How we work / Diagnostic Sprint

GTM Diagnostic Sprint · Four weeks or less · Three partners

Pressure-test your next GTM move. Or find out why the last one stalled.

A new market, a new product, an upmarket push, a product-led motion, a fresh raise to deploy, or growth that has gone flat. Four weeks on your real numbers, not a benchmark slide. You get a diagnosis, a 90-day plan your team can run without us in the room, and a readout your board can follow. For B2B SaaS and for consumer brands selling direct.

Book a discovery call Write to partners@sparkgtm.com

Run by operators from Pleo, Ledger, Spendesk, Moment, Techstars and Contour.

Who it's for

Two reasons teams bring us in: a big move ahead, or growth that has stalled.

Before a big move

Opening a new geography, where the motion that worked at home may not travel.
Launching a new product or product line.
Moving upmarket: longer cycles, bigger buying committees, a different sales motion.
Launching a product-led growth motion, alongside sales or instead of it.
You just raised significant capital and want a second set of eyes to poke at the plan before you spend it.
Raising in the next six months, and the GTM story has to survive diligence.
Before a key hire, such as a VP Sales or a CMO, so the brief matches the plan.

When growth has stalled

Pipeline or revenue has flattened and every team has a different explanation.
The ICP is "everyone who might buy," so marketing and sales chase different people.
You hired a marketing or growth leader and the first 90 days produced activity, not numbers.
Spend went up and growth did not. Nobody can say which channel is carrying the business.

Investors commission it too, for a portfolio company before a follow-on round or a key hire. The fund or the company pays.

Two kinds of companies

	B2B SaaS	B2C and D2C
Stage	Seed to Series C, product-market fit validated, a GTM team in place	$1M to $25M+ in revenue
Common triggers	New region, upmarket push or PLG launch; or pipeline flat and win rate sliding	New market, retail channel or product line; or CAC rising and repeat rate flat
Led by	Loic, with Marc and Thomas	Marc, with Loic and Thomas

Not a fit if you want a slide deck to show the board, or someone to run campaigns from day one. The Sprint ends in a plan. Running it is a separate decision.

What you walk away with

A plan, not a report.

A written note your founders can read in five minutes and your leads can work from for a quarter.

The five-minute read

The situation in one page: where you stand against plan, the through-line, four foundations to fix in the next 30 days, three bets for the next 90, and what to stop.

The fifteen-minute read

Every workstream on its own, with its status (in motion, agreed, to launch) and the numbers behind it.

The deep-dives

Two to four topics taken under the hood, picked from what the calls surface: market entry, the upmarket motion, product-led onboarding, attribution, activation, partnerships, the operating rhythm, what marketing needs to succeed.

The growth model

Pipeline math for B2B, unit economics and cohorts for consumer, at the resolution your data supports and no finer.

The readout and the follow-up

One hour with your leadership team, the written note with the decisions taken in the room built in, and a follow-up call about four weeks later to review first results.

What the five-minute read looks like

Example, fictional data

Situation: Ahead of plan. The current engine plateaus around €12M ARR; the next step needs a second channel.
4 foundations, 30 days: One source of truth for GTM numbers. Revenue attributed by channel. Two more, specific to you.
3 bets, 90 days: Activation from 45% to 60% of signed customers. Partners at 25% of new customers. A clear mandate for marketing.
What to stop: Scaling paid without a dashboard. Counting partners signed instead of pipeline.

Two tracks, one method

Same four weeks, same deliverables.

What we pull apart depends on how you sell.

What we examine	B2B SaaS	B2C and D2C
Who buys	ICP, buying committee, deal size by segment	Customer segments, first-order vs repeat buyers, price sensitivity
The funnel	Lead to opportunity to close, win rate, sales cycle, stage leakage	Traffic to first order to second order, conversion by channel, repeat rate
The economics	CAC payback, pipeline coverage, ACV by segment	CAC by channel, contribution margin, LTV by cohort
Channels	Outbound, inbound, events	Paid social and search, creators, owned channels
Partnerships	Integrations, resellers, alliances: which ones are actually a channel	Retail, wholesale, marketplaces, collaborations: which are worth the margin
Positioning	Why you win and lose deals, what sales can repeat	Why people buy, why they come back, what the product page should say
The deep dive	Up to 8 calls: founder or CEO, heads of sales, marketing, operations and partnerships, then their reports. Plus 4 to 6 customer interviews	Same

Loic

Where Loic changes the work.

