GTM Strategy Framework (How to Actually Pick a Go-to-Market Mode That Works)

Every founder thinks they have a GTM strategy.
Most just have a to-do list with a fancier title.

They call it “go-to-market” because “throw stuff at the wall and hope someone buys it” doesn’t sound great in a pitch deck.

But that’s what most people do — they launch, panic, tweak, and call it strategy.

The truth is, GTM isn’t a campaign. It’s a choice.
A declaration of how you intend to win — before you even start playing.

What a GTM strategy actually is

A GTM (go-to-market) strategy isn’t about channels or ads or influencer deals.
It’s the logic that determines which moves make sense and which ones are suicidal.

It answers three questions most founders avoid:

  1. Who’s already playing this game?

  2. What ground can I realistically take?

  3. What type of fight am I getting into?

If you can’t answer those, you’re not “going to market.” You’re wandering into it.

And wandering costs money.

The 4-Mode GTM Strategy Framework (from LiftKit)

Every market battle follows one of four basic modes.

You’re either stealing, expanding, defending, or stimulating.
Get this wrong, and every ad, partnership, and hire you make will be solving the wrong problem.

1. Steal Mode — The Pirate Play

You’re small, hungry, and fast.
You’re going after incumbents who’ve stopped paying attention.

Goal: Take existing demand and reframe it.
Tactic: Undercut one dimension (price, speed, UX, tone).
Trap: Thinking you can out-spend them instead of out-smart them.

Every great upstart begins here. You don’t need to invent a market. You just need to find a door the big players forgot to lock.

2. Expand Mode — The Beachhead Play

You already own a niche and want to stretch.

Goal: Repurpose trust into a new vertical or segment.
Tactic: Show customers you can do more of what they already believe you’re good at.
Trap: Forgetting that trust is non-transferable without proof.

Expansion works when your next move feels inevitable, not random.

3. Defend Mode — The Fortress Play

You’re the incumbent now. Congratulations. Also, condolences.

Goal: Raise the switching cost, deepen the moat.
Tactic: Brand reinforcement, ecosystem building, community.
Trap: Confusing loyalty with laziness — someone hungrier is always coming.

Defend isn’t sexy, but it’s the reason empires last.

4. Stimulate Mode — The Evangelist Play

Nobody even knows this category exists yet.

Goal: Create new demand.
Tactic: Education, proof, storytelling.
Trap: Talking to yourself for 18 months.

Stimulate is the hardest mode — the one most visionaries die in. But if it works, you rewrite the game.

How to build your GTM strategy framework (using ChatGPT)

Here’s the part everyone skips: you can’t pick a GTM mode intuitively. You need to make ChatGPT reason through the market before you trust its output.

That’s what the LiftKit GTM stack does. It’s a sequence of prompts that drag logic out of you before you decide which mode to commit to.

Here’s the simplified public version of that stack:

Prompt 1 — GTM Mode Selector

“Analyse my product and the market around it. Based on what already exists, decide if my launch is best positioned as Steal, Expand, Defend, or Stimulate. Justify each with market signals — audience awareness, category maturity, and pricing behaviour.”

This is your compass. It stops you from picking the wrong kind of fight.

Prompt 2 — Customer Reality Map

“For the chosen GTM mode, map the customer’s emotional and rational state before and after they engage with my offer. Highlight the specific pains or beliefs that make this mode effective.”

Most founders don’t know what their customer actually believes.
This prompt forces empathy before economics.

Prompt 3 — Offer Angle Finder

“Translate the GTM mode into a single, clear offer angle. If Steal, show the reframe. If Expand, show the proof. If Defend, show the moat. If Stimulate, show the movement.”

This turns abstract strategy into words humans can understand.

Prompt 4 — Market Proof Filter

“Before launching, list what evidence, case studies, or behaviours will make this GTM mode credible to my audience. Prioritise what must exist before scaling.”

This is where most “go-to-market” attempts fail. They skip proof and move straight to posts.

Why most founders get GTM wrong

Because they want the excitement of launching without the discomfort of choosing.

Choosing means saying no to 90% of things that might work.
And nobody likes that.

So they do everything: they post, they partner, they cold-email, they boost ads — then wonder why nothing compounds.

The answer’s simple: you can’t expand what you never owned.

Every successful brand has one mode at a time.
Tesla started in Stimulate.
Ryanair lived in Steal.
Apple oscillates between Defend and Expand.
You pick the wrong mode, you die confused and overfunded.

The system behind the strategy

That’s why LiftKit doesn’t start with content or funnels. It starts here — GTM mode.

Because everything downstream (pricing, messaging, channel selection) depends on the logic you set upstream.

The 80-prompt system takes ChatGPT through the same reasoning a strategic consultancy would:

Strategy → Content → Channels → Launch.

By the time you hit Chapter 5 (Pricing Strategy), the system already knows how your product wins, not just what it sells.

If you want to see that process — how AI can actually think like a strategist — it’s in LiftKit.
It’s not a hack. It’s a methodology.

The real lesson

GTM isn’t a slide deck. It’s a bet.
A way of saying: “I think the world looks like this, and I’m willing to test it.”

It’s not glamorous. You’ll be wrong half the time. But at least you’ll know why.

Most founders don’t fail because they picked the wrong GTM mode.
They fail because they didn’t pick one at all.

And that’s the point of having a framework — to force commitment before chaos.

Key Takeaways

  • A GTM strategy isn’t a campaign plan. It’s your theory of how to win.

  • Every business falls into one of four modes: Steal, Expand, Defend, Stimulate.

  • Your GTM mode determines your tone, pricing, and proof strategy.

  • Use ChatGPT to reason through your mode, not to auto-generate content.

  • LiftKit’s GTM stack is a structured way to make AI think strategically before execution.

Previous
Previous

AI Landing Page Generator (And Why Most of Them Should Come With a Warning Label)

Next
Next

AI Marketing Tools Are Just Expensive Excuses