The real GTM mistakes founders keep making (and how to fix them).

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Welcome to Chocolate Pill—the podcast from a growth company run by three marketers who’ve actually done the work and aren’t afraid to call out what’s broken in modern marketing…and how to fix it without burning everything down.

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In this episode, we’re joined by special guest Laura “Wheels” Wheeler, Co-founder of RVNU and a RevOps force of nature. We dig into how founders unintentionally (but all too often) tank their go-to-market (GTM) efforts, why too many teams are operating four stages ahead of where they should be, and why it’s time to normalize saying: no, you don’t have product-market fit yet.

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Along the way, we also dish on the dangers of "category creation theater," the myth of AI as an instant differentiator, and why your data dashboards are probably lying to you. Buckle up.

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The Big Idea

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Most founders build sales too fast, without foundational GTM readiness.
And when the growth stalls (spoiler: it will), they don’t know where to look or who to blame.

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Laura’s take: Founders are often operating four phases ahead of where they should be, skipping the hard work of achieving and maintaining product-market fit, realizing customer value, and building a repeatable motion before scaling.

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Our take: We see it too. Many founders mistake early warm intros and founder-led sales for scalable GTM success. They chase categories and features without validating value—and then wonder why nothing repeats.

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What We Covered

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The signs your GTM foundation is cracked

• Sales team not performing → often not a sales problem
  
  
• Top of funnel dries up → lack of positioning clarity
  
  
• Metrics aren’t consistent across teams → data alignment issues
  
  

How to build RevOps muscle early

• Start by capturing any signals—even in spreadsheets
  
  
• Build operational cadence and cross-functional curiosity
  
  
• Involve customer success and engineering early—don’t build in a vacuum
  
  

 Normalizing “you don’t have product-market fit yet”

• It’s not shameful. It’s fixable. And you can fall out of PMF even if you once had it.
  
  
• Realizing customer value (stage 8 in Laura’s framework) is where most teams fail.
  
  
• AI won’t save you if the value loop isn’t there.
  
  

Getting honest about your growth model

• Are you sales-led, product-led, founder-led? Align resources accordingly.
  
  
• Switching models midstream (SMB to enterprise, freemium to sales-led) requires deep content and operational shifts.
  
  
• Most orgs aren’t ready for that switch and don’t resource properly.
  
  

Why RevOps + Product Marketing should be besties

• Shared understanding of value → aligned narratives → smarter scaling
  
  
• Without this partnership, “data” and “story” often get disconnected fast.
  
  

👉 Listen in as Chris, Erin, Sandi, and Laura break it all down.

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Notable Things We Said

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Laura: "We see founders operating four phases ahead of where they actually should be."

"Telling a founder they don’t have product-market fit is like calling their baby ugly. But it’s the heroic thing to do."

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‍Chris: "Companies that foster curiosity see fundamentally different results. It starts with leadership."

Sandi: "If you want to create a new (market) category as a startup, I hope you have 3 years and $80 million. Otherwise let’s rethink that plan."

Erin:"Curiosity is great, but without collaboration it falls apart fast."

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TL;DR

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If your sales team is struggling, don’t just add pipeline.
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If your dashboards don’t match, stop gaming and start aligning.
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If your story isn’t connected to realized customer value, AI isn’t going to save you.
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And for the love of your next board meeting—don’t skip over product-market fit.

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