Build your revenue engine with $200K and GTM guidance from the Stage 2 Capital Catalyst.
Join 15 companies in an 11-week hands-on, tactical go-to-market training program led by Stage 2 Capital’s team and Catalyst Limited Partners
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Hear from participants, coaches, and mentors
As a first-time CEO, the Catalyst helped me determine where our business is in its journey. It showed us what we need to do to get to "go-to-market fit" stage, and how we'll know when we're there. It also formed my opinion about how we need to capitalize our company — where we need to hire, how we know when we're ready to hire, what it looks like to bring that role on, and who that hire may be.
Catalyst was a fantastic program for anyone interested in GTM acceleration for their start-up! Expert speakers, practical and actionable frameworks, and an army of senior GTM mentors at your disposal are just a few of the program's benefits. This is "Grad School" for start-ups looking to scale.
As an executive search consultant there is no bigger thrill than advising early-stage companies as they begin to build their first go-to-market teams. Advising founders on selecting revenue leaders that are the right stage-fit, culture-fit, and function-fit for their start-ups is an opportunity and responsibility that I am grateful to have.
Every week offers a new topic to learn, and I loved that each session went in order of building a GTM motion. Every [participant] was the exact same stage, and really struggling with the same things. Plus, the overall network of Catalyst coaches, mentors and guest speakers was just amazing.
Leaving the startup ecosystem better than when I came into it is a big deal to me. Being part of the Stage 2 LP family while getting to be part of the Catalyst as a Coach/Mentor is a dream come true with a chance to make a difference for these incredible startups.
As a founder, you're almost like a high-performance athlete. You're firing on all cylinders, and you are heads down putting in a ton of work. The mentorship we received during the Catalyst was like getting tips from an amazing coaching team who had won many championships. The improvements we saw were 10X because we were learning from leaders that had solved problems like ours, and coached similar companies, many times over.
As a coach, I enjoyed engaging with participating companies, hearing them pitch, challenging their thinking, providing feedback, and then seeing how their narrative evolved and how they took action based on the Catalyst sessions.
The Catalyst was a great learning experience for us, and I think it would be for any founders. My co-founder and I are second-time founders with a successful exit and considerable GTM experience, and we still received tons of value out of the content and the from the coaches, mentors, and Stage 2 Capital team.
Becoming a Stage 2 Capital Catalyst LP was a no brainer. It's given me a chance to be a hands-on mentor to early-stage companies, help them with tactical recommendations, and see them hit milestone after milestone. It's also given me a network that helps me fine-tune what I'm building with my professional consultancy, and just think through top problems like tools, hiring, new markets, etc.
Stage 2 quickly became one of the most valuable investors on our cap table. I would highly recommend the Catalyst program for all early-stage founders.
Catalyst provided a unique opportunity to learn from the world's best startup and go-to-market minds. Absolutely would recommend this program for early stage startups, and especially for the founders who are more technically minded.
The zero to one journey is the most difficult part of building a startup. And for technical founders, understanding the science behind selling and GTM isn't easy. The catalyst GTM accelerator has helped us build the right GTM foundation and navigate the zero to one journey with confidence!
The catalyst program was a great experience for us to go through as a founder team and company. Outside of the incredible progress we made internally as a company on our GTM motions, we really loved getting to join the incredible stage 2 community of founders and mentors. We're happy to count many of those we met among our advisors and friends!
Coming into the Catalyst program, we had the fundamental building blocks of a rocket ship. What the Catalyst program did was teach us how to take those blocks and assemble the growth engine. The "science of scaling" methodology that Mark and the Catalyst team teach demystified a process that otherwise might've taken us many more months of trial and error to uncover.
