Engineers
Connect technical choices to customer needs, adoption and commercial tradeoffs.
Product DNA + GTM DNA · The applied course
Make growth decisions
before they get expensive.
Find hidden friction across your product, customers and route to market, before it becomes another feature, campaign or quarter spent pursuing the wrong approach.
The planned course: on-demand lessons + working tools
02 / GO-TO-MARKETFind your
Find your
way into the market.
MarketUnderstand the terrain
BeachheadA segment you can win
ICPBuyers who can adopt now
ChannelsA route that fits
01 / PRODUCT DNA
See the choices.
Connect the consequences.
PricingWhat the bill grows with
ActivationThe first useful outcome
RetentionA reason to keep using it
ExpansionHow account value grows
Describe it. Find evidence. Agree.
Built for lean software teams
Founders / Product leaders / Growth teams
Before the next feature.
Campaign. Sales hire.
See how product and market choices shape the work, cost and results of growth.
Product DNA
+ GTM DNA
What does it cost
to find out late?
One feature. One campaign. One quarter pursuing the wrong customers. Check the assumptions before committing the work.
Two developers.
Two weeks.
$10,460Illustrative wages alone, using the US median developer salary. Before design, QA, management and overhead.
One agency
marketing project.
$10K–$50KTypical reviewed project range on Clutch. Advertising spend is additional; scope and duration vary.
A better call on one build or campaign could outweigh the course fee. The judgment you develop carries into the next decision, too.
Sources and calculation
Development example: 2 developers × 2 weeks × ($135,980 ÷ 52) ≈ $10,460. Based on the BLS May 2025 US median annual developer wage. This is an illustrative allocation, not an average feature price or a cash-savings promise.
Clutch’s 2026 pricing guide reports a typical reviewed digital-marketing project range of $10,000–$49,999, rounded above. These are agency engagements, not a universal price for a single campaign.
You’re getting more done.
But is it moving the
business forward?
Building gets faster. Content gets faster.
The assumptions underneath them go unchecked.
Every prospect pulls the roadmap somewhere new.
The next deal needs another feature. Your own priorities keep slipping.
Your content gets attention from people who won’t buy.
More reach. More output. Still no clear path to demand.
Customers grow. Their spending with you doesn’t.
You deliver more value without a clear way to capture it.
Sales takes more work than the deal is worth.
Demos, custom proposals and onboarding eat into the revenue.
You’re explaining a new category before selling the product.
Buyers need an education before they can see why to care.
Everyone is busy. Everyone has a different plan.
Product, marketing and sales keep solving different versions of the problem.
Speed is useful.
A shared direction
makes it count.
Give product, engineering, marketing and sales the same facts to work from. Align your team and its AI tools around the customers, priorities and goals that matter.
One unchecked assumption can steer the whole business.
“Let’s target bigger companies” can become months of work before anyone checks whether the product, price and revenue goals fit.
Target accounts
Sales pursues a more demanding buyer.
Product roadmap
Features, permissions and integrations follow.
Marketing
Positioning, content and campaigns shift.
Daily work
Selling, onboarding and support get heavier.
The approach can work. The question is what it costs, and whether that cost serves your goals.
Two frameworks.
One shared view
of the business.
Connect the choices across your business. Find where they reinforce each other, where they add friction and what to investigate next.
Product DNA
Connect pricing, roles, value delivery, retention and expansion to the work and economics of growth.
Explore all 10 dimensions +
Pricing architecture
What is the price attached to?
SeatsUsageModulesOutcomesFlat or hybridBilling cadence: monthly · annual · one-time
User topology
Which roles depend on each other?
IndividualAdmin and operatorMulti-teamApprovalsGrowth motion
How do customers find and adopt you?
Self-serveSales-ledPartnersHybridValue delivery
When does the customer receive value?
ContinuousPeriodicEvent-triggeredBuyer versus user
Who pays, uses, champions and approves?
Same personBudget holderBuying committeeActivation pattern
What is the first real customer outcome?
First sessionImportConfigurationTeam adoptionRetention moat
What makes staying increasingly valuable?
Switching costsNetwork effectsWorkflowData gravityComplexity and time to value
What stands between signup and useful value?
