This Is Why Most Startups Fail at Go-To-Market Strategy | Funds and founders
episode
Funds and Founders: Untold Journeys Behind Their Breakthroughs
47 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 13 days ago
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How did Cody’s experience at Carta shape his go‑to‑market philosophy?
When I joined we were worth about seventeen million dollars and then when I left
the company value had peaks out of nine billion. What technique while marketing and just break down your approach of how you would do that for someone in this space. I feel like there's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of everyone has a new AI tool to help you with this nowadays. But let's just demystify some of that and break it down and make it super simple. How do you think about going from this to targeting your ICP directly or building a brand in your
Meta and how much attention is being spent to like Mark Zuckerberg's hair. He's just like this new vibed out CEO, right? I would argue more impactful to the Meta brand than Meta's next multi-million dollar ad campaign. Why don't you also briefly cover the challenge you're trying to solve with marketing? But your you grew your Instagram or TikTok account from, you know, a hundred to a hundred thousand in six months. Depending on your business, that could be enough to to close a seed deal. Right, or to bring in your first angel check.
Hey guys, welcome back to Funds and Founders. We have Cody back for part two. Why don't you just briefly tell people your background, Cody, for people who don't know?
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Abby. Minnesota native. Did uh about a decade in Silicon Valley. That's where I got my you know, first crack at let's call it tech or startups. Was fortunate enough to find myself on the kind of ground floor of eShares, which eventually became Carta. So I did about an eight year stint there, helped that company scale from about thirty some employees when I joined. We were worth about seventy million dollars. Uh just just closed the series A. Um and then when I left there was about two thousand employees and the value had peaked at about uh just under nine billion. So I I was just super lucky to find myself in the right place at the right time and got to ride a roller coaster which gave me, you know, I would say a a career's worth of experience as as it relates to hyper growth startups.
Spent most of that time uh front of house doing doing sales, go to market to business development across New New markets across uh US and non-US markets. Did a stint in Singapore, Southeast Asia. I led the team there. Was out there for about two and a half years just scaling our APAC presence as the first US employee and uh have since left and taken all of that all of those learnings and understandings and um targeting them, channeling them towards real estate and homeownership, trying to make it easier for people to coordinate resources. Let's
um and to find alternative paths to let's call it non-traditional homeownership.
Nice. And the company name? Company is called Tomy. Tomy Holmes. T O M I.
T
O M I.
Tomy. Not not to be
confused with
Tommy. Yeah. Tommy.
And you're also advising a couple of startups and companies on DTM and outbound stuff, right?
Yeah, with the they've got two active engagements right now, uh, as I'm building Tomy. Um and and those are focused on helping build personal brands, helping automate a lot of the the go to market or like let's call it the top of funnel marketing engine so yeah, so the the days are the days are busy, man.
What I wanted to do today was sort of break down a hypothetical founder who's early has some traction and is trying to figure out their GTM, right? So what would you say is best to sort of think about this persona and break down and we could go through strategies you recommend, what to try, what not to try. Maybe we break it up in a B to B, B to C, but we'll defer to how you think about GTM, how you think about the space and what should someone do to help go this far. And sorta some of the questions I'm trying to answer is I feel like there's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of like do this to do this, do this to get leads, do this to whatever. This this tool, that tools everyone has a new AI tool to help you with this nowadays.
Mm-hmm. But let's just demystify some of that and break it down and make it super simple of like, hey start with this, validate, invalidate and then move on and we'll we'll talk through that scenario.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Cody’s experience at Carta shape his go‑to‑market philosophy?
0:00–5:48
2
What are the core differences between B2B and B2C GTM strategies for early‑stage startups?
5:48–11:45
3
Why does Cody argue that the traditional marketing funnel is outdated?
11:45–17:40
4
How should founders decide between targeting a narrow ICP versus building a broad brand?
17:40–24:01
5
What role does personal branding play compared to company branding in GTM success?
24:01–29:36
6
How can AI agents automate sales, marketing, and operations for a solo founder?
29:36–36:11
7
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities in scaling a one‑person, Slack‑powered startup?
36:11–41:36
8
What’s next for Tommy Homes and how does it illustrate the future of AI‑led, shareable content?
41:36–46:56
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Funds and Founders: Untold Journeys Behind Their Breakthroughs
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