ApertureAPI GTM Submission Playbook

Customer & partner deck (PDF, October 2026) · editable .pptx (install the free Cormorant Garamond and Inter fonts first, or the layout reflows)

Launch Readiness Review — GTM, Website, Sales Sprint Tutorial (up until November 12, 2026)

New employee plan — 30 days to a qualified pilot pipeline (up until November 12, 2026)

Commercial doctrine (2026-10-29): page 39, paid pilot then purchase. ApertureAPI is a one-founder instrument maker and optical computation company, built to order, no outside capital: a free bounded benchmark, $4,800 of milestone-paid pilot engineering credited to the instrument, then the one product in development (the bench surface profiler, $12,900) on a 50 % deposit. Parts cost is a design value; the first unit has not been built; prices are offers, not a quote book. Metered plans are evaluation access, not the offer. Hardware costs and the private plan live on the private sales build (sales-flock sign-in and passcode).

New employee? Read page 39, then page 00 and page 14.

The funnel is five stages, not signups: qualified workflow → frames + metadata received → reference measurement secured → budget owner identified → pilot signed. Page 00 defines each stage, its exit criterion, the artifact that proves it and the weekly KPIs; signups are a secondary diagnostic. The pipeline pages are 14–31: qualification and workflow fit, guest methods talks, the monthly lab clinic, the 48-hour loop, the $10,000 design partnership, budget-owner mapping and closing. Pages 09–12 are the standing single source of truth for sales-flock operations. Pages 01–08 are discovery plumbing (secondary): listings, registries, a free-tier demo host and community accounts — done once, never instead of pipeline work. No paid acquisition. Every step ends in a verifiable artifact.

1. ApertureAPI GTM Playbook — Overview
2. Step 1 — Publish `apertureapi-mcp` to PyPI
3. Step 2 — Official MCP Registry
4. Step 3 — Postman Public API Network
5. Step 4 — public-apis PR (github.com/public-apis/public-apis)
6. Step 5 — Hugging Face demo Space (discovery plumbing, free tier only)
7. Step 6 — Registry batch: Glama, mcp.so, awesome-mcp-servers
8. Step 7 — Show HN (OPERATOR-GATED — do not post without an explicit go)
9. Step 8 — Communities (accounts + lurking now; first posts operator-gated)
10. Sales Flock — Operator Guide (Single Source of Truth)
11. Partner Signing — the Packet and the Path
12. Blank Template — Partner Letter of Intent (LOI)
13. Contact Databases — The Prospect Universe
14. Start here — from a qualified workflow to a signed pilot
15. Who we sell to
16. The message test (Track 1)
17. The 48-hour loop
18. Free channels (Track 3)
19. Calibration labs call script (Track 2)
20. Closing — trial to paid
21. Industrial inquiry log
22. The two design partnerships
23. Qualification and workflow fit — run it on every reply
24. Guest methods talks — free, on the group's own workflow
25. Monthly lab clinic — bring a frame, watch the evidence trail
26. Co-publication protocol — one design-partner comparison, warts included
27. Referral note — one colleague, no incentive
28. Industrial inbound qualification — workflow and readiness first
29. SPIE Photonics West 2027 — the one conference, as a visitor
30. Budget-owner mapping — who pays, who signs, and when
31. Core-facility referral program — the one-page sheet, placed and routed
32. Core-facility director briefing — free, 30 minutes, technical
33. Integration demos for instrument and research-software makers
34. Watcher-driven outreach — one author, one paper detail, one narrow ask
35. Grant and incubator kit — co-applying with a partner lab
36. Claude reality check
37. First 100 customers: the playbook index
38. 39 — Paid pilot, then purchase: the $5k → $30k loop

Questions or blockers: email system@apertureapi.com (the IT Desk) with the step number.