Most growth problems look like a channel problem and turn out to be a measurement or mandate problem. Loic has built marketing engines at Pleo, Ledger and Circula, and leads the GTM side of every Sprint: tying each channel to revenue, sharpening the ICP and positioning, and writing the mandate marketing will be held to.

Marc

Where Marc changes the work.

Consumer growth problems are often operating problems wearing a marketing costume: margin, inventory, fulfillment, the product range. Marc has built consumer brands from the first product to full product lines as a founder and CEO. He reads the P&L with your leadership team, not just the ad account.

Thomas

Where Thomas changes the work.

Partnerships are often the cheapest growth a company is not using, or the most expensive one it is getting wrong. Thomas co-founded Partnership Club and ran partnerships at Spendesk. On every Sprint he tests which partners are actually a channel and which bets to kill.

Four weeks, or less

Four weeks from kickoff to readout.

Faster if your leadership team has the bandwidth.

Week 1

Kickoff and access

We agree who we talk to, and which markets and business units are in scope. Data access: CRM or e-commerce platform, analytics, ad accounts, finance exports. The deep dive starts.

Week 2

The deep dive

Up to eight calls. First the founder or CEO, then the heads of sales, marketing, operations and partnerships, then a further pass with the people who report to them. Alongside them, 4 to 6 customer interviews. The data audit runs in parallel. A 30-minute check-in shares early patterns, so nothing in the readout is a surprise.

Week 3

The diagnosis

ICP and positioning teardown. Growth model built. A ranked list of what is leaking, or what the next move will take, and what each costs.

Week 4

The readout

The 90-day plan, with owners and metrics, presented in one hour to your leadership team by all three partners. Your board or lead investor can join. The written note follows, with the decisions taken in the room built in, plus one revision round within five business days.

Need it faster? If your founders and leads can clear their calendars, we run the deep dive in days instead of two weeks and bring the readout forward. The calendar shrinks. The scope and the price do not.

Who's on it

Three partners on every Sprint.

The people who interview your team present the readout.

GTM

Loic Jeanjean

Founder

Fifteen-plus years building marketing engines at companies including Pleo, Ledger and Circula. Advises and operates through Spark GTM; later-stage work also through Hypergrowth Partners. Writes the scorecard. Owns the GTM number when that is the seat.

Descript · Attention · Ledger · Pleo

Operations

Marc Barros

Operations Partner

Marc has spent 25+ years founding and building consumer brands around the world. From the first product to full product lines, his career has been about figuring out how to help brands grow. Every go-to-market is different. Whether it's finding a new strategy, coaching your executive team, or measuring the details, he jumps in with both feet to find what your business needs to grow.

Moment · Techstars · Contour

Partnerships

Thomas Le Cun

Partnerships Partner

Co-founder of Partnership Club. Former Head of Partnerships at Spendesk. Ten-plus years in partnerships and B2B GTM across scale-ups and enterprise accounts. Advises on partnerships and alliances in Europe and the US. Designs the motion with Loic: who is actually a channel, which bets to kill, what the next 90 days look like.

Spendesk · Doctolib · Attention

If the plan needs a seat filled, the readout names it and the scorecard. Gabriela Zibes can then run the search as a separate engagement.

What we need from you

Four things, inside five business days of asking.

Without them, the diagnosis is a guess.

One decision-makerwho can unblock access and make calls on priorities.

Access to the dataCRM or e-commerce platform, analytics, ad accounts, current positioning and sales materials, and a finance export that shows margin.

Introductionsto the people we agree to interview, inside and outside the company.

Honest numbersThe real pipeline and the real cohorts, not only the board version.

If access slips, the readout date moves with it.

What it is not

A diagnosis and a plan. Not a transformation hidden inside a fixed fee.

Not campaign execution, ad management or content production.
Not a reorg, and not weekly stand-ups after the readout.
Not recruiting. We can say which hire the plan needs; running the search is separate.
Not a guarantee of pipeline, revenue or valuation. You get the clearest read on where growth is leaking and what to do about it.

Strictly go-to-market. Acquisition, activation, retention, sales, marketing, partners, and the operating system that connects them. Product and tech come in only where they touch growth. Everything in the note is a workstream to prioritize, not a verdict on your team.

