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Say something people want
gist
Greg Kogan argues that founders fail to sell, recruit, and raise because they describe what they built or fantasize about, not what buyers currently want. Intelligence, conviction, and ambition widen that gap. Traditional category-invention workshops have even less chance now that buyers form views from peers and markets move daily. The fix is to interview the actual audience for aspirations, desired outcomes, and requirements, then position as the way to do the thing they want. Kumo's product only landed after messaging named data scientists' desire to do meaningful predictive work again.
ideas
- The gap grows with conviction. The smarter and more ambitious the founder, the further the product story drifts from what people presently want.
- Do not lead with the artifact or the fantasy. Naming the literal product or a cryptic abstraction makes the audience decide why it matters; they will not.
- Category-creation theater is stale. Months-long workshops invent labels buyers never use, while peer networks and daily market shifts make the result forced and outdated.
- Position as doing, not being. Slack, Wiz, Cloudflare, Fin, and Harvey win by becoming the way to accomplish a stable desire, not a member of a category.
- Interview for aspire, desire, and require. Talk to about 30 of the defined audience. Use aspiration as the positioning core, desired outcomes as the business value, and requirements as proof you deliver it differently.
quotes
“Say something people want.”
“The bigger the gap between what you tend to say about your product and what people presently want.”
“Slack, Wiz, Cloudflare, Fin, and Harvey win by becoming known for doing something rather than for being something.”
“Kumo sounded like a worse version of what they already had.”