get moving!

Let's dig in.

I'm working with a CEO whose son runs a lawnmower business. They're doing about a million dollars a month, mowing lawns across neighborhoods.

A few months ago he reached out and told me he was bored. I said, "Bored? You're doing a million a month. What's the problem?"

Turns out he wanted to start a brand new business. Auto parts for Jeeps. He was fired up about it, walked me through the whole plan. And the plan was labor intensive, hard, and completely disconnected from the machine he'd already built.

So I asked him the question. "What business are you in?"

He said, "The lawnmower business."

I said, "No, dude. You're in the trust business.

I'm trusting you to come into my backyard, around my house, near my kids. So what else can you do for me? Pest control?"

"Of course, that's easy."

"Tree maintenance?"

"Yeah, but those are all businesses I could just buy."

There it is.

Here's what I told him. You don't have to win a single net new customer.

Go talk to every customer you already have, add the services they already trust you to do, and over the next 6 to 12 months you will double or triple this business.

You don’t need more AI. You need more money from your existing customers.

He said, "Wait, are you serious?"

Dead serious. This is what we call the three P's:

problem market fit, product market fit, platform market fit.

He already has product market fit. The market is there, the product is great, there's no churn, customers retain. What he needs is to move from product market fit to platform market fit. Same customers, more value, more revenue per relationship.

This is exactly what private equity does. They gobble up businesses with clear retention, simple acquisition, and a real expansion path. So I asked him, why not become your own private equity? Turn a $1M-a-month business into a $5M-a-month business without the misery of chasing net new logos.

The lesson buried in here: passion projects rarely make money. What makes money is what already makes money. Get excited about that.

Second story. A friend from church, over lunch on a Saturday.

He runs a photography business. Number one in Atlanta, top ranked, incredible Instagram, five years of hard work with his sister. They're so flooded with demand they started referring overflow to other photographers, keeping 80% and giving the referral partner 20%.

So I asked him. "What business are you in?"

"Photography."

"No, dude. You're in the marketing business."

He looked confused. So I laid it out. You've built a brand. You've built an infrastructure that generates more leads than you can serve. What would other photographers pay to get those leads?

He said, "A lot. Leads are their biggest problem."

Exactly. So stop thinking of yourself as a photographer. Become the top brand for events, build tiers, 20%, 40%, 60%, and let the best photographers become certified partners who earn more as they deliver more. Now it's not a million dollar business. It's a hundred million dollar business you can replicate city by city.

I met him yesterday. He told me he hasn't slept since. In the best way and is building a two-sided marketplace.

The product is a means to an end. The platform is where the money is.

I lived this at Terminus. Our product was account-based advertising. But we didn't sell a product, we built a category and a platform: account-based marketing (ABM).

Along the way we acquired five companies and built a $100M+ business.

B2C or B2B, it's the same move. You go from problem market fit, to product market fit, to platform market fit. And often you don't need new customers to do it. You need to expand the value you deliver to the ones you already have.

If you can't answer "what business am I in" with confidence, that's where the money is leaking. Go to runongtmos.com/move and take the free assessment. 15 minutes, and it shows you exactly where you're stuck and the next move to grow. Over 3,000 businesses already run on GTM OS.

Now, let's get moving.

love,
sangram

p.s. 100,000+ GTM leaders read our content every day. If you want more frameworks like this, follow along at runongtmos.com and let's get moving.