Go-to-Market Model — S5 Growth
S5 Growth just opened. 10 founding client spots at discounted pricing. See pricing →
Pillar 3 of the Brand-to-Growth Stack · Scale

The question isn't which channel works.
It's how much it costs,
how fast it scales,
and in what order.

Built on The 6-Lever Acquisition Model — twenty-three channels grouped into six economic clusters, each modeled from the bottom up with its own formula, benchmarks, and payback window. A live Excel model plus a strategic prioritization deck. The answer to "where does our next customer come from?"

Book a 30-min strategy call
Founding pricing · 10 spots · No retainers, no surprises
Why modeling, specifically

Knowing the channels is easy.
Knowing the math isn't.

Gabriel Weinberg's Traction gave founders a taxonomy of nineteen channels. That was 2015 — before influencer marketing existed as a category, before newsletter ads, before SMS was a retention channel.

A decade later, every founder can name the channels. Almost no founder can tell you how much each will cost today, how fast it will scale for their business, and which to run first. That's not a reading gap. It's a modeling gap.

Traction

You know which channels exist. The taxonomy. The categories. Useful — but it won't tell you what to do next.

↳ "There are 19 channels. Some of them probably work for us."

Testing

You pick a few, run small experiments, see what moves. Directional — but without unit economics, you can't scale what works or cut what doesn't.

↳ "We ran Meta Ads for a month and CAC was $80."

Modeling

You know exactly how each channel behaves, at what cost, at what scale, and in what order to sequence them. That's the work.

↳ "Meta Ads saturates at $40K/month. After that, we unlock SEO."
The methodology
Proprietary framework The 6-Lever Acquisition Model

Twenty-three channels.
Six economic clusters. One unified model.

We don't treat channels as a flat list. They cluster into six economic mechanisms — each with a different cost structure, timeline, and failure mode. Know the clusters, and channel choice becomes strategic, not tactical.

How they connect
Most companies need three to four clusters working together. Paid converts, Owned compounds, Earned amplifies, Outbound closes the deals paid can't reach. The strategic question isn't which cluster. It's which mix, in what order, at what stage of your growth.
Out of scope
The 6-Lever model doesn't solve enterprise ABM. If your sale runs through a buying committee, a procurement desk, and a legal review — six-to-eighteen month cycles, six-figure ACV, security audits — that's a different game. Different economics, different motion, different methodology. We'll tell you on the call if that's your world, and point you somewhere better.
Lever 1
Paid Performance
You pay for attention. People click, visit, and do what you want them to. Stop paying, stop getting leads. Fast channel, works at every funnel stage — but the range is huge. Search ads (high intent) and CPM campaigns (low intent) are nothing alike. Best when unit economics are proven. Least forgiving when they're not.
Paid Search Paid Social (Meta · TikTok · LinkedIn · Others) Display / Programmatic Paid Video (YouTube · CTV)
Lever 2
Paid Placement
You pay to appear inside someone else's content — a creator's video, a newsletter, a podcast. Deals are negotiated (flat fee or CPA), not auction-driven. Costs vary 10× depending on audience fit. Best for trust transfer and reaching audiences paid performance can't cheaply buy. Weaker for urgent conversion — attribution is slower and messier.
Influencer / Creator Newsletter Ads Affiliate / Performance
Lever 3
Owned Digital
You build assets you own — your site, list, content, product touchpoints. Upfront cost is high, payback is quarters not weeks, and compounds long after the spend stops. Works for companies with patience and content capacity. Fails for companies that need revenue in 90 days and pull the plug before the curve compounds.
SEO · ASO · GEO Organic Social Email / Lifecycle SMS / Push In-Product Community
Lever 4
Earned
Other people amplify you — press, referrals, reviews. You don't buy the outcome; you set the conditions that produce it (differentiated story, referable product, active customers). Cheap when it works, but mostly it doesn't. Rarely reliable enough to plan around. Strong as a multiplier on everything else, weak as a primary channel.
PR / Earned Media Referrals
Lever 5
Partner & BD
Your revenue flows through someone else's existing relationships — integrations, marketplaces, resellers, co-marketing deals. Sales cycles are months. You scale through deal velocity, not spend. Best when your product fits inside an existing ecosystem (AppExchange, Shopify, AWS). Slow to start, and most companies underestimate how long the first deal takes.
Strategic Partnerships Marketplace Listings
Lever 6
Outbound & Events
Humans are the throughput — SDRs, event booths, executive meetings. There's no ad platform to optimize; the math is contacts × conversion rate × deal size. For mid-ACV B2B with a single decision-maker, often a high-intent channel. Not the model for enterprise procurement committees — that's a different sales motion entirely.
Cold Outbound Events
The prioritization

The hard part isn't picking channels.
It's sequencing them.

