post<\/a>\u00a0about choosing between \u201crabbits\u201d (many small customers) and \u201cwhales\u201d (a few large enterprises) perfectly illustrates how even smart people can confuse tactical distribution choices with strategic positioning. He thinks he\u2019s describing how to choose your go-to-market strategy, but he\u2019s actually documenting symptoms while missing the disease (the causality flows opposite to what he suggests). By unpacking his framework, we can see how positioning (owning mental territory) determines distribution, not the other way around, and why even successful founders like those he cites can\u2019t accurately explain their own success.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
The Story We Tell Ourselves
\n<\/h4>\n
Every successful founder has a story about their go-to-market strategy. Stewart Butterfield will tell you how Slack chose bottom-up adoption. Dylan Field explains Figma\u2019s product-led growth. Marc Benioff describes Salesforce\u2019s enterprise sales motion.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re all wrong about their own success.<\/p>\n
Not lying. Not misleading. Just wrong. They experienced their success from inside and confused the music with the dance. They saw tactics and thought they were seeing strategy. They optimized distribution and thought they were creating markets.<\/p>\n
This is the narrative fallacy at work \u2014 our psychological need to impose linear causation on what was actually emergent, complex, and largely predetermined by forces we couldn\u2019t see.<\/p>\n
\nThe Framework Trap
\n<\/h4>\n
The startup ecosystem loves frameworks. Rabbits versus whales. PLG versus sales-led. Bottom-up versus top-down. These frameworks spread because they offer cognitive comfort: a sense that success is a matter of choosing the right tactical approach and executing well.<\/p>\n
In reality, these frameworks describe symptoms rather than causes. They\u2019re the shadows on the wall of Plato\u2019s cave, and most founders spend their entire careers optimizing shadows while someone else owns the cave.<\/p>\n
Consider the latest popular framework about choosing between \u201crabbits\u201d (thousands of small customers) and \u201cwhales\u201d (a few large enterprises). It suggests your product characteristics determine your path. That activation rates and pipeline coverage are your north stars. That $20-30M ARR is a natural expansion point.<\/p>\n
Every premise is wrong.<\/p>\n
\nThe Causality Inversion
\n<\/h4>\n
The framework assumes:\u00a0<\/em>Product characteristics \u2192 Distribution choice \u2192 Success<\/p>\nReality flows opposite:<\/em>\u00a0Mental territory ownership \u2192 Market creation \u2192 Distribution emergence \u2192 Product evolution<\/p>\nSlack didn\u2019t choose bottom-up adoption.<\/strong>\u00a0They owned \u201cwork messaging\u201d as mental territory, and that position demanded social proof through peer adoption. You can\u2019t prove work messaging works unless coworkers are messaging. The position chose the distribution.<\/p>\nFigma didn\u2019t pick self-serve.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cCollaborative design\u201d as a concept required real-time multiplayer to exist. Enterprise sales would have killed the position before it could even take a breath.<\/p>\nSalesforce didn\u2019t hunt whales.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cCloud CRM,\u201d when cloud was heretical, needed enterprise sales to prove legitimacy to serious companies. The position demanded the proof.<\/p>\nNone of them \u201cdecided\u201d their go-to-market. Their positions decided for them.<\/p>\n
\nThe Mental Territory Game
\n<\/h4>\n
Positioning isn\u2019t about what you sell. It\u2019s about what you own in customers\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n
Volvo doesn\u2019t sell safe cars. Volvo owns safety itself as a concept. Once they own that mental territory, competitors can only claim to be \u201csafe too\u201d or \u201csafer than\u201d (inherently weaker positions that acknowledge Volvo\u2019s ownership).<\/p>\n
This ownership of mental territory creates what matters: a perceptual monopoly that transcends product comparisons.<\/p>\n
The linguistic distinction matters. Companies that own nouns (concepts) establish stronger positions than those that claim adjectives (descriptions):<\/p>\n
\n- \nAdjective positioning: \u201cWe make safe cars\u201d\n<\/li>\n
- \nNoun positioning: \u201cWe are safety\u201d\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This seemingly subtle difference has profound implications for everything that follows.<\/p>\n
\nThe Identity Layer
\n<\/h4>\n
Here\u2019s what really happens when companies choose their go-to-market:<\/p>\n
Engineers choose PLG because it avoids sales conversations. Ex-salespeople choose enterprise because it feels controllable. B-school founders choose whatever framework they learned. Then everyone rationalizes backwards, finding market evidence to justify what they were always going to do.<\/p>\n
The market doesn\u2019t determine your model. Your identity does.<\/p>\n
This same dynamic plays out with customers. People don\u2019t choose Starbucks for convenience and taste. They choose it because \u201cI\u2019m a Starbucks person\u201d is part of their identity. The local coffee shop customer isn\u2019t optimizing for quality; they\u2019re expressing \u201cI\u2019m not a Starbucks person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking back, everyone invents rational reasons. But the position (the identity) chose the behaviour.<\/p>\n
