Frequently asked questions

Abstract Group is a new model of go-to-market studio for technical founders. We act as your unconflicted operating board: two elite operators who have led brand, marketing, revenue and sales at OpenAI, Stripe, Google and Deutsche Bank.

There’s many paths for going to marketing, but we short circuit the process by giving you straight, fast answers on the tough GTM decisions in front of you.

Today’s technical founders operate under extreme velocity. AI compresses how fast you can build, but every release widens the distance between what your product can do and what your market knows about it. A founder's conviction in their GTM can set them apart.

Primarily with VC-backed technical founders, usually Seed through Series A, usually owning go-to-market for the first time. However, with the disruption and efficiency AI is bringing, we are brought in more and more by post PMF firms (Series B > pre-IPO) are facing the same challenges, albeit at a larger scale.

We also partner regularly with recruiting firms, VCs with their clients & port cos; and collaborate with other advisors, writers and creatives to bring great work to life.

1. Jump to the end – Growth usually waits on a truth nobody has said out loud yet. We work backwards from your goal to reverse engineer the answer.
2. Senior decisionmakers on both sides – On ours, it's Emily and Kanan. On yours, it's the CEO or whoever leads the product build.
3. Read everything – We go through all of your materials by hand, because the answer usually hides in a detail an AI summary would smooth over.
4. Hard calls happen live – Urgent problems need focused time. If you can't protect time for working sessions, we're probably the wrong fit.

Usually when an elite Founder feels frustrated that something isn’t working with marketing or sales or has a fast approaching consequential milestone.

• Diagnosis – Independent, full funnel analysis of your pipeline, growth, operations & resourcing with the lens of uncovering the areas of friction – both tangible and intangible.
• GTM foundations – Building core elements of your GTM (ICP, Positioning, Narrative, Messaging, Channels, Content etc) whether you’re coming out of stealth or facing an inflection point.
• Org design & hiring – Who to hire, in what order, how they’re incentivized, what they should do and how you’ll gauge if they’re successful.
• Sales and marketing motions – How you attract, find, close and keep customers at your stage. We can also help your teams build processes to execute efficiently.
• Founder advisory – We sharpen Founder skills in selling & marketing, so they can lead the selling and marketing teams better.
• Intros – We love making introductions to our favorite agencies and talent in our network where it makes sense.

• Creative execution – We don’t design logos, brand identities, build websites, write copy or run campaigns. But have plenty of great referrals for that work.
• Fractional leadership – A fractional exec oversees the function part time. We stay firmly outside of it and you keep ownership of the work.
• Traditional coaches – The guide you to your answer. We tell you the ‘right answer’ from having made the same call many times ourselves.
• Project management – If you already have a plan that you need managed and executed, we can help point you to the right resources.

Our engagements run in 8-12 weeks sprints. We’ve found anything longer stalls the critical decisionmaking Founders and their teams need to move at the speed of the market.

Basic structure of an engagement:

• Week 1: Data room – Your team drops any data, call transcripts, notes, pipeline into a shared folder.
• Week 2: Diagnosis – We quickly bring you a full funnel analysis of the jobs to be done based on your goals.
• Week 3-8: Deliberate – We build all materials for live working sessions designed to solidify critical GTM decisions.
• Week 8-12: Decisions – We ship materials, briefs and roadmaps borne out of the decisions to execute on.

Throughout, we’re your ‘on call’ thought partners. You can throw us almost anything over Slack or a call – recent creative work, revenue data, candidate profiles – to provide feedback on.

Each sprint is a fixed fee, scoped to the problem and agreed before we start. Founders usually weigh us against a senior GTM hire or a quarter lost to the wrong motion.

We don’t share client strategy deliverables or working templates ahead of an engagement, because every project is tied to confidential internal decisions. But we can share the shape of engagements, worksessions and the types of output. They include creative briefs, message maps, content strategy, sales pipeline analysis, hiring & org design.

No, we believe equity belongs to full time employees, shareholders and investors who are there for the long term, which runs counter to our thesis of moving quickly.