Coming soon • January 20, 2027
The Revenue Engine
A go-to-market guide for startup founders who need a revenue engine, not another sales pep talk. From founder-led sales to a GTM you can scale. Ten steps. Four motions.
By Emmanuelle Skala, Adam Blake, Max Faingezicht
“Founders often assume that once they find product-market fit, growth will follow. This book makes the critical next step clear: companies also need Go-To-Market Fit. The Revenue Engine gives founders a practical, disciplined framework for turning early traction into a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth engine.”
Jessica Gilmartin, former CMO and CRO, Calendly
“As a VC operating partner, I saw the same pattern over and over: founders built an excellent product and then struggled to turn it into an excellent business. Now that AI has lowered the barrier to building products, distribution is an even bigger bottleneck than before. This book is the first-principles guide that any founder needs to crack go-to-market and design a GTM engine that’s repeatable, efficient, and profitable.”
Kyle Poyar, Founder, Growth Unhinged
“After working with thousands of founders, I’ve seen that the best ones treat go-to-market as a process of learning, not a playbook to copy. The Revenue Engine gives founders a disciplined way to experiment, learn what works, and turn those insights into a go-to-market system capable of supporting a large, meaningful company.”
David Cohen, Co-Founder, Techstars
“Early sales aren’t just about revenue. They’re how founders learn what customers really need. This book captures that mindset with practical advice that can help every startup build on a stronger foundation.”
Steve Fredette, President and Co-Founder, Toast
Why this book
Finding Go-To-Market Fit Is as Important as Finding Product-Market Fit
Founders still treat it as an afterthought. Products do not sell themselves. Failure to sell is the number one reason companies do not make it. Rdio and Spotify shipped the same kind of product at the same time. One is a household name. One went bankrupt. The difference was GTM.
The Disciplined Entrepreneurship 24 Steps get you to product-market fit. This book is the guide to what DE calls the revenue engine: can you reach that market in a way that is repeatable, scalable, and economically sound?
What’s inside
A Program, Not a List of Tips
This is not a sales pep talk. It is a 10-step program for going from founder-led traction to $1M, $10M, and $100M in repeatable annual sales. Built from the Entrepreneurial Sales class at MIT Sloan, taught since 2021, and from work with founders at companies including Bevi, DigitalOcean, Toast, and Gong.
Four Motions
You will choose among four motions, then master one before layering others: Product Led, Human Led, Partner Led, and Marketing Led. Then the same three stages in every motion: generate a lead, close a customer, retain and grow.
Ten Steps
- Founder-Led Sales
- Embrace GTM Experimentation
- Understand Your GTM Motion Options
- Pick Your GTM Motion
- Generate Leads
- Turn Leads into Paying Customers
- Retain and Grow Your Customers
- Hire Your First GTM Team
- Plan Your Tech Stack
- Optimize and Scale through Metrics
Who It Is For
You Have Product-Market Fit.
You Do Not Yet Have a GTM You Trust.
This book is for you if you want to go from early founder-led sales traction to a scalable GTM. It assumes Disciplined Entrepreneurship. ICP here is the same job as DE’s End User Profile, refined through founder-led sales.
- For startup founders: You have already endured the iterations to find product-market fit. You know the customer. You can nail the pitch when you get in front of the right person.
- Also for the first GTM hire: instructors teaching entrepreneurial sales, accelerators, and investors who want a founder to show a GTM rather than a slide.
- Not for someone still hunting for an idea or a beachhead: That is the 24 Steps. This book starts after that.
Pre-order now
Where to Buy the Book
The Revenue Engine comes out on January 20, 2027, from Wiley. Pre-order it now and your copy ships on publication day.
Interested in a bulk order? Contact us about volume orders, institutional purchases, and teaching materials.
The authors
Written by the Team That Teaches It at MIT Sloan
Emmanuelle Skala, Adam Blake, and Max Faingezicht wrote the book they kept wishing existed in the room. They created and co-teach Entrepreneurial Sales (15.387) at MIT Sloan. This is the book version of that class.
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