Topics you’ll master
Generating Demand
Discover how to establish lead flow with cold calling, content, PLG and other channels
Hiring the Right Team
Receive advice on who, and when, to hire for all go-to-market functions
Building Repeatable Playbooks
Learn how to create and implement your first go-to-market strategy
Creating Pricing + Compensation Models
Develop plans tailored to your business, while seeing how to evolve both as your product matures
Establishing a Moat
Determine how to leverage these learnings for long-term success
Calculating When to Scale
Dive into the Science of Scaling framework, a scientific, data-driven approach to uncovering when and how fast to scale revenue
Hear more about the details of the Catalyst, a separate fund and program within Stage 2 Capital
Catalyst Curriculum Overview
The Science of Scaling Framework
& Defining and Instrumenting Product-Market Fit
As the introductory course of the Stage 2 Capital Catalyst, we dive into our core methodology, the Science of Scaling, which was developed by our Co-Founder and former HubSpot CRO, Mark Roberge.
Learning objectives include determining the optimal timing and pace of scaling revenue using your organization’s data, aligning the GTM system design with the scaling phase, defining Product-Market-Fit (PMF) for your organization, and defining the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) for your organization.
Session
Instructor(s)
Defining and Instrumenting Go-To-Market Fit
Once Product-Market-Fit (PMF) is achieved, it’s time to start thinking about how to build your Go-To-Market strategy. This course uncovers how to determine scalable unit economics, why unit economics matter, four ways of measuring unit economics, and how to set up the basics of a bottoms up model.
Developing the first Go-To-Market Playbook
A comprehensive playbook is critical to go-to-market success. This course is all about the buyer journey - how to define it, how to build go-to-market playbooks to support it, and how to customize your process and CRM to track it
Session
Instructor(s)
Hiring Your First Go-To-Market Team
Week 4 of the Stage 2 Capital Catalyst covers the ins and outs of making your first go-to-market hires, including how to define the job(s) to be done, developing a scorecard, and the importance of committing to an interview process.
Session
Instructor(s)
Break Week
Developing Your First Sales Compensation Plan
Discover how to design effective sales comp plans and implement variable comp best practices across GTM teams.
Session
Instructor(s)
Developing Your First Demand Generation Channel: Content & Paid
Learn how to create a demand generation strategy that aligns with your buyers, ensuring your efforts resonate and drive results. Develop an SEO content calendar to systematically boost your visibility and engagement.
Session
Instructor(s)
Developing Your First Demand Gen Channel: Outbound, ABM, and ABS
While inbound demand generation targets your ideal customer profile (ICP) universe, outbound demand generation and account-based marketing (ABM) target buyers in core accounts within your ICP. This session illustrates how to define decision makers, how to customize their buyer journey, and ultimately deliver the right content to the right person at the right time.
Session
Instructor(s)
Developing the First Demand Generation Channel: PLG
Product-led-growth (PLG) is a go-to-market motion where the buyer experiences value from the product before paying for it. This session highlights when it is appropriate for a business to generate demand with a PLG play, along with the best practices for implementing and executing PLG.
Session
Instructor(s)
Developing Your First Pricing and Packaging Model
When scaling a business, pricing and compensation are two of your most critical levers to influence go-to-market execution. This session covers the different lenses of pricing, main ways to package and bundle, principles of sales compensation design, and multiple examples of compensation plans.
Session
Instructor(s)
Determining When and How Fast to Scale GTM - Growth and MOAT
Imagine 5 “rockstar” engineers in Silicon Valley raise a round of capital from a leading VC firm, copy your entire product, and sell it to your market for half your price. This session answers how you can combat a scenario like this and ensure new buyers will consistently choose you over the competition.
Session
Instructor(s)
Demo Day
The Catalyst Boardroom is the capstone event of the 12-week curriculum and offers an opportunity for companies to share both the progress they made during the program and their go-to-market execution plan for the next 6-12 months. The Boardroom is part growth plan feedback session, part demo day.
At the Boardroom, invite-only partner VCs gain exclusive access to the graduating cohort of companies. Partner VCs from firms like Andreessen, Battery, First Round, Greycroft, Bain Ventures, and Bessemer will join the Stage 2 Capital team and Catalyst coaches to hear from and directly engage with companies during a 15-min session, with a focus on understanding and evaluating the company’s go-forward plan as part of investment diligence.
-
The Science of Scaling Framework
& Defining and Instrumenting Product-Market FitAs the introductory course of the Stage 2 Capital Catalyst, we dive into our core methodology, the Science of Scaling, which was developed by our Co-Founder and former HubSpot CRO, Mark Roberge.
