# Complexity Is Not a Skill

By [Florian Martens](https://pipe0.com/authors/florian-martens) · Published Oct 6, 2026

Source: https://pipe0.com/blog/complexity-is-not-a-skill

> GTM influencers make go-to-market sound like rocket science, so you buy one more tool and hire one more agency. The goal should be the opposite: use the tools you have properly, and only add systems that take complexity away.



Every day I wake up to an expert who has posted a funnel diagram with a
hundred tool logos on it. Enrichment here, intent data there, three
sequencers, a warehouse, a reverse ETL, an orchestration layer for the
orchestration layer. It gets hundreds of likes, and then it echoes on every
other platform.

The message under all of them is the same: GTM is rocket science, you are
behind, and the way to catch up is one more tool. Or one more agency that
knows the tools.

I think that's wrong.

## Complexity sells [#complexity-sells]

A diagram with a hundred boxes does two jobs. It makes the person who drew it
look like they understand something you don't, and it makes you feel like
you're missing something. Both of those sell. Tools, courses, retainers.

Someone in a Reddit thread put it better than I did: lots of people showcase
complexity as skill when the same things can be done very simply. Another
remembered the influencers bragging about monstrous n8n workflows. The
workflow screenshots were impressive. Whether the workflows did anything you
couldn't do with a list, an enrichment, and a sequencer was never the point
of the post.

## What simple looks like [#what-simple-looks-like]

Most teams don't have a tooling problem. They have a few tools they use at a
fraction of what those tools can do, and another one on the way because
someone saw a diagram.

Start there. Learn what your CRM already does. Find out whether your
sequencer can take the field you've been exporting to a spreadsheet. Ask what
the tool you pay for does with a webhook. Most of the time the answer is
already on your invoice.

When you do add something, ask one question: does it remove complexity, or
add it? A tool that replaces two others and a manual step is worth looking
at. A tool that needs a new tool to connect it to your other tools is not.

## Simple is harder [#simple-is-harder]

None of this means GTM is easy. Picking the one signal that matters out of
dozens is hard, and so is writing a message a buyer actually wants to read.
That's the work, and neither gets easier with more boxes on the diagram.

A simple system is the harder thing to build, because you have to decide what
to leave out. That's the skill. The diagram with a hundred logos is what you
draw when you haven't decided yet.