A go-to-market mentor who has taken products to market in four categories
I help founders define who they sell to, why that buyer moves now, what the offer is, and how the first customers get won. Then we turn what worked into a process the team can run without you. I have done this from zero in fuel retail, in one-hour delivery, in hardware sold across more than 40 countries, and in AI software. The first session is free and takes 30 minutes.
01What does a go-to-market mentor actually do?
A go-to-market mentor closes the gap between "the product works" and "customers keep buying it". The work is always the same seven moves, in order: identify a specific customer problem, validate it directly with buyers rather than with surveys, define the positioning and the offer, win the first customers personally, build a repeatable sales and onboarding process, measure what actually converts, and only then scale.
What I do not do is hand you a framework and leave. We work on your real accounts, your real pricing, and your real objections, and I say plainly when the answer is that the segment is wrong.
02The same process, whatever the category
Energy retail. I helped take the KazMunayGas fuel retail network from six loss-making stations to more than 500 across Kazakhstan, starting with a 120-page state development program I wrote myself and 55 sites I selected by counting traffic on the highways. Read the case.
Category creation. I founded Delfast Delivery when one-hour delivery for online retailers was not yet a category. We positioned it as "a smartphone delivered as quickly as a pizza", moved the company from B2C to B2B, signed more than 700 business contracts, and expanded to 10 cities in 3 countries through one owned operation and nine franchises. Read the case.
Hardware. I built the Delfast long-range e-bike business and its go-to-market from scratch, selling to couriers, logistics operators, police departments and military customers, and personally running enterprise and government deals from five to seven figures. Read the case.
AI software. I built VisaNow.AI out of my own immigration ordeal and sold it 14 months later. Read the case.
Four out of many. Also mine: In Charge One, MP.kz, X-Rift, Adlog TV, best.ua. Plus hundreds of mentee companies I have helped launch, strategy through execution.
03How I run go-to-market, step by step
The process runs on picking the right accounts, writing real research on each one, and following up every week. It produces a pipeline you can inspect week by week.
Define a narrow ICP, buying trigger, and decision-maker
Not "mid-market retailers". One segment, one moment that makes them buy, and the exact job title that signs.
Select 10 accounts every week on real signals
Hiring, funding, regulatory changes, leadership moves, or visible evidence of the manual process you replace. I select ten researched accounts every week, not a scraped list.
Write a short brief per account
The relevant executives, how they run the process today, the likely pain, and one testable commercial hypothesis. One page. I do not contact an account until that one page is written.
Plan the approach across every channel at once
Email, warm introductions, LinkedIn, and the industry events they actually attend, coordinated per account rather than run as separate campaigns.
Write every message by hand
One account-specific hypothesis and one relevant proof point per message. Automation handles research, data collection, CRM updates, reminders, and follow-up scheduling. It never handles the judgment or the message itself.
Review weekly and feed it back into the product
Replies, meetings, opportunities, objections, and next steps tracked by account. The weekly read refines the ICP, the positioning, the sales collateral, and the roadmap.
This is not a framework I read about. I run a working version of it on my own outbound: AI-assisted account research wired into Gmail, HubSpot, LinkedIn, and live browser sources. I make the judgment calls myself.
We can adapt it to your market on the first call and start building the first account list the same week.
04Where founders get go-to-market wrong
Selling to a market instead of a segment. Treating the first ten customers as revenue rather than as research. Hiring salespeople before the founder has personally closed a deal. Pricing from cost rather than from what the buyer's problem is worth. Scaling outreach volume before a single message has earned a reply. Reading objections as rejection instead of as product feedback.
05Frequently asked questions
What does a go-to-market mentor do?
Helps you turn a product into a repeatable way of winning customers: a narrow ICP, a validated problem, positioning and an offer, the first customers won personally, then a documented sales and onboarding process the team can run without you.
Do you work with pre-revenue startups?
Yes, and that is often the best moment. The first ten conversations with real buyers usually change the product more than another quarter of building would.
Do you only work with US companies?
No. Founders join from anywhere and we work in English, Russian, or Ukrainian. If your target market is the United States, see US market entry, which is its own game.
What does it cost?
The first 30-minute session is free with no obligation. Paid work is a monthly retainer or a scoped go-to-market sprint, and we agree the format on the call once we both see the fit.
30 minutes. No pitch, no obligations. English, Russian, or Ukrainian.