This no-cost session is being hosted as part of Forward Fest 2026! To register, you will need to sign up for a FREE Forward Festival pass, and then add the session to your schedule! All SBDC-hosted sessions are included with this pass option; other events may charge to attend.
Session Description
Have you reviewed your business from your customers’ point of view? Do you know your products or services inside and out, but do not have formal sales experience? Are you new to finding customers, but passionate about connecting your product or service with your customers?
Practical Tools for Kickstarting your Go-To-Market (GTM) is a founder-focused guide to building and testing sales and marketing motions. Led by Joshua Steinberg, Director of Strategy & Business Development at Hive, the session breaks down core GTM concepts, introduces proven sales methodologies, and gives early-stage teams a clear framework for communicating value. Through real examples and interactive discussion, participants learn how to understand customer pain, articulate differentiated outcomes, and build the foundation for strong product-market fit.
Designed for entrepreneurs looking to turn insights into action, the workshop emphasizes hands-on learning with exercises that guide founders in crafting value-based conversations, developing discovery call scripts, and asking smarter customer-driven questions. Attendees walk away with tangible tools they can immediately apply to customer discovery, early sales efforts, and strategic storytelling. With an open, collaborative atmosphere, the session empowers founders to confidently test assumptions, refine their offering, and accelerate their path to market traction.
Key Takeaways:
- Learn a framework for developing a marketing & sales strategy
- Focus on what’s important for your customers (i.e., outcomes)
- Develop tools for initial customer conversations and/or market research
Who is this for:
- Small business and startup founders responsible for doing [or leading] sales
- Owners who know their products inside and out, but do not have formal sales experience or training
- No prior knowledge needed to attend
Registration for Summer 2026
Location: Online, Live virtual session via Zoom. Course link will be sent out shortly before the first session.
Session date and time: August 20, 2026 | Time TBD
Fee: This Forward Fest session is being offered at no cost, thanks to the financial support of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) as part of the Main Street Bounceback Program.
To register, you will need to sign up for a FREE Forward Festival pass, and then add the session to your schedule! All SBDC-hosted sessions are included with this pass option; other events may charge to attend.
Cancellation Policy: Due to program costs and space limitations for these programs, participants are expected to cancel their registration at least 24 hours ahead of the program. Cancellations that occur less than 24 hours prior to the start of the program will be considered no-shows and may be removed from future programming and/or charged a course fee.
Disability Statement: Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact the UW-Madison SBDC office at sbdc@bus.wisc.edu to request accommodations.
Interested in viewing other Forward Fest events? Check out the full calendar here!
Meet the Presenter: Josh Steinberg
Josh Steinberg is a technology go-to-market leader with more than 15 years experience working in Sales, Partnerships, Customer Success, and Management Consulting. He is currently the Director of Partnerships at Hive, the leading project portfolio management app. In addition to his work at Hive, Josh is the founder and manager of Diagram Collective, an early-stage venture fund, and offers his workshop ‘Practical Tools for Kickstarting your GTM’ at university-affiliated entrepreneurship programs around the country. Josh lives with his wife Ayumi, 2-year old son Louie, and Sheepadoodle Mojo in Brooklyn, NY.
The Wisconsin SBDC Network is a proud part of the Office of Business & Entrepreneurship within the Universities of Wisconsin.
It is funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison helps entrepreneurs succeed at any stage. We offer no-cost, confidential consulting and business education across a wide region, primarily serving Dane, Sauk, and Columbia counties. SBDC services are provided in a nondiscriminatory way to all legal residents and citizens in the US.
Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact us at sbdc@bus.wisc.edu or call (608) 263-2221.