The Wondering, which began operations in October 2025, is shifting from its initial soft launch phase to a more targeted outreach effort aimed at a specific segment of the startup ecosystem. The service focuses on North American startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, as well as select early Series A companies that remain founder-led in their go-to-market strategy. Its primary audience consists of B2B software and tech-enabled service businesses, particularly those where systems, data, and customer churn provide critical insights into performance.
According to Gerdus "Gus" Byleveld, Founder of The Wondering, the core challenge for many early-stage teams is not a lack of motivation but a fundamental issue with repeatability. "Growth feels random because the work is still held together by heroics," Byleveld explained. "The shift happens when you get clear on why customers buy, why they don't, and how to run that process consistently—week after week." The service is designed for lean teams, typically ranging from 2 to 25 full-time employees, where the founder is still actively involved in sales and the first dedicated go-to-market hires are being integrated.
The Wondering assists founders in constructing a go-to-market system capable of withstanding pressure, especially in complex sales environments involving B2B buyers, longer sales cycles, and enterprise-level dynamics where customer retention is as crucial as pipeline generation. This involves several key activities: tightening the product's market wedge by precisely defining the target customer and competitive advantage, pressure-testing positioning against actual buyer language rather than internal assumptions, and converting customer behavior into actionable signals to identify what is effective, what is failing, and what is being misunderstood.
Byleveld emphasizes a particular philosophy regarding customer loss. "Churn isn't just a metric. It's a message," he stated. "If it's rising, something is misaligned—value, onboarding, expectations, targeting, pricing, or the way the offer is framed. The fix isn't more noise. The fix is clarity and a system." The approach involves treating churn as diagnostic feedback rather than an unexplained mystery, enabling teams to address root causes systematically.
Additionally, The Wondering supports the establishment of a sustainable operational cadence that teams can maintain without burnout, ensuring growth is not solely dependent on the founder's personal endurance. For global startups expanding into the United States market, the service aims to design go-to-market strategies that minimize false starts and accelerate the learning curve, acknowledging that such expansion is rarely a straightforward, plug-and-play endeavor. The company is also engaging with accelerators, incubators, venture studios, university programs, and founder communities that operate cohorts of pre-seed and seed startups, offering go-to-market support that founders can implement immediately to reduce guesswork and build traction responsibly. More information is available at https://thewondering.net.