\nHumans are \u201cfeeling creatures who think\u201d\u00a0rather than \u201cthinking creatures who feel.\u201d We\u00a0make decisions emotionally or intuitively\u00a0first, and then\u00a0use logic or reasoning to justify\u00a0those decisions after the fact.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u2014 Jonathan Haidt and Daniel Kahneman<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nThe Position Exhaustion Point
\n<\/h4>\n
That $20-30M ARR inflection point everyone talks about? It\u2019s not market evolution. It\u2019s position exhaustion.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve converted everyone who resonates with your narrow initial position. Now you face a choice: deepen your position or dilute it. Most companies dilute by adding new distribution channels, thinking that\u2019s the solution. Winners deepen their position instead.<\/p>\n
The distribution expansion is a symptom of position strength, not a cause of growth.<\/p>\n
\nThe Creation Myth
\n<\/h4>\n
Markets don\u2019t pre-exist. Successful companies create them through positioning, then we retroactively analyze them as if they were always there.<\/p>\n
When Salesforce launched, there was no \u201ccloud CRM market\u201d to segment. They created that mental category. The \u201centerprise whales\u201d didn\u2019t exist as cloud CRM buyers until Salesforce taught them they were whales who needed cloud CRM.<\/p>\n
Category Kings don\u2019t find product-market fit. They create market-product fit by establishing new mental territory, then pulling the market toward it.<\/p>\n
Lochhead (writer of Play Bigger) argues that legendary companies design and develop new categories rather than competing in existing ones. They teach the world to think differently about a problem and its solution. As a result, they typically capture 76% of the total market value in their categories \u2014 emphasizing that creating the category is more valuable than competing within one.<\/em><\/p>\n\nThe Psychological Architecture
\n<\/h4>\n
Positioning operates on deep psychological principles:<\/p>\n
Cognitive Schemas:<\/strong>\u00a0Humans organize information through mental frameworks. Strong positioning either fits into existing schemas distinctively or creates new schemas that reorganize how people think about a category.<\/p>\nIdentity Resonance:<\/strong>\u00a0When customers adopt a brand that owns a particular concept, they\u2019re making a statement about who they are. Apple\u2019s creative innovation position resonates with people who see themselves as creative. This alignment between a brand\u2019s position and customer identity creates loyalty that transcends rational product evaluation.<\/p>\nPerceptual Reality:<\/strong>\u00a0In positioning, perception matters more than objective reality. This isn\u2019t to suggest quality doesn\u2019t matter. It does. But perception shapes how quality is interpreted and valued.<\/p>\n\nThe Gravitational Pull
\n<\/h4>\n
Positions don\u2019t create destiny. They create gravitational pull.<\/p>\n
Think of speaking your native language. You choose your words, but your language constrains what\u2019s easy to express. You could learn another language or invent new words, but most of the time you follow the path of least resistance.<\/p>\n
Slack could have tried enterprise sales first. But owning \u201cwork messaging\u201d made bottom-up feel obvious, natural, like water flowing downhill. Not because it was predetermined, but because every other path required fighting gravity.<\/p>\n
\nThe Measurement Theatre
\n<\/h4>\n
Companies track activation rates, pipeline coverage, and customer acquisition costs. But metrics don\u2019t drive success. They measure whether your position resonates.<\/p>\n
The hidden dynamic:\u00a0<\/em>The metrics you choose reshape your company to optimize for those metrics, not for owning mental territory. You become what you measure, losing sight of what matters.<\/p>\nCompanies die optimizing perfect metrics for positions they don\u2019t own.<\/p>\n
\nThe Expert Blindness
\n<\/h4>\n
The cruel irony is that even experts can\u2019t see what they\u2019re doing. They use terms that reveal their confusion:<\/p>\n
\n- \n\u201cBrand positioning\u201d (it\u2019s just positioning)\n<\/li>\n
- \n\u201cValue proposition\u201d (tactical benefit, not strategic position)\n<\/li>\n
- \n\u201cUSP\u201d (feature differentiation, not mental ownership)\n<\/li>\n
- \n\u201cWe\u2019re positioned as\u2026\u201d (positioning isn\u2019t self-declaration)\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
They discuss positioning as messaging, as communication, as a marketing deliverable. They miss that positioning is identity \u2014 the core essence of what a business stands for that drives every decision from product to culture to execution.<\/p>\n
\nThe Power Law Reality
\n<\/h4>\n
In winner-take-all markets driven by mental territory ownership:<\/p>\n
\n- \nOne company owns the position and captures 76% of the value\n<\/li>\n
- \nEveryone else fights over scraps with tactical differentiation\n<\/li>\n
- \nDistribution model choices only matter if you own mental territory\n<\/li>\n
- \nWithout position ownership, perfect execution of either model fails\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This is why tactical frameworks are so dangerous. They keep founders focused on execution excellence in games where someone else already owns the board.<\/p>\n
