I Was Building Businesses Long Before I Knew What GTM Meant

When I was 20, I started manufacturing beehives and selling them at local fairs.

I didn't know anything about go-to-market (GTM) strategies, B2B sales, ideal customer profiles (ICP), or market research. I simply grabbed a few product samples, went to local exhibitions, and started talking to potential customers.

I had no sales strategy, no CRM, and no structured customer acquisition process. I was just trying to figure out how to build something people would actually buy.

Looking back, I was already learning some of the most important lessons about building a business.

Learning from the market, one customer at a time

In northern Serbia, where I grew up, there were few local beehive manufacturers. Many beekeepers had to order products from suppliers in the southern part of the country, and some had experienced problems with unreliable deliveries and customer service.

I saw an opportunity.

I started attending beekeeping exhibitions, visiting experienced beekeepers, and asking questions about their biggest problems.

One thing became clear: timing was critical.

Beekeepers needed their hives before the season started, not a few weeks later.

At every exhibition, I listened carefully to what people said about my products, especially the negative comments. I wrote everything down, returned to the workshop, and tried to improve the products based on their feedback.

Sometimes that meant changing the design. Sometimes we needed new tools, better manufacturing processes, or different materials.

It was rarely easy, but slowly, we started gaining customers.

A lesson I learned the hard way

I still remember one particular customer order.

One of my important customers ordered 30 beehives for a prominent priest in the capital. The hives were intended as a gift or donation.

But we failed to deliver them on time.

The priest called my customer, who then called me, absolutely furious.

He told me that if I didn't deliver the beehives by the next day, he would report me for trying to deceive him.

I was under enormous pressure.

I gathered my team and told them we had to finish the order that afternoon, no matter what. I promised the customer that I would personally deliver all 30 beehives the following day.

And that's exactly what I did.

I also sent my customer an extra beehive without saying a word about it.

Thank God, everyone was satisfied in the end.

But I still remember how anxious and exhausted I felt afterward.

That experience taught me something I couldn't have learned from a business textbook.

Making a promise is easy. Keeping it is expensive.

Trust is the foundation of a business

Running a manufacturing business means constantly balancing production capacity, supplier relationships, cash flow, and customer expectations.

Sometimes we made mistakes. We underestimated costs, struggled with production, or failed to deliver exactly what we had promised.

When that happened, I tried to negotiate honestly, offer compensation, or find another solution.

I learned that customers don't necessarily expect you to be perfect. But they do expect you to take responsibility.

Every time we kept our promises, we earned more trust.

Eventually, at Domini Stolarija, we served more than 500 individual customers and around 50 business customers.

Looking back, manufacturing was never just about making products.

It was a cash flow game, a timing game, and, most importantly, a relationship business.

And losing a customer's trust can be much more expensive than acquiring a new customer.

Why I see the same mistakes in technology startups today

Almost two decades later, I recognize many of the same challenges while working with technology startups and engineering-led founding teams.

The technology has changed, but the business fundamentals haven't.

I often see talented engineers spending months developing new features without enough direct contact with potential customers.

They focus on building a better product before finding out whether the market actually needs it.

Sometimes, even when there's a sales-focused co-founder, customer discovery and market validation start too late.

Before developing more features, founders need to understand a few fundamental questions:

• Who is the ideal customer?

• What real problem are we solving?

• How are customers solving that problem today?

• Are they willing to pay for a better solution?

• What evidence do we have that the market actually needs our product?

These questions are the foundation of customer discovery, early market validation, and a successful go-to-market strategy.

I sometimes feel that, especially in the Hungarian startup ecosystem, we don't spend enough time talking to real customers.

Instead, founders often validate their ideas with friends, family members, or people who want to encourage them.

But positive feedback is not the same as market validation.

A customer who tells you your product is interesting is very different from a customer who is willing to pay for it.

And once someone pays, the next challenge begins: delivering what you promised.

My biggest lesson for founders

If you want to build something useful and turn it into a real business, get outside and talk to potential customers as early as possible.

Don't wait until your product is perfect.

Ask questions. Challenge your assumptions. Listen carefully to negative feedback. And use what you learn to improve your product.

You will save time, avoid unnecessary development, and understand your market much better.

I didn't know what GTM, customer discovery, or product-market fit meant when I started manufacturing beehives.

But I was already learning the lessons behind those concepts.

And almost twenty years later, I still believe two things:

Listen to your customers before you build. And once you make a promise, do everything you can to keep it.