Vanta · Go-to-market · Senior · 45 to 60 minutes

What should Vanta sell first?

Vanta provides software that helps companies automate security and compliance work, including evidence collection for standards like SOC 2. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Customer discovery
GTM strategy
Product strategy
Experiment design
Executive communication

The situation

You are advising Christina Cacioppo as she searches for Vanta's first real go-to-market wedge. After several failed product ideas, the team stopped building and started interviewing startup founders, engineering leaders, security leads, and sales teams. A pattern is emerging: many startups know security matters, but they rarely prioritize it until a large customer or prospect asks for proof. Some companies struggle with long security questionnaires, some struggle to explain their controls clearly, and some may need a recognized compliance certification to unlock enterprise deals. The opportunity feels real, but the path is not. Auditors and consultants say this work is too custom to standardize, while jumping straight into software risks repeating the team's earlier mistake of building before truly understanding demand. Christina wants a recommendation on what Vanta should sell first, who it should sell to, and how to validate that the work can become a scalable software business instead of a small consulting shop. Assume the team is 3 people with 12 months of runway, no brand, and no existing product.

What to produce

A 2 page go-to-market memo, maximum 900 words.

Your answer must

Name the initial target customer segment and the urgent problem Vanta should solve first.
Recommend the first offer Vanta should take to market, and explain why it is the best wedge versus at least one credible alternative.
Lay out a 90 day validation plan with specific experiments, customer acquisition tactics, and clear success or failure thresholds.
Explain how the proposed offer could evolve into a scalable software business, including what must be true for standardization to work.
Identify the top risks, second-order effects, and decision triggers that would cause you to double down, narrow the scope, or change direction.

Constraints

The team cannot spend months building a polished product before testing demand.
Vanta has no established brand, marketing engine, or large sales force.
The first approach must be credible to security-conscious buyers.
The plan should avoid locking the company into highly bespoke work with no path to product leverage.

Format

Use clear headings, lead with your recommendation, and include a small table for experiments with metric and stop or go threshold.

How Vanta actually played it

Founder describes starting as SOC 2 consultants, validating demand before software, and signing early customers without a polished website. A model of service-first validation.

Do the work by hand before you build the product
Creating a category can be driven by one repeated customer request

Built from Vanta's Path to Product-Market Fit: Solve the Customer's Problem, Then Write Code by First Round Review.