Title: How the market is exposing weak GTM

Read Time: 3.5 min

Today I want to talk about something that is starting to show up regularly, and why it’s becoming the defining failure mode for early-stage companies heading into 2026.

We’ve been doing this for close to nine years. Over that time, we’ve stayed tightly connected to the startup and venture ecosystem, worked with hundreds of founders, and built long-standing relationships with multiple VC firms. Because of that, we tend to see patterns early.

Over the last 90 days, we’ve been pulled into an unusually high number of portfolio situations where investors are concerned about revenue execution. These aren’t broken companies. Most have pretty strong products, capable teams, and real market interest. The issue is that interest isn’t turning into predictable revenue, and no one inside the company can clearly explain why.

What changed in late 2025 is not the quality of founders or ideas. It’s the tolerance for uncertainty. I believe capital is no longer underwriting ambiguity around how companies grow. If a startup can’t explain how it generates pipeline, qualifies buyers, and converts deals in a repeatable way, it’s now seen as execution risk rather than early promise.

That shift is subtle but decisive, and it’s why many companies that felt stable a year ago are starting to feel the squeeze

AI lowered the cost of building products. It didn’t lower the cost of convincing someone to pay for them.

~ Yours Truly

The environment founders are actually operating in

It’s important to be precise about what’s happening here, because a lot of founders internalize this moment as personal failure when it’s really structural.

Venture money is not drying up, but the way it is being deployed is becoming very different. Boards are more conservative about follow-on capital. Companies are expected to show evidence that they understand their own revenue mechanics before additional capital is committed.

The requirement s for at minimum finding PMF has gotten a lot stronger. Investors want to see control, more repeatable processes in place that work. They want to see that revenue outcomes are the result of a system rather than a series of “hail mary” wins.

Buyer behavior is also changing. Budgets are scrutinized more closely. Sales cycles are longer. Decision-making involves more stakeholders. I’ve written about this, but to reiterate a strong product alone is no longer enough to carry deals across the line. Without a clear sales motion, interest stalls, pilots linger, and deals do not close, predictably. There’s too much AI hype, and it’s difficult to distinguish real operators and products from the wannabes.

The combination of more disciplined capital and more cautious buyers exposes a specific weakness: randomness. When revenue feels unpredictable inside the company, it also looks unpredictable from the outside.

Why the lack of a sales process is now fatal

A sales process is simply a way to remove guesswork from revenue.

It answers basic questions that every serious company needs to answer clearly. Who is the buyer? What problem is urgent enough to pay for? How that buyer evaluates solutions? What conditions must be true for a deal to close? What consistently causes deals to stall or fall apart?

When those questions are unanswered, everything becomes speculation. Pipeline looks healthy but converts poorly. Revenue appears lumpy. Hiring feels risky.

From an investor’s perspective, this makes the company difficult to invest in. If revenue outcomes cannot be explained or predicted, capital becomes harder to justify internally. In the current environment, that uncertainty is no longer tolerated.

This is why companies without a real sales processes fleshed out are being hit hardest. And it’s not because these companies are not good, but because they cannot demonstrate control, repeatability. This is what matters now, more than ever. Just read all the insanity that is posted on LinkedIn and it’ll tell you where we are as a market.

What founders need to do in this market

The response to this moment does not involve more activity. It involves more clarity.

1. First, founder-led sales is non-negotiable at the early stage. Until a company reaches meaningful revenue scale, the founder must be directly involved in selling. This is not about hustle. It is about learning. Founders need firsthand exposure to objections, decision dynamics, pricing friction, and deal failure in order to design a system that works. It makes you a 10x better operator.
   

2. Second, the ideal customer profile must be narrowed. Many struggling teams attempt to sell to too many segments/verticals all at once. This diffuses learning and creates inconsistent outcomes. Depth in one buyer type creates leverage. Breadth creates noise.
   

3. Third, the sales motion needs to be written down, even if it is imperfect. How leads enter the system. How discovery is conducted. How qualification is determined. How decisions are made. Clarity matters more than sophistication at this stage. We use this doc to onboard our clients to understand what the buyer profile looks like who have already bought.
   

4. Fourth, sales hires should not be expected to invent GTM. Sales people are operators, not architects. Without a defined process, hiring sales adds cost without adding control. They will churn, almost guaranteed.
   

5. Finally, GTM should be treated as a system that is tested and iterated over time. Distribution is not a supporting function. It is a core capability.

Key Takeaway

What is happening right now is not a temporary correction. It is a maturation of expectations.

The companies that will succeed in 2026 are not necessarily the ones with the most impressive technology. They are the ones that understand how revenue is created inside their business and can explain it clearly to themselves, their teams, and their investors.

This requires discipline and focus. Letting go of the idea that sales will somehow take care of itself.

That shift is uncomfortable for many founders, but it is also an opportunity. Companies that build control early gain a real advantage in this market.

Where Rampd fits

This is the work we do at Rampd.

We help founders design and implement a clear, founder-led sales motion. We work alongside teams to define buyers, structure discovery, build qualification frameworks, and turn inconsistent pipeline into a repeatable system. The goal is not just growth, but confidence and control.

The increase in VC-driven intros is not accidental. Funds understand that in this environment, product alone is not enough. Execution matters, and sales is the mechanism through which execution becomes visible.

If the pressure feels higher right now, it’s because the goal posts have moved.

That’s it for today!

See you all next week.

Darren

P.S. If you’re a Venture-Backed company interested in coaching, book a call here.