The Excel model tells you what each channel costs. The PowerPoint deliverable tells you which to run first, which to scale next, which to sunset, and which to wait on. This is where strategic judgment replaces a twenty-three-tab spreadsheet.

Why this matters
A channel that works at $100M ARR is a disaster at $2M ARR. A channel you can afford to wait 18 months on is a disaster if you need revenue this quarter. We force the sequencing decision — which lever pulls first, which waits, which never gets pulled at all — and we stress-test it against your cash position, team capacity, and ACV.
Stage 1
Run Now
Levers to pull this quarter. Economics proven, cash available, payback fast.
The one or two channels that produce revenue in the shortest timeframe at proven unit economics. Usually Paid Performance (if ads are already working) or Outbound (if ACV justifies human cost). This is where the first dollar goes, every time.
Placement criteria
  • Proven CAC below target at current scale
  • Payback window under 12 months
  • Team capacity exists to execute
  • Cash runway covers the ramp cost
Stage 2
Build Next
Levers to start building now, for scale later. Long payback, compounding upside.
Owned Digital, Community, and long-tail Partnerships. These don't pay back this quarter — but the companies that don't start now will regret it in 12 months. Investment made today, revenue landing next year. The hedge against paid-channel saturation.
Placement criteria
  • 12+ month payback horizon acceptable
  • Foundational asset is a strategic priority
  • Team has content or BD capacity to invest
  • Cash position allows for patient investment
Stage 3
Hold
Levers to revisit once you've hit the next threshold. Right channel, wrong stage.
Channels that work — but not yet. Trade shows and events may make sense at Series B when you have a sales team and a pipeline motion. Partnerships may unlock when you hit a distribution milestone. The model names these explicitly so they don't get attempted prematurely.
Placement criteria
  • Channel economics require a scale you don't have yet
  • Dependency on team or infrastructure not yet built
  • Revisit trigger is explicit (ARR, headcount, or milestone)
  • Worth rechecking in 2-4 quarters
Excluded
Don't Pull
Named explicitly. Channels that won't work for your business — with reasons.
Channels that look attractive but don't fit your specific business. Display ads for a $50/mo SaaS. Influencer marketing for a technical B2B tool. Outbound for a consumer app with $20 ACV. Naming the exclusions is how we stop founders from burning budget on channels that sound right but never were.
Common exclusion reasons
  • Wrong ACV — CAC exceeds lifetime value at any scale
  • Wrong audience — your ICP isn't reachable on this channel
  • Wrong stage — economics won't work until 10× current scale
  • Opportunity cost — resources better spent elsewhere
Pricing

One product.
No retainers. No surprises.

Founding cohort · 10 spots · Standard rates after
Pillar 3 · Scale
Go-to-Market Model
$6,000 $10,000
Founding price
Where does your next customer come from — at what cost, in what order?
A live Excel model covering twenty-three channels across six clusters, each modeled from the bottom up with editable variables and market benchmarks. Plus a strategic PowerPoint deliverable with our sequencing recommendations — which levers to pull now, which to build for next quarter, and which to explicitly exclude.
$
Commercial stakes This is where budget decisions get made. Getting the model wrong costs millions.
Real depth Twenty-three channels, six clusters, every variable exposed and editable. Not a template.
A living asset Your model keeps working after the engagement. Update variables as you learn.
Book a Strategy Call →
Built by operators

35+ years of combined experience — from brand leadership at Whirlpool, Lindt, Mars, and Reckitt to scaling some of Latin America's biggest venture-backed companies in fintech, clean energy, micro-mobility, and gaming.

KitchenAid M&M's Lindt SNICKERS Veet Tembici Solfácil Tennis Clash

Stop guessing.
Start modeling.

A 30-minute call. No prep. No pitch. We'll stress-test whether your current GTM hypothesis holds up — or whether you need a real model before your next board meeting.

Book a 30-min strategy call