Learning objectives include determining the optimal timing and pace of scaling revenue using your organization’s data, aligning the GTM system design with the scaling phase, defining Product-Market-Fit (PMF) for your organization, and defining the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) for your organization.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Defining and Instrumenting Go-To-Market Fit
Once Product-Market-Fit (PMF) is achieved, it’s time to start thinking about how to build your Go-To-Market strategy. This course uncovers how to determine scalable unit economics, why unit economics matter, four ways of measuring unit economics, and how to set up the basics of a bottoms up model.
-
Developing the first Go-To-Market Playbook
A comprehensive playbook is critical to go-to-market success. This course is all about the buyer journey - how to define it, how to build go-to-market playbooks to support it, and how to customize your process and CRM to track it
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Hiring Your First Go-To-Market Team
Week 4 of the Stage 2 Capital Catalyst covers the ins and outs of making your first go-to-market hires, including how to define the job(s) to be done, developing a scorecard, and the importance of committing to an interview process.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Break Week
-
Developing Your First Sales Compensation Plan
Discover how to design effective sales comp plans and implement variable comp best practices across GTM teams.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Developing Your First Demand Generation Channel: Content & Paid
Learn how to create a demand generation strategy that aligns with your buyers, ensuring your efforts resonate and drive results. Develop an SEO content calendar to systematically boost your visibility and engagement.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Developing Your First Demand Gen Channel: Outbound, ABM, and ABS
While inbound demand generation targets your ideal customer profile (ICP) universe, outbound demand generation and account-based marketing (ABM) target buyers in core accounts within your ICP. This session illustrates how to define decision makers, how to customize their buyer journey, and ultimately deliver the right content to the right person at the right time.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Developing the First Demand Generation Channel: PLG
Product-led-growth (PLG) is a go-to-market motion where the buyer experiences value from the product before paying for it. This session highlights when it is appropriate for a business to generate demand with a PLG play, along with the best practices for implementing and executing PLG.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Developing Your First Pricing and Packaging Model
When scaling a business, pricing and compensation are two of your most critical levers to influence go-to-market execution. This session covers the different lenses of pricing, main ways to package and bundle, principles of sales compensation design, and multiple examples of compensation plans.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Determining When and How Fast to Scale GTM - Growth and MOAT
Imagine 5 “rockstar” engineers in Silicon Valley raise a round of capital from a leading VC firm, copy your entire product, and sell it to your market for half your price. This session answers how you can combat a scenario like this and ensure new buyers will consistently choose you over the competition.
Session
Instructor(s)
-
Demo Day
The Catalyst Boardroom is the capstone event of the 12-week curriculum and offers an opportunity for companies to share both the progress they made during the program and their go-to-market execution plan for the next 6-12 months. The Boardroom is part growth plan feedback session, part demo day.
At the Boardroom, invite-only partner VCs gain exclusive access to the graduating cohort of companies. Partner VCs from firms like Andreessen, Battery, First Round, Greycroft, Bain Ventures, and Bessemer will join the Stage 2 Capital team and Catalyst coaches to hear from and directly engage with companies during a 15-min session, with a focus on understanding and evaluating the company’s go-forward plan as part of investment diligence.
Go-to-market expertise from companies like
Some of the mentors you'll work with
Some of the senior execs you’ll learn from at Catalyst Fireside Chats
“The Stage 2 Capital Catalyst exposed Lively to a world of information about scaling a start up. During the program, we realized we didn’t have the product-market fit that we needed to scale, but Stage 2 Capital gave us the tools to fix that. The strategies we learned directly informed the next series of hires and decisions we made, as we confidently experimented with our product and sales playbook until we started to get the traction we were looking for. Now we have a robust sales pipeline, setting us on a path to scale.”
Apply for the next Stage 2 Capital Catalyst!
Applications for the 2024 Catalyst cohort are now closed. If you're interested in joining, please sign up for the waitlist and we'll notify you when applications open. In particular, we love companies that have:
- A product built and in market
- A focus on go-to-market and scaling
- Customer traction data
- $100K+ in ARR and/or strong product-led user growth