MigrationIntegrationSetupSecurityTimeExpansion model
What can grow inside an account?
SeatsUsageModulesUpgradesNoneCompetitive positioning
Why would a particular buyer choose you?
AlternativeDifferenceSwitching frictionProof
GTM DNA
Compare markets, buyers, channels and sales motions by the work, cost and evidence each requires.
Explore all 8 components +
Market DNA
What kind of market are you entering?
FragmentationSophisticationRegulationSwitchingReplacementIncumbentsBeachhead
Where can you win with today’s product?
ReachableFocusedCompoundingICP before TAM
Who has the problem and can adopt now?
NeedBudgetDeploymentReachabilityUrgencyGrowth motion
How can this product realistically grow?
Self-serveSales-ledPartnersHybridChannel-product fit
Where can you reach buyers economically?
Search and contentOutboundPartnersCommunitiesSales motion and hiring
What selling work must happen first?
EvaluationAssistanceDeal economicsFirst hireCompetitive positioning
Which alternative are you replacing?
Creation or resegmentationSegment depthProofInvestor read
Which growth assumptions need evidence?
Capital needsAdoptionRetentionMarket reach
The disagreements are the finding.
Get product, engineering and revenue to agree on the same facts.
Different decisions.
The same need to see
what you’re missing.
These are a few ways to apply the method, across the product lifecycle.
PRICING + EXPANSIONWhen customers grow,
When customers grow,
what grows with them?
More seats? More usage? Another module? A larger customer doesn’t automatically become a larger account.
Examine what creates value, what can expand and what your price is attached to.
Make pricing and product decisions that support each other.
VALUE DELIVERY + RETENTIONWhy would someone
Why would someone
still need you next year?
A daily workflow, a periodic project and a one-off task create different reasons to return.
Check whether your product priorities, packaging and retention expectations reflect how customers actually get value.
Invest in lasting usefulness, with a clearer reason for each feature.
BEACHHEAD + POSITIONINGDo buyers need a new category,
Do buyers need a new category,
or a better answer
to a familiar problem?
You could spend months explaining “Spatial Operations Intelligence.” Or start with project management for interior-design studios that already need it.
A focused beachhead gives product, content and sales the same buyers to learn from. Each relevant customer can make the next conversation easier.
Compare the opportunity with the cost of educating a market.
From Jake’s work · An anonymized software business
The bigger account wasn’t
the better first customer.
A bootstrapped interior-design SaaS wanted enterprise accounts. Its immediate goal was paying customers, quickly. Those two priorities hadn’t been checked against each other.
The pricing
$49/account/month+ $9/user/month
One studio · Ten users
$49 + (10 × $9)
$139/monthTen independent designers
10 × ($49 + $9)
$580/monthSame ten users. About 4.2× the subscription revenue across ten individual accounts.
Different buyers.
Different expectations.
A solo designer needs to get work done. A larger practice also needs consistent standards, controlled handoffs and confidence across teams.
Different demands
on an early product.
The larger-account motion risked longer sales cycles, more development and more onboarding work before revenue arrived.
A better question
before committing.
Which customers could adopt the product at that stage, meet the revenue goals and help it earn the next opportunity?
Subscription comparison at equal seats, before acquisition and service costs.
Better decisions.
More room to move.
The value goes beyond the decision itself.
Choose customers you can serve well.
Fewer one-off demands.
More capacity for the core product and the customers it’s built for.Connect value, pricing and expansion.
Clearer packaging priorities.
A stronger basis for growing account revenue as customer value grows.Get the team working from shared evidence.
Less rework and fewer conflicting priorities.
More focused use of your cash, roadmap and founder attention.Bring a live decision.
Build a plan to test
or change it.
Work through your own business as you learn. Build five practical outputs to guide the next move.
Inside the working materialsTry the first exercise ↗
- 01
Your Product DNA profile
A shared description of how the product works commercially.
- 02
Your market and ICP map
Who you can serve now, and where to go next.
- 03
Your motion and channel plan
The selling and acquisition work your choices require.
- 04
Your friction register
Suspected mismatches, their costs and the evidence to check.
- 05
Your decision and evidence plan
What to change, what to test and who owns it.
