Rethinking GTM: From Social Ads to Real-World Triggers
In this season of Build Mode, the focus is on go-to-market strategies that move beyond the usual playbook. Luna co-founder Jas Schembri-Stothart and Untapped Solutions, featured in a candid session with Startup Battlefield editor Isabelle Johannessen, share a case study in bold experimentation. Instead of pouring resources into social ads, they leaned into real-world triggers that align with their core mission: meet customers where they actually live, work, and learn. The result is a GTM playbook that reads more like a field guide than a marketing plan.
Taylor Swift Concerts: Capturing Attention Through Experience
The Luna team spotted an opportunity at mass-appeal live events—venues where people are already immersed in a shared experience. Rather than competing for attention in a noisy social feed, they pursued partnerships that created value within the moment. This meant designing lightweight, on-site activations that could be understood in seconds, integrated with the concert-going experience, and tied back to the product in a natural way. The lesson: when your audience is concentrated in one place for a finite window, a well-timed, high-value interaction can outperform weeks of social spend.
Why this approach works
Live events offer authenticity that is hard to replicate online. Fans are already primed to feel emotionally engaged, which lowers the friction of introducing a new product. The Luna approach prioritized clarity over cleverness: a simple value proposition, quick demos, and immediate relevance to the attendee’s life. This is not about popping banners—it’s about creating a memorable, shareable moment that travels beyond the venue through word of mouth and earned coverage.
Prison Tablets: A Social Impact GTM Play
Untapped Solutions added a different dimension to the GTM story: deploying technology in correctional facilities to address practical needs—education, communication, and rehabilitation. This is not a typical consumer funnel; it’s a B2B2C model with social impact at its core. Rather than fighting for clicks, the team built credibility through pilot programs, regulatory diligence, and partnerships with facility administrators and education providers. The payoff came from measurable outcomes—improved literacy rates, better inmate outcomes, and a stakeholder ecosystem that could scale with demonstrated success.
Key takeaways for ambitious startups
- Lead with context, not hype. Demonstrate real-world value in the environments where users live and work.
- Prioritize partnerships that unlock access and credibility, especially in regulated or high-friction spaces.
- Measure outcomes that matter to stakeholders beyond the top-of-funnel metrics.
- Use live events to accelerate discovery: pre-qualify, pilot, and then expand with a clear ROI story.
Lessons Across the GTM Spectrum
The common thread across these unconventional GTM moves is a willingness to experiment with high-leverage touchpoints outside traditional ads. It’s about aligning the product’s value with the user’s immediate context and building trust through tangible results. The Luna and Untapped Solutions case studies illustrate that the most lucrative growth engines can be found where people are already gathered, and where the product’s benefits are undeniable in daily life.
Looking Ahead: A Practical Framework for Founders
For founders reading this piece, the takeaway is practical: identify one or two non-traditional channels where your target audience consumes or makes decisions, then design a minimal, high-value experiment to test. If it doesn’t scale or deliver clear outcomes, pivot quickly. If it does, reinvest with discipline, always tracking outcomes that stakeholders care about. The endgame is a GTM strategy that feels less like a sprint and more like a strategic partnership with the customer’s real-world world.
