Case Study: Crafting and Executing the Go-To-Market Strategy for FinQuiz

Bringing a new product to market is always a challenging endeavour, especially in the competitive and regulated fintech landscape. With FinQuiz, our goal was to create an Open source tool that would help fintech companies ensure regulatory compliance through an investor appropriateness assessment. This case study details the specific steps we took to craft and execute the Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy for FinQuiz, focusing on the unique challenges and approaches we developed along the way.

At the time of writing the campaign is pending launch. If you haven’t already - it would be very useful for you to read our GTM blueprint article for Fintech startups, which is more universal than this case study and it contains aspects that we didn’t have to account for with FinQuiz.

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1. Taking stock of the market and identifying the opportunity

Before diving into the GTM strategy, we needed to understand the broader market landscape. Fintech startups are rapidly evolving, and regulatory compliance has become a critical issue. The rise of investment opportunities available to the general public brings inherent risks, making it essential for fintech companies to protect their users while adhering to strict regulations.

We identified a gap in the market for a tool that could seamlessly integrate into existing fintech platforms, allowing companies to easily assess investor appropriateness and meet regulatory standards. This insight laid the foundation for FinQuiz—a simple, Open source toolkit for developers, designed to streamline the compliance process.

2. Initial research and market validation

With the concept of FinQuiz in hand, we conducted in-depth market research to understand the market, our customers (pains, gains, desires), competition, and customer sentiment towards competitors. This involved:

• Customer Interviews: We spoke with potential users, including fintech developers, compliance officers, and product managers, to understand their pain points and needs regarding regulatory compliance.
• Industry Reports and community forums: We reviewed industry reports and participated in community discussions on forums like Reddit and LinkedIn to gauge the current sentiment and demand for compliance tools and more so any Open source tools.
• Competitor Analysis: We analysed existing solutions in the market, identifying their strengths and weaknesses. This helped us position FinQuiz as a more accessible and customisable alternative.
• Lastly we Identifying potential partners for collaboration, mostly people of thought leadership within the space.

Through this research, we confirmed that there was an opportunity in the market for a tool like FinQuiz, particularly among early-stage fintech startups that needed a simple and fast way to ensure they stay compliant.

3. Investigate and understand regulation and licensing

Regulatory compliance is a critical aspect of any fintech startup. As a financially unauthorised company, there are many things you are not allowed to do. However, FinQuiz is technically a product for Fintech startups, it’s an enabler of Fintech solutions and as a standalone product, it does not fall under the same regulatory requirements as products that it might become a part of. This makes launching FinQuiz significantly easier (by design).

4. Defining the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Based on our research, we came up with our best guess at an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to guide our GTM strategy. FinQuiz was designed to serve:

• Primary ICP: Developers in Seed to Series A fintech startups, short on time and budget,

looking for customisable, ready-to-implement solutions.

• Secondary ICP: Compliance teams in small startups, needing fast, compliant solutions to

avoid penalties.

• ANTI-ICP: Traditional investment firms, advisors, or brokers with existing manual processes.

This early guess at who might be our ICP helped us focus our marketing and outreach efforts on the segments most likely to benefit from FinQuiz. As we receive feedback from our G2M efforts we will be continuously assessing whether our ICP needs changing.

5. Crafting the positioning and key messaging

Positioning FinQuiz correctly in the market was crucial. We aimed to differentiate it from other compliance tools by emphasising its Open source nature, ease of integration, and customisability. The nature of the solution we provided is that is free for anyone to implement by themselves, but in case they rather have us do that - they can contact us via the website or other channels. Our key messaging centred around the following points:

Stay Compliant: Streamline Your Compliance Process with FinQuizz.

Fast:? Fast-Track Your FCA Compliance with our Open source ToolKit.

Control your data:? Control Your Data and accelerate Your Development with FinQuizz.

Open Source: A fully customisable appropriateness assessment toolkit gives you complete

control and ownership.

These messages were consistently communicated across all channels, ensuring that our target audience clearly understood the value FinQuiz brought to their operations.

6. Selecting the GTM Motions

For FinQuiz, we chose a multi-channel GTM approach that revolved mostly around LinkedIn focused on leveraging inbound marketing, outbound sales, and paid advertising. Here’s how we structured each motion:

Inbound Marketing: LinkedIn Content

Our primary GTM motion is inbound marketing through LinkedIn. We identified LinkedIn as the ideal platform to reach fintech professionals and decision-makers. Our strategy included:

• Content Creation: We produced a series of LinkedIn posts, articles, and updates that highlighted the challenges of regulatory compliance and introduced FinQuiz as a solution. Content topics ranged from compliance tips to detailed product demos.
• Consistency: Each team member was tasked with posting three shorter posts (150-300 words) and one longer post (300+ words) per week. This consistent content flow helped build awareness and engagement.
• Targeted Content: We tailored our content to specific sub-audiences within the fintech community, focusing on developers, product managers, and compliance officers.

