# LLMHosts.com Go-to-Market Strategy

**META**
- Date: 2026-02-14
- References: [lean-canvas.md](./lean-canvas.md), [competitive-analysis.md](./competitive-analysis.md), [financial-model.md](../knowledge-base/financial-model.md)

---

## 1. GTM Model

Product-led growth (PLG) with bottoms-up adoption. Free tier does everything locally. Paid tiers unlock cloud intelligence and remote access. **The tunnel is the conversion lever.**

## 2. Launch Phases

- **Pre-launch (months -2 to 0):** private beta, 100 developers, collect testimonials, seed Hacker News connections
- **Phase 1 Launch (month 0):** Hacker News Show HN, Reddit r/LocalLLaMA + r/MachineLearning + r/selfhosted, Product Hunt
- **Phase 2 (months 1-3):** YouTube demos (AI Jason, Matt Shumer tier), dev blog content, GitHub stars campaign
- **Phase 3 (months 4-6):** Integrations (Cursor, Continue.dev, Cody), partner announcements
- **Phase 4 (months 7-12):** Team/Enterprise sales outreach, case studies

## 3. Channels

| Priority | Channels |
|----------|----------|
| **Primary** | PyPI (`pip install llmhosts`), GitHub, Hacker News, Reddit AI communities |
| **Secondary** | YouTube dev channels, Twitter/X AI community, dev podcasts |
| **Tertiary** | Direct sales (Enterprise), partnerships |

## 4. Content Strategy

- **Blog:** "I saved $X/mo by running AI locally" stories
- **Docs:** Best-in-class getting started guide (under 5 min)
- **CLI:** `llmhosts doctor` shows savings estimate before first request

## 5. Conversion Funnel

```
Awareness → pip install → first request → sees savings → tries remote access → hits tunnel limit → Pro conversion
```

- **Free-to-Pro conversion rate target:** 5–7%
- **Pro-to-Team expansion rate target:** 15%

## 6. Competitive Positioning

> "OpenRouter routes between cloud APIs. Ollama runs models locally. LLMHosts does both — and routes intelligently so your GPU gets used first."

## 7. Metrics and Milestones

| Milestone | GitHub stars | DAU | Paying | ARR |
|-----------|--------------|-----|--------|-----|
| Month 1 | 500 | 100 | — | — |
| Month 3 | 2,000 | 500 | 50 | — |
| Month 6 | 5,000 | 2,000 | 200 | $50K run rate |
| Month 12 | 15,000 | 5,000 | 1,000 | $228K |

**Year 1 target:** 15K free users, 1K paying, $228K ARR  
**Year 5 target:** 1M+ free, 100K paying, $47.4M ARR  

**CAC target:** $18 (PLG driven)  
**LTV target:** $378  
