Free Resource · Helen Forsyth, Fractional CCO
Is Your Startup
Commercially Ready?
A 10-point checklist to assess the strength of your commercial foundations before you scale. It takes five minutes and can save you months.
When a startup stalls commercially, the product is rarely the problem. What is usually missing is the commercial architecture that sells it. Tick only the statements that are true of your business today, rather than the ones you are working towards.
The checklist
Tick each statement that is currently true for your business
We have a clearly defined Ideal Customer Profile
More than a general target market: a specific description of the buyer, their role, their organisation type, the problem they have, and why they would pay to solve it now.
We can articulate our value proposition in two sentences
In the language our buyer uses, without internal terms or technical jargon. If you can’t say it clearly in two sentences, your buyer can’t explain it to their board either.
We have a repeatable outreach process that doesn’t depend on the founder
If all pipeline generation requires the CEO to make the call, what you have is a personality-dependent sales effort, and it won’t scale.
We can describe our sales process from first contact to signed contract
Every stage is defined, every team member follows the same process, and there are clear criteria for moving a prospect from one stage to the next.
We know our conversion rate at each stage of the pipeline
If you can’t tell an investor exactly what percentage of qualified leads become paying customers, you can’t forecast revenue or make rational decisions about where to invest in the funnel.
Our marketing activities are directly linked to specific sales outcomes
Every piece of marketing has a defined purpose in the pipeline and a measurable OKR. Marketing and sales work to the same goals rather than in separate silos.
We have a clear GTM strategy for at least one validated market segment
Validated means tested: a segment you have outreached into, received signals from, and made deliberate commercial decisions based on what you learned.
Our commercial narrative is consistent across all investor and customer conversations
The story you tell a customer is aligned with the story you tell an investor. The problem, the solution, the evidence, and the opportunity are described the same way by every member of the team.
We have a CRM in use with clean data and consistent pipeline reporting
A system rather than a spreadsheet, one that everyone uses, that reflects reality, and that produces pipeline reports you’d be comfortable showing to your investors.
The commercial function is not dependent on any single individual to operate
That includes you. If the pipeline would stall because one person was unavailable for two weeks, the commercial function still depends on that person.
Your score
0–4: Build before you scale
Your commercial foundations need building from the ground up, and scaling now would scale the gaps with them. A fractional CCO can build those foundations systematically before you burn through more of your runway on outreach that won’t convert.
5–7: Strong foundations, significant gaps
You have some of the infrastructure in place, but the gaps are likely costing you. A fractional CCO would focus on identifying which gaps are causing the most commercial drag and closing them in order of impact.
8–10: Solid foundations, so look at pace
You have strong commercial foundations. The question is whether you have the senior commercial capacity to accelerate from here. If the answer is no, a fractional CCO adds speed rather than structure.
Take your results with you
Your answers, scored and written up
Everything above is scored in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, to me or to anyone else, unless you choose to send it below.
Email my results to me opens a draft in your own email app with your score and answers already written up. Add your address and send. It goes from your account, so I never see it and none of your data reaches this website.
Want me to look at your score?
This is optional, and you don’t need it to use the checklist. Send me your results and I will read them and write back to you personally with what I would prioritise first.
Talk through your results
It starts with a free 30-minute intro call. If it looks like a fit, I follow that with a free working session on one live problem, without any commitment or proposal. If I can’t help, I’ll tell you.
Email Helen