- 01
Learn to see the pattern.
Use video and written lessons to connect product choices with their commercial consequences.
- 02
Work through your business.
Map the facts. Surface disagreements. Separate evidence from assumptions.
- 03
Decide what deserves a test.
Compare the options, choose what to change or investigate and agree who owns it.
The course
Work on your product
as you learn.
Six modules. Practical exercises.
From product facts to market choices and a decision plan.
01Start with shared factsSurface the assumptions hiding inside your strategy.+
- Why execution can amplify friction
- Separate evidence from assumptions
- Bring product, engineering and revenue together
02Describe your Product DNAWrite the ten sentences your team needs to agree on.+
- Pricing, value delivery and expansion
- User roles, buyers and first value
- Complexity, retention, motion and position
03Find the contradictionsFind where the product and the growth plan pull apart.+
- Check the retention mechanism
- Investigate structural friction
- Use examples without copying their strategy
04Choose a reachable marketFocus on customers who can adopt what you have.+
- Read the market before its size
- Choose a beachhead and ICP
- Map buyer awareness and adoption work
05Match your route to your productConnect channels, sales and positioning to the economics.+
- Choose a motion and test its economics
- Assess channels and positioning
- Understand hiring and investor implications
06Align and decideTurn the diagnostic into changes, owners and tests.+
- Run the cross-functional session
- Prioritize changes and evidence
- Build a repeatable review brief
Jake McMahon · Founder, ProductQuantMeet your instructor
From customer research
to product strategy
to shipped changes.
I’m Jake McMahon. At ProductQuant, I help software teams understand their customers, choose what to build and measure whether it makes a difference.
My work spans research, pricing, analytics, experimentation, machine learning and hands-on implementation. Product DNA and GTM DNA bring that perspective into the decisions your team makes.
Experience across software businesses
Healthtech
Analytics strategy, customer research and product priorities for healthcare software.
Advertising technology
Custom analytics, predictive models and expansion analysis for an Amazon advertising platform.
Messaging software
Integration onboarding, activation measurement and retention-focused product improvements.
HR + learning platforms
Market sizing, churn analysis and growth strategy.
Design software
Pricing economics, customer segmentation and go-to-market alignment.
Content and commercial experience
I also built and ran the content and sales system that helped grow Queue to $1.5M ARR.
My sales experience includes monday.com, Guardio, Circlesup, NewDayUSA, FormDr and Scale Insights, with agency deals of $16K–$38K and SaaS deals of $10K–$100K+, including one relationship reaching $500K in customer lifetime value.
I’ve written for thirdweb, Payoneer, monday.com, monday dev, CYE, Tasq, Spikerz and 8fig.
Product DNA + GTM DNA
Make the next decision
with the whole picture.
Join the list for course availability and enrollment updates. Planned format: self-paced video and written lessons, with tools you apply to your own business.
- 6 modules · 18 planned lessons
- Product DNA + GTM DNA profiles
- Market, ICP and channel exercises
- Friction register + decision plan
Get early-access updates and the free team diagnostic.
Just want the diagnostic? Use it now →The details,
before you decide.
Is this a self-paced course?+
Yes. The planned format combines video and written lessons with exercises you apply to your own product. Join the list for enrollment updates.
Do I need a product already?+
A real product and customer evidence make the diagnostic more useful. At idea stage, use it to name the assumptions you still need to test.
Can I use the exercises with my team?+
Yes, the exercises are designed to bring product, engineering and revenue together. Course-access and file-license options will be published when enrollment opens.
Is this only for startups choosing their first market?+
No. Apply it to an existing product, a new segment, pricing and packaging, retention, expansion or a change in sales motion. The examples show different applications, not the limits of the method.
Will this give me a growth playbook to copy?+
You will learn to assess choices against your product, customers and economics. The aim is to build a reasoned plan for your business, including what evidence to gather, rather than copy another company’s tactics.
Can Jake review our product personally?+
You can request a separate private workshop to work through the diagnostic together. Explore the workshops page for the available formats.
What does it cost, and when will it launch?+
The price, access terms and enrollment date are not announced yet. Joining the list is free. You can use the diagnostic today without joining.