Outbound Sales: LinkedIn Cold Outreach

To complement our inbound efforts, we are implementing an outbound sales motion through cold outreach on LinkedIn. This involved:

• Targeted Outreach: We identified and reached out to potential users, including developers and compliance officers at fintech startups, with personalised messages introducing FinQuiz and its benefits.
• Follow-Up Strategy: We followed up with leads who expressed interest, offering demos and additional resources to help them understand how FinQuiz could meet their needs.

Paid Advertising: Digital Campaigns

In addition to our organic efforts, we accounted for targeted paid campaigns on LinkedIn and other digital platforms. These campaigns were designed to:

• Drive Awareness: Ads focused on the key benefits of FinQuiz, such as its ease of integration and compliance capabilities.
• Generate Leads: We used a lead generation form on our website to capture contact information from interested prospects, allowing us to follow up with them directly.

7. Developing the Marketing Plan and Marketing Mix

Our marketing plan was tightly aligned with our GTM motions and focused on a 2-3 month timeline for execution. Key components of the Marketing mix included:

• Channels
• Outcomes (what we will gain by using it)
• Actions (What could Our business do)
• Expected Investment
• Expected RoI

Key components of the Marketing plan included:

• Channels
• Objectives
• Outline plan

Listing everything in this article would not work so you can have a look at the entire document here.

8. Budgeting and Campaign planning

With our GTM motions, marketing plan, and requirements firmly in place, it was time to dive into execution. This phase involved careful planning, budgeting, and phased implementation to ensure organised and effective launch for FinQuiz.

Before launching the campaign, we needed to establish a clear and detailed budget. This step was crucial in ensuring that all aspects of our GTM strategy were adequately funded without overspending. Here’s how we approached it:

• Identify Costs: We began by listing all anticipated expenses, including personnel, tools, content creation, advertising, and any other resources needed for the campaign.
• Estimate Expenditures: Each item on our list was assigned an estimated cost to ensure we had a realistic financial picture of the campaign.
• Allocate Budget: We then distributed the budget across different activities and channels according to their priority and expected return on investment (ROI). For example, the majority of our budget was allocated to LinkedIn content creation and advertising, as these were identified as key channels for reaching our target audience.
• Seek Approval: Finally, the budget was presented to stakeholders for approval, ensuring it aligned with our financial constraints and strategic goals.

To manage unforeseen expenses, we set aside a contingency fund of 20%. Additionally, we discussed phased spending with our team, breaking down the budget into specific phases of the campaign. For instance, the initial launch was funded first, it will be followed by a review at the mid-campaign point, and then additional funds will be released for the final push based on performance metrics.

With the budget secured, we moved on to detailed campaign planning. This involved outlining specific activities, timelines, and deliverables to keep the team aligned and on track. Our high-level plan included the following:

• Week 1: Planning, addressing unknowns, and preparation work.
• Week 2: Alignment on value proposition and positioning, content creation starts.
• Week 3: Development of key messaging, campaign, and ad setup.
• Week 4: Finalise campaign and ad setup, and launch campaigns.
• Weeks 5-7: Analyse campaign performance and gather insights.
• Weeks 8-10:Iterate based on learnings and take necessary actions.

This approach ensured that we had a clear roadmap for the campaign, with each phase building on the previous one. In-depth planning meetings were scheduled for each piece of work required. By breaking down the campaign into manageable sprints, we maintained focus and agility, allowing us to adapt quickly to any changes in the market or feedback from our audience.

9. Monitoring and adjusting

Once the campaign launches, we will closely monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge the effectiveness of our campaign.

Here are the KPIs that we have set to gauge the health of our solution and demand from the market:

• Website Traffic: We want to have 300 monthly unique visitors, with a 15% conversion rate to the demo page.
• LinkedIn Engagement: Our content efforts lead to over 100 new organic followers, with a 5% engagement rate on posts.
• Cold Outreach Response: We want to achieve a 25% positive response rate from targeted connection requests, driving significant engagement.

Based on response and results we achieve, we can make adjustments to our messaging and outreach strategies, iterating on what worked and refining our approach where needed.

As we continue to develop and promote FinQuiz, our focus will be on expanding our reach, refining our product based on user feedback, and exploring new channels to engage with our target audience.

The journey of crafting and executing the GTM strategy for a Fintech startup is a dynamic and challenging process. By understanding the market and your position within, your ICP, what your messaging will be, and by strategically selecting GTM motions you will be in a good place to bring your product to market effectively. This case study serves as a roadmap for fintech startups looking to develop and execute their own GTM strategies.

If you’re interested in learning more about FinQuiz or have any questions from lessons we learned after helping more than 100 startups Go to market, feel free to reach out via our Contact Us page.