From our GTM audits

Both CEOs we audited this year introduced us to their other investors afterwards.

Stairling

VTC driver cooperative · portfolio company of 199VC

The work was very high quality and really helped us prioritize.

Mimoun B. El AlamiCEO and co-founder

The note goes straight to the point and the recommendations are very concrete.

Sarah BouleauCOO and co-founder

Qomon

B2B SaaS for mission-driven organizations · portfolio company of Asterion

Within four weeks: GTM indicators tied to revenue, a GTM review every two weeks, and marketing pay indexed on demos and signed customers.

A very good experience on our side.

Florent BarreCEO and founder

Sprint or Express?

The Express is a three-week outside read.

The Sprint goes deeper, with three partners, your data and your customers.

Quoted in your market's currency, not converted from our place of work.

	GTM + Partnerships Express	GTM Diagnostic Sprint
Length	3 weeks	4 weeks, or less
Your team's time	3 hours of interviews	Up to 8 deep-dive calls, plus 4 to 6 customer interviews
Who is on it	Loic and Thomas	Loic, Marc and Thomas
Data audit and growth model	No	Yes
Consumer track (B2C and D2C)	No	Yes
Output	Readout and note: 90-day plan, bets, what to stop	Readout, two-level note, deep-dives, growth model, follow-up call
Price	$15,000	From $24,000

Start with the Express if you want an outside read without pulling your team in. Start with the Sprint if you are about to commit budget, a raise or a key hire.

Price and terms

One fixed fee, from $24,000.

Three partners, same price for both tracks.

GTM Diagnostic Sprint From $24,000

Half at kickoff, half before the readout.
Cash only. No equity on the Sprint.
Quoted in your market's currency. Prices exclude VAT.
Interview count, markets and business units in scope are written into the statement of work, so four weeks stays four weeks.

After the readout

The plan is yours.

How you run it is a separate decision, made with the numbers in front of you.

Run it yourselves.

The plan is written to be run without us. Many teams do exactly that.

Keep us as counsel.

GTM Advisory Partner: weekly sessions while your team runs the plan.

Put us in the seat.

Fractional GTM / CMO, when there is no one to own the number.

Fill the gap the plan found.

A Role Search with Gabriela can start within 30 days of the readout, against the scorecard the Sprint already produced.

Before you book

Questions about the Sprint.

Growth is fine. We are about to expand. Is this for us?

Yes. A new market, a product launch, an upmarket push or a product-led motion is far cheaper to pressure-test on paper than to fix in market. We test the plan against your data and your customers before you commit the budget and the hires.

Does it have to take four weeks?

Four is the default, not the rule. If your leadership team can clear time for the deep dive, we compress it, at the same price. What we will not do is skip the calls or the data to hit a date. Longer than four, and you are paying for a transformation you have not decided to buy.

Why not just hire a consultancy?

A consultancy sends analysts who learn your market on your fee. The Sprint is run by three partners who built the engine at Pleo, Ledger, Spendesk, Moment and Contour, and the people who interview your team are the people who present the readout.

We sell to consumers. Is this really for us?

Yes. The consumer track is led by Marc, who has founded and built consumer brands for 25-plus years. The method is the same; the funnel, the economics and the channels we examine are not.

Why is a partnerships lead on a GTM diagnostic?

Because distribution through partners is either the cheapest growth you are not using or the most expensive one you are getting wrong. Thomas tests which is which on every Sprint.

What if our data is a mess?

Most data is. We build the model at the resolution your data supports and tell you what to fix first so the next read is sharper. Messy data is a finding, not a blocker.

Do you need our whole team's time?

No. Plan for up to eight deep-dive calls with the founder, your department leads and their reports, introductions to 4 to 6 customers, plus a kickoff, a mid-point check-in and the readout. Everything else is on us.

What happens if we disagree with the diagnosis?

Good. That is what the readout and the revision round are for. We change what the evidence supports, and we say so when it does not.

Can you implement the plan too?

Yes, as a separate decision after the readout. We would rather you see the plan first and decide with the numbers in front of you.

Four weeks from now, you could know exactly what to do next.

One discovery call. The same day, a short note naming the problem as we heard it. Within 48 hours, the scope.

Book a discovery call or write to partners@sparkgtm.com