7 Go-to-Market Lessons from Scaling Box, Culture Amp, and Gated

7 Go-to-Market Lessons from Scaling Box, Culture Amp, and Gated

Sometimes the hardest part of building a company isn’t finding product-market fit – it’s knowing when to evolve beyond it. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Andy Mowat shared insights from scaling go-to-market motions at Box, Culture Amp, and now Gated, where he made the bold decision to pivot despite having thousands of users and filtering 10 million messages monthly.

Here are the key go-to-market lessons from his journey:

1. Integrate Your Go-to-Market Functions Siloed departments create stunted growth. At Culture Amp, Andy took an unconventional approach: “Give me all marketing systems and operations, all sales and all post sale and then all the data and infrastructure to be able to do it.” This integrated approach helped scale the company from $4 million to $80 million in revenue in four years.
2. Don’t Bolt On Demand Generation Many founders try to accelerate growth by throwing money at demand generation. Andy takes a different approach: “People call me and say… I need to hire somebody that can generate demand right now. And I tend to take a step back and say, well, explain to me what your business is uniquely good at and let’s think of how you can have a unique approach to demand gen versus just going out and buying a bunch of SEM ads.”
3. Scale Teams Thoughtfully Even with strong initial traction, resist the urge to rapidly expand headcount. Andy reflects: “We didn’t build a huge team, but we added maybe one or two extra people that I would have held back on.” He advises founders to clearly distinguish between acceleration and hockey stick growth before scaling teams.
4. Build for Mission, Not Just Mechanics Product features alone don’t drive sustainable growth. Andy emphasizes connecting with users at a deeper level: “What I said very early to my Co-Founder was not everyone will use the tool, but I want everybody to believe in the mission of what we’re trying to do.” This mission-driven approach has helped Gated build strong advocacy and attract prominent advisors.
5. Practice Intellectual Honesty When evaluating growth strategies, be brutally honest about what’s working. “You have to have intellectual honesty,” Andy states. “I want to know that the team is not just going to run out the same playbook because that’s what they took the money for in the first place.” This principle led Gated to pivot despite strong user satisfaction because they realized “it would be a smaller business that wouldn’t drive the impact.”
6. Think in Systems and Processes Success comes from building repeatable systems rather than one-off tactics. Andy’s systematic thinking helped Culture Amp achieve rapid growth: “I guess it’s my systems in the process… We took it from 4 million, 80 million in revenue in four years.” This systems approach helps create sustainable growth engines rather than temporary spikes.
7. Let Categories Emerge Organically Don’t force category creation too early. “I don’t over index on category definition too early,” Andy explains. “I think people need to understand it, understand the pain it can solve and then you find those categories.” This patient approach allows market positioning to emerge naturally from solving real user problems.

These lessons underscore a crucial truth about building B2B companies: sustainable growth comes from understanding what makes your business unique and building go-to-market strategies that amplify those strengths. Whether you’re scaling from $4M to $80M like Culture Amp or pivoting to pursue greater impact like Gated, success depends on having the courage to evolve beyond initial success while staying true to your core mission.