Go-to-market strategy before launch: the pre-revenue B2B SaaS guide

What go-to-market means before launch

Pre-launch go-to-market isn't a launch plan. It's the work that decides whether a launch lands: who buys, the problem they'll pay to fix, what they use today instead, and a price at least a few of them have already paid.

In Mazo's stage model this is pre-product-market fit, zero to 10 customers, and the goal is to validate who actually buys and why. David Skok calls it the search for product-market fit, and his warning is blunt: spending scale-phase money in a search phase is the classic fatal error.

Validate who buys and why

Cindy Alvarez's Lean Customer Development gives the rules for the interviews:

• Ask about the past, never the future. "Tell me about the last time this happened" beats "Would you use a tool that does this?" People are honest about the past and polite about the future.
• Don't pitch. The moment you describe your product, every answer after it is contaminated.
• Listen for workarounds and money already spent — a spreadsheet, a freelancer, a competing tool. Existing spend is the strongest buying signal.
• Tighten the profile before adding interviews. Five interviews with one profile that surface the same pain are a signal; fifteen across scattered profiles are noise.

Then name the job. Des Traynor's question: what is your product hired to do, and what gets fired to make room for it? April Dunford's positioning process starts in the same place, with the alternatives customers would use without you, including "a spreadsheet" and "do nothing". If nothing gets fired, be careful: Christopher Lochhead's point is that "no competitors" usually means no budget line.

Charge from day one

Madhavan Ramanujam's Monetizing Innovation says to have the price conversation during discovery, not at launch. Once you've heard the problem, ask three questions:

• "What would you expect to pay for something that solved this?"
• "At what price would it feel expensive, but you'd still buy?"
• "At what price is it so expensive you'd never consider it?"

The spread between the answers is your price corridor. Then ask for real money, because a price someone says out loud is still future intent. Ramanujam's "undead" product — one nobody would pay for, kept alive on hope — is what you get when you build first and ask later.

Keep it simple. Lenny Rachitsky's heuristic is that a single plan is fine before product-market fit, and if nobody complains about your price, it's too low. Tell your first customers they keep their price when you raise it; grandfathering buys more goodwill than it costs.

Design partners that pay

A design partner is an early customer who shapes the product in exchange for early access and a say in the roadmap. The ones worth having pay. Put these in writing before you start:

• The problem, in their words, from your interview notes.
• A price. Discount it if you like, but as Patrick Campbell says, every discount needs a giveback: an annual prepay, a case study or logo rights.
• A weekly call. Teresa Torres treats customer contact as a weekly habit, not a phase; design partners make that habit automatic.
• A success test, agreed up front: the outcome that makes them keep paying.
• An end date, with the ask to convert at full price when the test passes.

Sell the pilot like any other deal. Steli Efti's rules apply: qualify hard, ask for the close — "Do you want to move forward?" — and follow up until you get a yes or a no.

Waitlists that mean something (and vanity ones)

A waitlist sign-up is future intent, and Alvarez's rule is that people are polite about the future. A list of 1,000 emails tells you your launch post travelled. It doesn't tell you anyone will pay.

To make a waitlist mean something, add friction that filters. Put one qualifying question on the form — role, and what they use today — plus Chris Walker's free-text "How did you hear about us?". Invite everyone who matches your profile to a call, and offer a pre-order or paid pilot to the ones who describe the pain unprompted.

Your first 10 customers

Lenny Rachitsky observes that most successful B2B companies got their first 10 customers from the founders' own networks and manual outreach, not from a channel. So don't plan a channel. Plan a list, and a pitch buyers understand: compete inside a category they already know and name what you replace.

• Write down 50 companies by hand that fit your profile, with a named person at each. Fifty targeted accounts beat 5,000 generic emails.
• Start with people who know you, then their introductions. Aaron Ross's Cold Calling 2.0 works here: email someone senior and ask who owns the problem. A forwarded intro arrives with an implied endorsement.
• Follow up until you get an answer. Most founders stop after one or two attempts; Efti's point is that silence isn't a no.
• Start founder-led content now, on the one platform your buyers use. Dave Gerhardt's playbook compounds from around month three, so what you post before launch pays off after it.
• Treat every champion as future pipeline. Jason Lemkin notes that early champions change jobs, refer and buy again.

What not to do yet

Worked example (fictional)

Pre-launch go-to-market checklist

• One customer profile, written down, narrow enough to list 50 companies by name (the ICP worksheet helps)
• Five interviews with that profile, about past behaviour, with no pitching
• The job your product is hired for, and what it replaces, in the customer's words
• A positioning sentence a prospect can repeat back after hearing it once
• A price corridor from the three willingness-to-pay questions
• At least three paid pilots, pre-orders or signed letters of intent from the same profile
• A waitlist form with one qualifying question and "How did you hear about us?"
• A hand-built list of 50 target accounts with named contacts
• One objective for the quarter with three measurable outcomes — John Doerr's OKRs, cut down to startup size
• A weekly customer conversation on the calendar, before and after launch

Common pre-launch mistakes

• Building for months before asking anyone to pay. The price conversation belongs in discovery.
• Treating compliments as validation. "Love it" is future intent; a payment is evidence.
• Interviewing everyone who will talk to you. Scattered profiles give you noise, not a pattern.
• Free design partners. Without a price you learn about usage, never about willingness to pay.
• Launching on three channels at once. You won't know which one worked, or why.
• Inventing a new category. Before €1M ARR, compete in one buyers already understand.

Tools for this

Four free tools cover the pre-launch work, no account needed: the first 10 customers plan, the willingness-to-pay test for your first paid pilot, the positioning stress test for your one-sentence pitch, and the 90-day go-to-market plan generator. For templates, use the ICP worksheet, the SaaS pricing page checklist and the 90-day GTM plan template. The free GTM scorecard shows where you stand, and terms like design partner and product-market fit are in the GTM glossary.

Mazo is an AI go-to-market advisor for B2B SaaS founders from €0 to €1M ARR. It builds your plan from where you are today — including before your first customer — with proven SaaS playbooks, then runs it with you every week, for €99 a month.

For the full stage-by-stage picture, read Go-to-market strategy for B2B SaaS: the €0 to €1M ARR guide. Related: choosing an ICP for horizontal SaaS and go-to-market for low-priced SaaS.

Who wrote this

Madalena Rugeroni built Mazo. She's an ex-Googler, a startup advisor and investor, and runs a portfolio of internet companies. Before that, as Head of Growth at Amplemarket, she scaled a B2B SaaS to $10M ARR. LinkedIn

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