Faresay
Therapy, matched.

Go-To-Market Strategy (v1)

Confidential Faresay Ltd·25 June 2026

Companion to business-plan.md. The business plan explains why Faresay might work; this document explains how the first 100 → 1,000 → 10,000 paying clients arrive. Beachhead: English-speaking expatriates. CAC/price assumptions tie to financial-model.md. Personas: customer-persona.md. Directional — validate each number with real data. Last updated: [PLACEHOLDER: date]

The test this document must pass: the business plan lets a reader understand Faresay. This document should tell the founder exactly what to do in the first 30 days to get the first customer — in the right order.

Operator note (what this revision fixes): the original plan sequenced the funnel so it could not mathematically close in ~6 months from a brand-new domain (see §4). This version (a) does the funnel math out loud, (b) re-ranks channels around warm distribution instead of cold organic, (c) corrects the cold-start supply number, (d) protects founder bandwidth, (e) adds a first-customer trust mechanic, and (f) rebases Stage 0 to 9–12 months with a sequenced 30-day plan. Legal sequencing lives in cross-border-legal-gate.md; the validation harness in validation-experiment.md.

1. Beachhead customer

English-speaking expatriates, 25–55, living overseas, paying privately, seeking therapy for stress, isolation, relationships, or cultural adjustment.

2. Positioning

"Therapy that understands international life."

3. Acquisition channels (ranked by fit · cost · control)

Re-ranked for cold-start reality. A brand-new domain does not rank, and expat communities ban self-promotion. The first 100 clients have to come from channels that deliver warm distribution to the exact ICP today — that means therapists who arrive with a client book, and a small paid read to prove the page converts. Organic SEO and community presence are investments you start now and harvest later, not your Stage-0 acquisition engine.

Channel Motion Cost Role in first 100
Therapist-led referral Recruit founding therapists who arrive with an existing client book / waitlist + peer network; they bring clients to the platform and refer peers Rev-share (10% founding) PRIMARY — warm distribution to the exact ICP, no domain-aging, no community-ban risk
Small paid search (£10–15/day) Google Ads on the top 3–5 intent terms — used as a fast funnel-validation read, not a scaling lever ~£300–450/mo cap PRIMARY — the cheapest fast read on whether the landing page converts at all
Intent SEO ("English therapist Tokyo", "therapist for expats", "relocation stress") Founder-written corridor/intent pages Founder time Months 6–18 compounding investment — start now, do not count on for Stage 0 (new domains don't rank fast; Tokyo-term volume is low hundreds/mo)
Expat communities (Facebook groups, Reddit r/expats + city subs, Discord) Listening + relationships + admin permission / partnership — not broadcast posting Free Support — most ban self-promo; mine for language/objections, build admin relationships, seek explicit posting permission
Therapist referrals (client-side) Therapists refer clients and therapists Built-in Compounds supply + demand (overlaps row 1)
LinkedIn / partnerships (relocation firms, schools, employers) Warm intros, content swaps Founder time After first 100 — not a Stage-0 founder task (see §5)

Principle (revised): earn the first 100 from warm distribution — founding therapists who bring clients, validated by a small paid read on the funnel. Organic SEO + community are slow-compounding assets you seed now and harvest in months 6–18; they cannot be your proof-of-concept engine. The old rule "paid only after organic proves" is inverted on purpose: at low Tokyo-term search volumes, paid is the cheapest fast way to learn whether the page converts.

4. Funnel math — does the plan actually close? (work backwards from 100)

The single most important section. Before choosing channels, count what 100 paying clients actually requires. Using realistic cold, cash-pay conversion rates:

Stage Conversion Volume needed for 100 paying
Paying client — 100
Consultation → paid 50% ~200 consults
Enquiry → consult 40% ~500 enquiries
Visitor → enquiry ~3% ~16,700 targeted visitors

~16,700 targeted visitors over 6 months ≈ ~90 visitors/day — to a brand-new domain.

5. CAC assumptions & founder bandwidth (tie to financial-model.md)

What the solo founder does NOT do in the first 60 days

Founder bandwidth is the scarcest resource and the original plan spent it on a treadmill. Cut all of this for the first 60 days: - ~~LinkedIn 2–3×/week posting~~ — drop the content treadmill. - ~~Maintaining presence in 3–5 community groups~~ — listen, don't broadcast (see §3). - ~~Partnership / relocation-firm pilots~~ — these are post-100 work.

Do only TWO things, ruthlessly: 1. Talk to clients — respond, consult, convert, onboard. Response time is the product. 2. Keep the 5 founding therapists busy and happy — utilisation is what retains supply.

6. First-customer trust mechanic (you launch with zero reviews)

At launch there are no platform reviews, so trust has to be borrowed from the founder and the therapists. Convert the first ~30 clients on founder + therapist credibility, not platform reviews:

7. First-year growth — the 100 → 1,000 → 10,000 motion

First 100 (Stage 0, ~9–12 months): one legally-cleared corridor, founder-led. Seed 5–6 hand-picked founding therapists who bring their own client book and concentrate all demand onto them → stand up one landing page + the §6 trust mechanic → validate the funnel with a small paid read → harvest therapist-led referrals. Seed SEO/community in the background for later. Gate: hit Stage 0 (100 paying clients, CAC < £100, payback ≤ ~4 sessions, retention > 60% m2) before opening a second corridor. Recruit toward 25 therapists only AS demand arrives (see §8).

