GTM Archetype Selection

What It Is

A GTM archetype is the dominant motion that drives acquisition and conversion. Choosing it is a hard-constraint decision driven by ACV, sales-cycle length, ICP concentration, and how self-serviceable the product is — not a preference.

The Five Archetypes

  • Sales-Led (SLG): AE-driven. Choose when ACV > $25K, cycle > 60 days, product needs human explanation, or ICP is concentrated/regulated.
  • Product-Led (PLG): the product drives acquisition and conversion. Choose when ACV < $25K, value lands in the first session, viral/collaborative mechanics exist, and the market is broad. → product-led-growth
  • Community-Led (CLG): customers recruit customers. Choose for developer ecosystems/platforms, strong network effects, NPS > 50, and young categories where community defines the category. → community-led-growth
  • Outbound-Led: targeted personalized outreach to a defined list. Choose when ICP is so concentrated that cold outbound is the only scalable reach and ACV justifies SDR/AE time.
  • Hybrid: two simultaneous motions (PLG→SLG, SLG→ABM, PLG→CLG, SLG→Outbound) — the norm for growth-stage companies.

The Decision Rules

Pick the primary motion from ACV/cycle/ICP. Add a second motion under the 20% rule: when >20% of revenue is being lost to a cohort a different motion could capture (e.g. 20%+ of trials are enterprise accounts that never self-serve → add SLG). Transition triggers include CAC payback exceeding ~18 months or rising ACV pushing past self-serve economics.

How It Applies to Marketing Factory

The archetype sets which channels, agents, and plays the factory should even run — it's the upstream switch for channel-selection. A factory should encode the decision criteria as an explicit gate (ACV/cycle/ICP thresholds → motion) and re-evaluate against the 20%/CAC-payback triggers, because running plays from the wrong archetype wastes capacity. account-based-marketing is the motion for the concentrated, high-ACV end of the spectrum.

Referenced from: channel-selection-planning