In the fast-moving world of digital payments, even the most innovative products can falter if they’re not commercialized effectively. At Mastercard, we faced this challenge head-on with the launch of Token Connect, a product designed to enable consumers to securely and seamlessly push their payment credentials from issuer environments to merchants, wallets, and devices without needing to manually enter card details or possess the physical card
This case study outlines how I applied a structured commercialization framework to bridge the gap between product development and go-to-market execution - turning Token Connect from a validated concept into a scalable growth engine.
Lessons learned from a product career in Fintech
In my 13 years working across fintech and enterprise technology, I’ve seen a recurring pattern that sabotages even the most brilliant products. It’s a disconnect that lives in the space between the teams that build the product and the teams that take it to market. Product teams, deep in the weeds of development, may struggle to articulate clear positioning. Go-to-market (GTM) teams, in turn, often find themselves scrambling to understand technical features long after the product has launched, leading to weak internal enablement, slow customer adoption, and missed revenue potential.
I've learned that you can’t just throw a product over the wall and hope it sells. The journey from a validated idea to a product that scales successfully requires a fundamental shift in mindset. We have to move from asking, “What do customers want?” to a much tougher question: “How do we deliver this validated solution reliably, repeatedly, and profitably at scale?”
The answer isn't a silver bullet, but a structured discipline. Commercialization shouldn't be a last-minute handoff; it must be a handshake between Product and GTM that starts on day one. Based on my experience, I want to share a simplified, three-stage version of that approach - a commercial playbook designed to turn product launches into growth accelerators instead of organizational bottlenecks.
Stage 1: Plan – Aligning before you build
The planning phase is where you win or lose the commercialization battle. Before a single line of code is written for the scaled product, you must build cross-functional alignment around what you are building, why you are building it, and how you will position it in the market. The goal here is to de-risk the investment by learning and aligning quickly and cheaply. I call this principle "Readiness by Design," and it’s about embedding commercial preparedness into the product from its inception.
In my experience, this stage hinges on three pillars of readiness:
- Product Readiness: This goes beyond features. It ensures the product meets all technical, operational, legal, and design standards before it ever touches a customer. This includes crucial artifacts like data strategy document and formal sign-off on any architecturally significant changes.
- Regional & Market Readiness: You can't scale globally without thinking locally. This pillar focuses on equipping regional teams to sell and implement the product effectively. Key actions include developing a localized sales strategy, creating Foundational Sales Materials (FSMs), and drafting a commercialization proposal that details target markets and go-to-market motions.
- Customer Readiness: A successful launch depends on your customer's ability to easily adopt and use your product. This means having a clear Product Onboarding Guide, a robust Support Plan, and a well-defined Service Operating Model ready to go.
Tip: Form a cross-functional working group as early as possible. Getting Sales, Solutions Engineering, Support, and Legal in a room from the start creates a holistic plan and prevents downstream surprises.
Stage 2: Build and align
As development kicks off, the commercialization leader's job is to act as the connective tissue for the organization. This stage is about translating the plan into a tangible, market-ready solution while ensuring GTM teams are not just informed, but deeply engaged partners in the process.
A critical concept here is the product's evolution. What you build in this phase is not the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) from your early experiments; it's the Minimum Marketable Product (MMP). The MMP is the version you pilot with your first few customers in a new region. It must be robust enough to handle real customer traffic and validate your key assumptions before you invest in the full Scaled Product.
Key actions for this stage include:
- Feature Positioning Mapping: Don’t just list features; translate them into solution-level benefits that resonate with specific customer personas. This is a collaborative exercise where GTM teams can offer invaluable input on what messaging will land in the market.
- Run an Internal Evangelism Roadshow: Schedule ongoing briefings with GTM leaders. Preview new features, share progress against the roadmap, and, most importantly, gather their feedback. When GTM teams feel heard, they become your biggest champions.
- Execute a Strategic Pilot: A pilot is not just for finding bugs. It’s your chance to validate your entire commercial model in a controlled environment. Use the pilot to test your messaging, documentation, support process, and onboarding flow. The learnings from these first 1-3 customers are gold; they allow you to refine your approach before a full-scale launch.
Tip: Ask your GTM partners to co-create the sales enablement materials. When a sales leader helps build the objection-handling guide, they internalize the content on a much deeper level, leading to more confident and effective conversations with customers.
Stage 3: Launch and optimize
Many teams view the launch as the finish line. In reality, it’s the starting gun for the most critical phase of commercialization. This is where you execute on your readiness plan, scale aggressively, and create tight feedback loops to optimize performance. Our framework breaks this stage into three parallel streams of activity: Execute, Scale, and Track.
- Execute the Launch Plan: This is where all the planning pays off. Launch internal campaigns to fully enable your GTM teams with bite-sized, role-based training, FAQs, and demo scripts. At the same time, deploy your value-focused, customer-facing assets like case studies and one-pagers. A key driver of success here is the Product Onboarding Gold Standard (POGS) - a framework we use to assess and improve the customer onboarding experience, ensuring it’s consistent and high-quality.
- Scale Aggressively: With an enabled GTM team and a market-tested product, it's time to hit the gas. The goal is to deploy the product across multiple markets and regions to capture the addressable market. We set ambitious targets - like reaching over 100 customers or entering 10+ markets within 2-3 years - to create focus and a sense of urgency.
- Track Everything: You can't optimize what you don't measure. Establish tight, post-launch feedback loops using sales data, support tickets, and direct customer conversations to refine the product and its positioning. We conduct formal Quarterly and Annual Reviews to track performance against the original business case, monitor the competitive landscape, and make data-informed decisions about the product roadmap.
Tip: Host an internal launch event with an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with key leaders. It generates energy, clarifies messaging, and ensures the entire organization feels invested in the product’s success.
Why this matters
In a crowded technology landscape, a great product is no longer enough. Success is driven by deep customer understanding and a perfect fit with the market. By adopting a structured commercialization framework, you align your entire organization around achieving customer outcomes. This isn't just about smoother launches; it's about reducing your time-to-revenue and building a culture of confidence and clarity that turns your product strategy into a powerful growth engine.
For product leaders navigating similar complexity, here are five actionable insights:
- Start commercialization early - don’t wait until launch.
- Build with GTM in the room - their insights shape market fit.
- Pilot for more than bugs - validate messaging, onboarding, and support.
- Measure what matters -track adoption, feedback, and competitive signals.
- Celebrate the journey - internal ceremonies build momentum and clarity.
The journey to commercialize Mastercard Token Connect underscored that the real challenge was in bridging the gap between development and market adoption—a transition that demands strategic alignment, cross-functional collaboration, and disciplined execution.
Token Connect’s success was defined by how it was positioned, piloted, and scaled. Through co-created enablement materials, internal evangelism roadshows, and ambitious market goals, we transformed a validated concept into a global solution. Today, Token Connect powers secure digital transactions across 10+ markets and 25+ customers, enabling over 1 million monthly push-provisioned tokens and driving more than $3 billion in annual tokenized transaction volume.
In a competitive landscape where speed to market is table stakes, it’s speed to value that sets winning products apart. A structured commercialization framework ensures that your product lands with clarity, confidence, and customer impact
