AI isn’t just transforming products. It’s blowing up the playbook for how those products reach customers.
In the season finale of TechCrunch’s Build Mode, host Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Paul Irving, partner and COO at GTMfund, to map out what go-to-market (GTM) looks like when technical advantages disappear in months instead of years.
The episode runs just over 35 minutes, but it’s dense with operator-level advice for early-stage startups trying to win against better-funded rivals that ship features at lightning speed.
When AI erases your product moat
The starting point: AI has compressed the product cycle. A clever feature you launch today can show up in a competitor’s release notes next quarter.
Irving’s core argument is blunt: when technical moats erode this fast, distribution becomes the moat. How you reach, convert, and keep your ideal customers matters more than any one model, feature, or prompt trick.
That shift has real consequences for founders:
- You can’t count on “we built it first” to carry you.
- Copy-paste GTM templates from other startups won’t cut it.
- You need a distribution motion tailored to a very specific ideal customer profile (ICP).
Don’t spray and pray: pick 1–2 GTM channels
One of the clearest pieces of advice from the conversation: stop trying to be everywhere.
Early teams routinely stretch themselves across ten different channels—content, paid ads, cold outbound, events, communities, partnerships, you name it. The result is shallow execution and no clear signal on what’s actually working.
Instead, Irving urges founders to deliberately choose one or two primary GTM channels and go deep:
- If your ICP lives on LinkedIn, build a repeatable outbound and content motion there.
- If your buyers discover tools through ecosystems, double down on marketplace and partner distribution.
- If bottoms-up adoption fits your product, design a product-led growth loop and obsess over activation and expansion.
Focus forces you to instrument, iterate, and prove a path to efficient acquisition—crucial in a market that’s punishing undisciplined growth.
AI lets you get absurdly specific in outreach
The irony of the AI era: while products are easier to copy, customer understanding can get sharper than ever.
Irving and Johannessen dig into how AI can power highly targeted outreach instead of generic sequences. Think:
- Researching a prospect’s tech stack, hiring plans, and public roadmaps in minutes.
- Drafting messages tailored to a prospect’s exact role, metrics, and current tools.
- Personalizing at scale without sounding like a mail merge.
But there’s a catch. AI can’t replace the hard work of defining a clear ICP and real customer problems. If your inputs are fuzzy, your AI-assisted GTM will just generate bad outreach faster.
The teams that win combine:
- Sharp positioning and ICP definition.
- AI-driven research and drafting.
- Human judgment about which accounts to pursue and how to sequence the relationship.
Build a distribution mechanism that looks like you
Another theme: there is no universal GTM motion for AI startups.
Selling a horizontal productivity tool into thousands of SMBs looks nothing like selling an applied AI system into a few regulated enterprises. Copying a friend’s “playbook” because it worked for their dev tool is a fast way to burn runway.
Irving pushes founders to design a distribution mechanism that lines up with:
- Your buyer (who signs, who uses, who influences).
- Your deal size and sales cycle.
- Your category’s level of education and risk.
That might mean:
- High-touch, founder-led sales into your first 20 design partners.
- A community-first motion if your users are developers or creators.
- Co-selling with operators who already have trust inside your target accounts.
The point: your GTM should be as bespoke as your product roadmap.
Warm-intro mapping as a core GTM skill
One of the most actionable parts of the episode is Irving’s breakdown of warm-introduction mapping.
Instead of blasting cold emails, the best early-stage teams systematically map:
- Which operators, founders, and angels already know their target accounts.
- Where second-degree connections can unlock a first meeting.
- How to turn one strong champion into three more introductions.
From there, the work looks less like “sales” and more like relationship-building.
Irving emphasizes a key mindset shift: when you finally meet someone new, leave the pitch deck in your bag. Show up with a clear problem or opportunity you’re working through, ask real questions, and treat the conversation as a collaboration—not a closing attempt.
That’s where another underappreciated advantage of startups shows up: the altruistic streak in the ecosystem. Founders and operators, especially those a few steps ahead of you, are often genuinely willing to help—if you approach them with curiosity and authenticity instead of a rehearsed pitch.
Build Mode is just getting started
This episode closes out the current season of Build Mode, TechCrunch’s operator-focused series on how to ship, sell, and scale.
Johannessen, who leads TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield program and scouts founders across nearly 100 countries, uses the conversation with Irving to underline a new reality for AI-era startups: shipping product is table stakes; building distribution is survival.
Season 2 of Build Mode is set to launch in mid-February, with Johannessen returning as host. The show is produced and edited by Maggie Nye, with audience development led by Morgan Little and support from TechCrunch’s Foundry and Cheddar video teams.
If you’re building in AI and still treating GTM as an afterthought, this 35‑minute session is a sharp reminder: in 2026, you don’t just need a better model—you need a better motion.
