HANDS-ON
The webinars
Live and tactical. One problem per session, worked through properly, and you bring your own questions.
First session coming soon
Somewhere between your first customer and your hundredth, it gets messy.
I'm Mariam. I want good technology to actually reach the people it was built for. I help founders find their first customers and build the channels that keep bringing more, and I talk about how it's actually done in The Mess in the Middle.
THE MESS IN THE MIDDLE
The bit nobody posts about.
Between first revenue and a motion that repeats, founding GTM gets messy. This is where we talk about it honestly: what people are actually doing, what isn't working, and how they got through.
DEEP DIVES
The podcast
Longer conversations about strategy and the decisions behind it. It starts with five conversations from the archive.
First episode coming soon
WRITTEN DOWN
The Substack
Where new webinars and episodes are announced first, and where the longer thinking lives.
Latest from the Substack
NOTES FROM THE ROAD, NO. 1
You don’t know your ICP until they buy, and then buy again
Cover photo: Youssef Samuil, Pexels
NOTES FROM THE ROAD
What Grandma at the Christmas market knows about go-to-market
Cover photo: Jannis Christmann, Pexels
Hello, I'm Mariam
I'm an engineer by training, with ten years in go-to-market, mostly in the early stretch before anyone has worked out how the company sells. These days I run Thindo Labs and work as a fractional GTM lead.
I work with founders who have proprietary technology. I ask two questions: who do you want to use this, and what do you want them to accomplish? Then I find the easiest way in and build from there: first customers, then the channels that keep bringing more.
I'm a reader and a people person, which turns out to be most of the job.
What I've done before
Before Thindo Labs, most of my work was taking new technology to new markets. I usually arrived when things were unclear, and I stayed until they worked.
RESEARCH TO STARTUP
Took a research team to €700,000 in funding
Aalto researchers had working AI for monitoring bridges, buildings and wind turbines, and no business around it. As their Pre-business Developer, I worked out whether there was one and led the Research to Business application. Business Finland funded it with €700,000, and the team is now building the company.
UNIVERSITY SPIN-OFF
Got research out of the university and into a company
A literacy game built on university reading research, with the rights held by three institutions in Finland and the UK. I co-led the IP negotiations, launched the company and helped raise its first money. The crowdfunding closed at 224% of target.
PLATFORM TO SAAS
Turned a learning platform into self-serve SaaS
As COO of a Finnish edtech company, I led the move to self-serve SaaS for corporate learning, rebuilding sales and pricing along the way. Revenue grew 2.4x in a year.
NEW MARKETS
Opened Africa for two Finnish edtech companies
I took two Finnish learning companies into Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. That meant partnerships with Facebook's Internet.org and Accenture, a first university customer across Uganda and Zambia, and a teacher-training programme in Kenya with World Vision, backed by Business Finland, Microsoft and Lenovo.
Let's talk.
I'm fully booked with client work at the moment. If you'd like to talk about next year, or about speaking, a webinar or the podcast, get in touch.
Book a call
- mariam@thindolabs.com
- +358 40 801 0285
- Helsinki, Finland