Why GTM Isn’t Optional
Welcome to the Eighty-seventh edition of Unstoppable Founders!
👑 #Unstoppable Female Founder
Claire Novorol is a co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Ada Health, a digital health company founded in 2011.
Claire was working night shifts as a pediatrician in London when she realized something was missing. Despite the medical training, the PhD in Neuroscience from Cambridge, she felt disconnected from the creative side that had always driven her.
"I'd always been really creative at school. I loved doing art projects and technology projects and building things. I missed those aspects when practicing medicine," she explains. That restlessness led her to entrepreneurship events at Cambridge, where she met people spinning businesses out of the university. Within a year, she knew she wouldn't be returning to clinical practice.
Today, Claire is Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of Ada Health, which has raised $189.5 million and serves 13 million users globally. Ada processes over 32 million health assessments, with someone turning to the platform every three seconds for health guidance.
Career & Leadership Highlights
Medical Foundation: Trained as a pediatrician in London before specializing in clinical genetics, with degrees in pathology and medicine from University of Bristol and a PhD in Neuroscience from Cambridge
Entrepreneurial Catalyst: Founded Doctorpreneurs, a non-profit global community connecting doctors interested in healthcare innovation – this became her stepping stone into the startup world and how she met her co-founder
Strategic Fundraising: Led Ada through multiple funding rounds, culminating in a Series B that raised significant capital from strategic investors including major life science companies
Global Impact: Launched Ada in over 160 countries, making the consumer app freely available in multiple languages while building enterprise partnerships with health systems and insurers
Thought Leadership: Regular Forbes contributor, featured in Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech (2018), and active mentor in programs like Oxford's Creative Destruction Lab
Diversity Advocate: Publicly addresses the funding gap for female founders in healthtech, noting that only 1% of UK VC funding goes to all-female founding teams and championing systemic change
Scaling Expertise: Transitioned from a small founding team to leading medical affairs across a global organization, learning to balance medical expertise with product development, regulatory affairs, and business strategy
Network Builder: Emphasizes the power of relationship-building in entrepreneurship, demonstrating how early community building through Doctorpreneurs created the foundation for Ada's success
Claire's approach to leadership centers on hiring people smarter than herself in their respective areas and empowering them to excel. Her advice to aspiring female founders is straightforward and practical, start building your network early, focus on relationships, and have confidence that success is absolutely possible – even if the path isn't always linear.
📣 #TheRant
Why GTM Isn’t Optional
Your Go-To-Market strategy is one of the most important aspects of launching your startup.
It’s how you connect your product with the right people, at the right time, through the right channels, with a message that lands. However, your GTM and wider marketing strategy, only works when it's built on a deep understanding of your customer.
Your entire strategy should be underpinned by your customer and market research. Questions you should aim to answer:
Who is your ICP?
What problem are our customers actively trying to solve?
Where do they hang out, and who do they trust?
What would make them say “Take my money”?
A Simple GTM Playbook
Here’s a high-level GTM framework to get you started::
1. Understand Your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
Conduct interviews with your target customers. Understand the problem they are looking to solve and what their objectives are.
2. Nail Your Positioning + Messaging
What are your unique points of differentiation? What are your USPs?
Identify what the l
3. Choose 1–2 Strategic Channels
Where does your ICP spend time online and offline? Start there.
Test small, learn fast. Avoid the spray-and-pray trap.
4. Build in Feedback Loops
Build in feedback loops, both with your current customers, but also the wider market to ensure you’re constantly iterating on your GTM.
5. Align Internally
Your entire team, engineering, product, sales, marketing, etc. should be crystal clear on who you’re building for and why. Your GTM should include teams from across the wider business, not just marketing.
Like most aspects of building an early stage startup, each is unique and no two GTM plans will look the same. However there is a right way to approach your plan, be customer obsessed, have sharp focus, and a willingness to adapt. If you're in the early stages and not sure where to begin, start with your customer. The rest will follow.
💰#HypeCorner
This is where we cover funding rounds raised by female founders and their teams across Europe. With less than 2% of VC funding going to female led startups, the HypeCorner is simply our way of congratulating and celebrating these founders!
🇳🇱 Linda Zandt-Sloot Co-founder - Head Data Science & Research of Tibo Energy
🇨🇭 Nathalie Stransky von Heilkron Co-founder of Adiposs
🇫🇷 Laura Huguenin Co-founder & CHief Biology Officer of Cosma
🇮🇪 Lucy O'Keeffe Co-founder & CEO of CroíValve
🇳🇱 Karina Peña Co-founder & CEO of FieldFactors
🇬🇧 Ferne McCann Co-founder of Shoorah
🇳🇱 Anne-Marije Zwerver Co-founder & CEO of Groove Quantum
🇬🇧 Murvah Iqbal Co-founder & CEO of HIVED
Huge congratulations to these founders and their teams. Wishing you all continued success!
🎤 Events for founders
🇩🇪 {Berlin} Pearl Wealth Summit hosted by The Evangelistas, Scéal & AUXXO Female Catalyst Fund. Pearl is your shortcut into the world of female-led investing. A transformative one-day summit for women with capital. Secure your spot!
🇬🇧 {London} Sifted Summit is back 8th & 9th of October, bringing together 3,000 founders, startup and scaleup operators and investors to celebrate the resilience of the ecosystem and how its leading players are preparing for the long-haul.
🇫🇷 {Paris} unlockVC (formerly WVCE) is hosting its annual Summit from the 13th - 15th of October. This year unlock vc are bringing 30 exceptional female founders to meet 400+ active female investors - Applications are now open until 1st August!
👑 UNSTOPPABLE FOUNDING MEMBERSHIPS Now available! Inside the Community Hub you’ll gain access to the resources, networks and capital you need to build and scale your business. From helping you secure capital to building traction, everything you need as a female founder, all in one place!
☀️ Have a wonderful weekend! ☀️
Jen
PS- Are you a female founder just getting started and not quite how to structure your go to market, build your brand frameworks or what to expect from the fundraising process? Get in touch!