\nThe Strategic Foundation
\n<\/h4>\n
The real framework isn\u2019t about choosing between tactical options. It\u2019s about three questions:<\/p>\n
\n- \nWhat mental territory can we own?\n<\/li>\n
- \nWhat distribution proves we own it?\n<\/li>\n
- \nHow does everything reinforce that ownership?\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Position drives distribution drives tactics.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Get the causality wrong and you\u2019ll optimize your way to failure.<\/p>\n\nThe Integration Points
\n<\/h4>\n
Positioning doesn\u2019t replace other strategic tools. It provides the foundation they need to work:<\/p>\n
Jobs-to-be-Done<\/strong>\u00a0answers \u201cwhat functional job does our product solve?\u201d\u00a0
Positioning<\/strong>\u00a0answers \u201cwhy do customers trust us specifically to solve it?\u201d<\/p>\nCategory Design<\/strong>\u00a0focuses on creating and naming new market categories.\u00a0
Positioning<\/strong>\u00a0determines what concept you own within or beyond categories.<\/p>\nDistribution Strategy<\/strong>\u00a0optimizes how you reach customers.\u00a0
Positioning<\/strong>\u00a0determines why they should care that you reached them.<\/p>\nWithout positioning as the foundation, these tools become tactical exercises that create motion without progress.<\/p>\n
\nThe Truth About Examples
\n<\/h4>\n
Tesla doesn\u2019t segment customers into rabbits or whales. They own \u201cfuture.\u201d The distribution emerged from the position.<\/p>\n
Apple doesn\u2019t chase market segments. They own \u201ccreative tools.\u201d Everything else follows.<\/p>\n
Amazon didn\u2019t choose customers. They own \u201ceverything store\u201d and built distribution to prove it.<\/p>\n
But ask these founders to explain their success, and they\u2019ll give you tactics, strategies, frameworks (everything except the truth that their positions created their paths).<\/p>\n
\nThe Uncomfortable Conclusion
\n<\/h4>\n
If you\u2019re reading frameworks about rabbits versus whales, PLG versus enterprise, bottom-up versus top-down, you\u2019re already playing the wrong game. You\u2019re optimizing tactical decisions in markets where someone else owns the position.<\/p>\n
The only strategic decision that matters: What mental territory can we own that reshapes how people think about the category itself?<\/p>\n
Everything else (including whether you chase rabbits or hunt whales) is just tactical noise emerging from that fundamental choice.<\/p>\n
Most founders will read this and return to their frameworks, their metrics, their tactical optimization. They\u2019ll continue confusing motion with progress, execution with strategy, and distribution with positioning.<\/p>\n
But a few will recognize the deeper game. They\u2019ll stop asking \u201chow should we sell?\u201d and start asking \u201cwhat should we mean?\u201d They\u2019ll stop optimizing distribution and start owning concepts. They\u2019ll stop playing by category rules and start reshaping categories themselves.<\/p>\n
Those few will look back years later and tell stories about their go-to-market strategy, their brilliant distribution choices, and their tactical excellence. And they\u2019ll be wrong about their own success, just like Butterfield, Field, and Benioff.<\/p>\n
Because the position chose the path, they just followed where it led.<\/p>\n
The deepest irony? I\u2019m explaining something that resists explanation (writing frameworks about why frameworks fail), creating a theory about what only practice reveals.<\/p>\n
Those who\u2019ve successfully positioned companies struggle to articulate how. They lived it from inside, where the position felt like destiny, not choice. Meanwhile, those of us who study it from outside can see the patterns but haven\u2019t felt the gravitational pull.<\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s the point. The map isn\u2019t the territory. Reading about positioning isn\u2019t doing it. But sometimes you need someone standing outside the cave to tell you you\u2019re watching shadows.<\/p>\n
The test isn\u2019t whether you understand this article. It\u2019s whether you stop asking \u201chow should we sell?\u201d and start asking \u201cwhat should we own?\u201d<\/p>\n
Most won\u2019t. They\u2019ll return to their tactical frameworks, their distribution models, their optimization games.<\/p>\n
But a few will feel something shift. They\u2019ll recognize they\u2019ve been solving the wrong problem. They\u2019ll stop playing the game and start owning the board.<\/p>\n
For them, this paradox isn\u2019t a contradiction. It\u2019s permission to stop following paths and start creating gravitational pull.<\/p>\n
The rest is just noise.<\/p>\n
Yours truly
Paul Syng<\/p>\n
PAULSYNG.COM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u265b 16.09.2025 Your GTM is backwards Read Time: 12\u00a0Minutes Hello Note:\u00a0Grant\u2019s\u00a0post\u00a0about choosing between \u201crabbits\u201d (many small customers) and \u201cwhales\u201d (a few large enterprises) perfectly illustrates how even smart people can confuse tactical distribution choices with strategic positioning. He thinks he\u2019s describing how to choose your go-to-market strategy, but he\u2019s actually documenting symptoms while missing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digest-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}