Stop describing your product. Say what people actually want.
Just say something people want
After helping over 100 startups—including Temporal, Pydantic, and Pinecone—position themselves, G. Kogan argues that most founders fail because they describe what they built, not what customers desire. Traditional positioning, with its made-up categories and months-long consensus, is dead. Instead, he advocates a simple approach: say something people want. Drawing on interviews with 1,000+ buyers, he shows how Slack, Wiz, and Cloudflare win by being known for doing something, not being something. He offers a practical framework: understand your audience's aspirations, desired outcomes, and requirements. The Kumo story illustrates how this method transformed a struggling startup into one that resonated with data scientists.
The bigger the gap between what you tend to say about your product and what people presently want.
- xivzgrev
I've been a digital marketer for 10+ years.
What this article is trying to say is selling benefits vs features
Which description below interests you more?
A: "The GeeWhiz personal helicopter: the most efficient, best helicopter ever. Its dual cast aluminum blades spin at an incredible 600 revolutions per minute. It's as silent as a mouse's fart. It weighs only 750 pounds thanks to its innovative carbon alloy frame."
B: "Cut your commute time in half with the GeeWhiz personal helicopter"
B probably got your attention more, unless you have a personal interest in helicopters. Most people don't, they just want to know what it can do for them. Your eyes may have glazed over A because it was a bunch of words you don't care about.
A lot of people lean into feature marketing because either THEY are excited about it or they want to dazzle you - feature bombing is a real thing. For example you are NOT going to go drive up some huge rocks like the trucks in the commercials do - it just gives you a warm fuzzy. But it belongs AFTER you convince the person of the why it matters. In this case, they're reaching people who want a truck, they're deciding which truck.
- Djrichsjdjdnxkd
There is nothing wrong with the post per se, but it's Marketing 101.
If it seems new, I suggest hunkering down with a marketing textbook on a weekend.
My analogy for marketing is this:
CS = human needs and wants. They are foundational building blocks of that don't change much.
Programming = marketing tactics. They change depending on ecosystem, talent, timelines, etc.
I don't know any marketer that would pitch "composable OS fabric." Actually, I do...it's when a marketer/agency has failed to convince stakeholders how to talk to their audience.
Sometimes that is because the marketer/agency sucks. Or some combination of the founder/company being somewhere on the spectrum of hating marketing and not understanding marketing.
- phoneafriend
Who am I talking to? Am I empathizing with them? Meeting them where they are?
This is the iterative process of saying what people want. Live. With stress tested feedback. The ultimate taskbot (you) and your harness (human body).
Customer? Discovery.
Public? Reputation & stability.
(Most people, most of the time? Nothing.)