First 1,000: replicate the proven playbook across 2–3 more legally-cleared corridors; scale SEO surface area (now that it's begun ranking); turn on the referral flywheel (clients refer clients, therapists refer therapists); scale paid on the terms that converted; first partnership pilots.

First 10,000: multi-corridor brand for "therapy for globally mobile people"; partnerships at scale (relocation/employers/schools); paid scaled only where unit economics hold; referral + data + reputation moats compounding (see business-plan.md §12).

Cold-start supply: seed 5–6, not 25

Seed 5–6 founding therapists and concentrate ALL demand onto them. Over-seeding starves supply: 100 clients ÷ 25 therapists ≈ ~4 bookings each — too thin to retain a therapist, and they churn. Utilisation is what retains supply, so demand must be concentrated. Recruit toward 25 only as demand actually arrives. The Stage-0 "25 verified therapists" line in CONTEXT.md is an exit gate for the stage — pursuing it as an early target is actively harmful because it spreads thin demand across too many under-utilised therapists.

8. Experiments to run

Each experiment carries an explicit numeric target set before it starts, and is judged on leading indicators readable in weeks (cost-per-booked-consult, consult→paid rate) — not on lagging retention used as a channel kill-switch. Full harness: validation-experiment.md.

# Experiment Hypothesis Spend Leading metric (+ target) Run Decide
E1 Therapist-led referral Founding therapists bring an existing book + peers Rev-share Booked consults from therapist book; cost-per-booked-consult < £30 4 wks Recruit more such therapists if hit; re-pick therapists if not
E2 Small paid search (£10–15/day) Paid intent shows the page converts ~£300–450/mo Cost-per-booked-consult < £57; visitor→enquiry ≥ 3% 3–4 wks Page converts → keep reading; doesn't → fix offer/trust/price before more spend
E3 Landing-page conversion The page turns intent into enquiries Founder time Visitor→enquiry ≥ 3%; enquiry→consult ≥ 40% Continuous Fix worst-converting stage first
E4 Trust mechanic (§6) Founder + therapist credibility converts cold clients Founder time Consult→paid ≥ 50% 4 wks Keep mechanics that move consult→paid
E5 SEO/community seeding (background) Compounds for months 6–18 Founder time (low) Pages indexed; admin relationships / posting permission secured Ongoing Judge at month 6+, not in Stage 0
E6 Partnership pilot A warm channel delivers qualified expats Founder time Referred consults Post-100 Defer until after Stage 0

9. Criteria for success / failure

Per channel (kill or scale) — leading indicators, readable in weeks: - Scale a channel when its cost-per-booked-consult clears the bar (< ~£57, ideally < £30) and its consult→paid rate holds (~50%) — both measurable within weeks, before retention data exists. - Kill / pause a channel when cost-per-booked-consult stays > £57–100 after its defined window, or it produces enquiries that don't convert to consults. - Retention (>60% m2) is a client/offer health gate, not a same-month channel kill-switch — it cannot be read in the weeks a channel decision needs.

Stage-0 go/no-go (the master gate): proceed to corridor #2 only when, in corridor #1: 100 paying clients · blended CAC < £100 · payback ≤ ~4 sessions · month-2 retention > 60% · supply matched to demand (toward 25 verified therapists as demand pulls them in). If any miss → fix the funnel before spending to scale, don't paper over it with a second market.

10. The first 30 days — a sequenced plan (not 8 parallel tasks)

The original "Monday morning" list asked a solo founder to run eight things at once. Do them in order instead — each week unblocks the next.

Week 1 — corridor + legal + supply. 1. Pick the legally cleanest corridor and get the cross-border legal answer first (fee-characterisation, who-can-treat-whom) — see cross-border-legal-gate.md. No corridor is real until this clears. 2. Recruit 5 founding therapists who bring their own clients / waitlist. This is the funnel's top, not the page.

Week 2 — one page + trust + instrumentation. 3. Build ONE landing page for the top intent term, with the §2 positioning and a clear booking CTA. 4. Stand up the §6 trust mechanic (founder guarantee, money-back first session, therapist credentials/testimonials/badge/video). 5. Instrument the funnel (Plausible + a simple visitor → enquiry → consult → paid tracker) so every stage is visible.

Week 3 — turn on warm + paid + answer fast. 6. Turn on £10–15/day paid on the top intent terms (the fast funnel read). 7. Turn on therapist referrals — founding therapists invite their existing clients. 8. Founder answers every enquiry in minutes. Response time is the product.

Week 4 — read, fix, gate. 9. Read the funnel. Find the worst-converting stage and fix that one thing. 10. Honest 30-day gate: < 5 paying clients AND < 2% page conversion → stop scaling and fix offer / trust / price first. Do not add channels or spend on top of a funnel that doesn't convert.

11. First marketing plan (operational table — directional)

Channel Budget Goal
Therapist-led referral Rev-share (10% founding) Warm clients from founding therapists' books — the primary top-of-funnel
Paid search £10–15/day (~£300–450/mo, capped) Fast read on page conversion; ~booked consults once it converts
Landing page + trust mechanic Founder time Visitor→enquiry ≥ 3%, consult→paid ≥ 50%
SEO (background) Founder time (low) Seed pages now; harvest organic traffic in months 6–18
Expat communities Free Listen, build admin relationships, earn posting permission — not broadcast

This becomes a full marketing plan (content calendar, ad campaigns, funnels, analytics) once the funnel is proven — that's a later, operational document, not this one.

12. Linked documents