Product Marketing vs GTM Strategy: Why SaaS Founders Get the Order Wrong at Seed and Series A

As a product marketing studio, Groie has worked with different types of SaaS startups, from pre-seed to pre-Series A. These SaaS teams are at different stages of motion, ARR, and marketing journeys.

What we’ve learned in our journey with these SaaS founders is that ‘when SaaS startups fail, it is not because they lack a GTM strategy, but surprisingly because they execute GTM without product marketing in place’. 

At seed and Series A, founders often rush into building a GTM strategy for SaaS because it feels tangible. Channels, campaigns, outbound, inbound, pricing experiments, funnels. It looks like progress. But without product marketing clarity underneath, GTM becomes motionless.

This is where the confusion between product marketing vs GTM strategy for saas begins, and this confusion is expensive.

Product Marketing vs GTM Strategy for SaaS: The Real Difference

Product marketing and GTM strategy are not the same thing, even though they are often bundled together.

Product marketing answers foundational questions. 

• Who is the buyer? 
• What problem is being replaced?
• Why does the product matter now? 
• How should the product be explained without a founder present? 
• What narrative sales, marketing, and the website must share? 

A SaaS go-to-market strategy answers execution questions. 

• Which channels to use? 
• How to Price? 
• How to package? 
• How to distribute the message? 
• How to scale reach? 

One defines meaning. The other defines movement.

“Founders often reverse the order. They design a SaaS GTM strategy first, and when that fails spectacularly, they step back and think, ‘Maybe the messaging and positioning are wrong,’” says Aabha Tiwari, founder of Groie, who has helped 70+ SaaS founders with positioning and messaging and conducts workshops to help founders find clarity.

“GTM is chaotic. Most founders push for sales and leads before they have even tried helping their ICP understand what the product is about, or worse, before understanding who their ICP actually is. This is why no single strategy survives for even one quarter, and it keeps changing,” adds Aabha.

Why Founders Get the Order Wrong at Seed Stage

At seed, speed feels critical. Investors want traction. Teams want momentum. Founders want proof.

So they jump straight into GTM execution. Paid ads, outbound sequences, content, partnerships. The assumption is that messaging can be refined later.

And then what happens? 

• Each channel interprets the product differently. 
• Sales sells one story. 
• Marketing tells another. 
• The website tries to please everyone. 
• Founders become the only consistent narrator.

This is why many seed-stage GTM strategies for SaaS look active but do not compound.

Product marketing should come first at seed when there is already some traction. Not before problem validation, but before scale. Without that, GTM becomes guesswork at volume.

| Also Read: When Hiring a SaaS Product Marketing Agency Actually Makes Sense |

Why GTM Strategies Break at Series A

Series A does not magically fix this problem. It amplifies it.

At Series A, founders have money to hire teams faster. So, sales reps come in, demand gen ramps up, more opinions are on the table, a push to take decisions without any foundational work. 

If product marketing was never clearly defined, GTM execution fragments even more.

We see this pattern often. 

Series A founders say, “We had a GTM strategy, but it stopped working.” In reality, it was never stable. It was founder-driven and intuition-led, not system-led.

This is why product marketing vs GTM strategy for saas becomes even more important at Series A. You cannot scale what you cannot clearly explain.

Should Product Marketing Come Before GTM Execution?

Yes, if there is real signal to work with.

Product marketing should come before GTM execution once you have paying users, recurring demos, and visible friction in messaging. It should not come before problem discovery. It should not come after scale either.

Think of product marketing as the operating system. GTM is the application layer. Running GTM without product marketing clarity is like shipping features on unstable infrastructure.

This is why founders often feel like they are “doing everything right” but results are inconsistent.

Why SaaS GTM Strategies Fail Even With Planning

Planning is not the problem. Assumptions are.

Most GTM strategies for saas plans are built on internal beliefs, not buyer reality. They assume clarity that does not exist yet. They assume alignment that was never enforced.

What happens when GTM fails? 

• Founders blame channels, hires, or timing. 
• Rarely do they revisit positioning and narrative. 
• And that is almost always where the leak starts.

GTM does not fail loudly. It fails quietly through low conversion, long sales cycles, and exhausted teams.

Does GTM Strategy Change After Seed or Series A?

Yes, but only if the foundation exists.

The GTM strategy absolutely evolves after seed and Series A. Channels expand. Pricing changes. Sales motion matures. But the core product marketing narrative should stabilize, not reset.

If your GTM strategy changes every quarter because the story keeps shifting, that is not iteration. That is instability.

Strong product marketing allows GTM to evolve without constantly starting over.

Can One Agency Handle Both Product Marketing and GTM?

Yes, but only if the order is respected.

An agency that jumps straight into GTM execution without first doing product marketing work is acting like a growth vendor, not a strategic partner. On the other hand, an agency that only does positioning without connecting it to GTM reality creates decks that never ship.

The right SaaS marketing agency treats product marketing as the prerequisite and GTM as the outcome. This is how conversion compounds instead of resetting every few months.

Giving a real life Groie client example; 

“We had to annul the contract after six months with a Series A SaaS founder because, after months of dormant to almost non-existent product marketing, no active social channels, and no meaningful data in Google Analytics or Search Console, the client still wanted leads. They wanted to jump straight into GTM. It was a well-intentioned but open invitation for Groie to fail.”

At Groie, we see this clearly. When product marketing is done first, GTM feels lighter. Sales conversations shorten. Messaging stabilizes. Channels start reinforcing each other instead of competing.

The Practical Takeaway for Founders

If you are early and still validating the problem, focus on conversations, not GTM frameworks. If you have traction but growth feels uneven, product marketing likely comes before scaling GTM execution.

The mistake is not choosing between product marketing or GTM. The mistake is getting the order wrong.

Fix the story first. Then scale the distribution.

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