5 Counter-Intuitive Go-to-Market Lessons from Violet’s Four-Year Journey to Product-Market Fit

The conventional startup playbook says you should raise early and define your category quickly. But in a recent Category Visionaries episode, Violet’s journey reveals a different path: one where staying in stealth for four years while perfecting product-market fit proved more valuable than chasing early funding or forcing category definition.

Here are the key go-to-market lessons from their experience:

1. Don’t Let Fundraising Dictate Your Go-to-Market Timeline

The most surprising advice from Brandon Schulz? Don’t raise money too early. “First thing I would say is, do not spend any time trying to raise money,” he shares. “That was one of my biggest early mistakes. Our time spent on investment was driven by investor interest as opposed to a rigorous approach to how and when we will raise money.”

Instead of chasing investment validation, Brandon advocates focusing intensely on product development and customer understanding. When Violet finally found their product-market fit, fundraising happened almost overnight: “We raised a seed round 60 days later. And then we raised a series A 90 days after that.”

2. Reject Category Creation When It Doesn’t Serve You

While many startups rush to define their category, Violet took the opposite approach. “Today, a lot of that market positioning and hype has been counterproductive,” Brandon explains. “A lot of companies over-promising, miss-promising, and that’s been detrimental across the board.”

Rather than forcing a category definition, they focused on solving real problems. This led to stronger customer relationships, especially with companies who had been burned by overpromising vendors.

3. Let Your Visual Story Do the Heavy Lifting

When it came to explaining their complex product, Violet discovered that visuals trumped words. Brandon shares, “We actually started with the images first, and I said, how do we land what it is that we do in two or three screens? What would that look like?”

This visual-first approach helped them overcome the challenge of explaining a product that didn’t fit neatly into existing categories.

4. Measure Sales Conversations Differently

Instead of tracking traditional sales metrics, Violet focused on a unique indicator: the ratio between selling and implementation discussion. Brandon notes, “We try to track how much time are we spending on the sales call trying to sell the product versus trying to explain how they use it…we’re at like six minutes of quote unquote sales discussion and then it turned into like, okay, so hang on. So what does my developer have to do?”

This shift in conversation indicated they had achieved product-market fit.

5. Focus on Architecture Over Marketing

Rather than getting caught up in marketing positioning, Violet concentrated on solving fundamental technical challenges. “Core to the problem that we’re solving is an architecture question,” Brandon explains. “What should the architecture of this next phase of ecommerce look like?”

This focus on building robust infrastructure proved more valuable than crafting perfect marketing messages.

For B2B founders, especially those building infrastructure products, Violet’s journey offers a refreshing counterpoint to conventional wisdom. Their success came not from following the standard playbook of early fundraising and category creation, but from staying focused on solving real problems and communicating about them clearly.

As Brandon puts it, sometimes the best strategy is simply to “call the thing what it is.” In a world of marketing hype and category confusion, clarity and substance can become powerful differentiators.