The traditional early-stage playbook is: build the product, do a little founder-led sales with friendlies. Then get serious. Hire sellers, hire marketers, hire ops. Each phase waits on the last. It feels logical.

It doesn't work at today's pace.

You're trapping yourself into a 9-12 month timeline before you have real signal on whether your motion works in the field. Early investors want evidence of repeatability beyond warm intros much sooner.

Waterfall is too slow and carries hidden risk at each stage. What if your product assumptions were wrong? What if your AEs can't sell what you built? What if marketing goes all in on the wrong persona?

You don't find out until you've burned runway.

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Parallel GTM: run everything at once as early as possible

It's not just "go faster." It's running GTM and product simultaneously, from day one. Building the ops infrastructure while you do founder-led sales.

Voice of the field shapes product. Ops systems get built and tested with real deals, not hypotheticals. By the time you're ready to hire, you've already validated the motion.

Build systems and fill the funnel before you hire

Here's what we see constantly: founders hire an AE and expect that person to build the sales infrastructure and processes, and to hunt for their own leads.

That's not their job. AEs are closers. They should walk into systems that work and a pipeline full of qualified deals. Not an empty CRM, a cold outbound list, and a mandate to figure it out.

Founders are usually excellent at generating pipeline but bad at closing. You don't have the time or discipline to shepherd every deal. That's exactly what your first AE should be doing.

If you hand them anything less, they'll churn or underperform. It's not their fault. You set them up to fail.

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Founder-led GTM is efficient R&D

Founders are the highest-converting GTM asset. Use that advantage while you have it.

Your content gets higher engagement. Your outreach gets higher meeting rates. Your future team won't match either. 

Founders are exciting to talk to, which also leads to better discovery calls. Prospects open up in ways they won't with a seller. They'll share more about their problems, their buying process, their objections.

This is your highest-signal window. Use it to find a channel that converts reliably. You won't learn this fast or this cheaply again. When you do hire, they inherit traction. That de-risks the headcount, accelerates ramp, and compounds growth from day one.

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GTM defines your business model and unlocks fundraising

Is your product best suited to enterprise or mid-market customers? Is your motion top-down or driven by product signals? Is your buyer also your user? Do buyers respond better to token or per-seat pricing?

These aren't questions you answer in a strategy doc. You answer them by selling and creating fast iteration loops.

Update your product, channels, and systems as you discover traction. If you wait and bake your product for too long, you'll build for a market you're not aligned with. Then you'll spend time and money on the pivot.

This clarity is what investors want to see. "We'll figure out distribution after we hire salespeople" is not a strategy. When you run GTM early, you learn which channels work. Outbound? Events? Product-led? You have data, not guesses. You can tell investors exactly how their money turns into growth.

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Parallel GTM is the only path

Parallel GTM compresses timelines, de-risks hiring, and sets your future GTM org up for success.

Start now, even if it's just you. 

1. Set up the CRM. Attio is a great option for technical founders. 
2. Run a little outbound. It’s scary and also fun! Your second-degree LinkedIn connections that match your ICP are the easiest place to begin. 
3. Validate a core value prop in one channel. Then test another channel.
4. Record and analyze every call transcript. Feed learnings back into product and GTM. 

If you need help building this in parallel while you ship product, that's what we do at QC Growth.

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