Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
A worse product at a higher price is beating yours right now
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Hey Reader, A founder asked me last week how to respond to someone pitching a Shopify quiz app – 10x more expensive than existing competitors, no unique technology, no obvious edge. He expected me to help him dismantle the idea. Instead, I told him: I don't care about the idea. Here's the truth most early-stage founders don't want to hear: your product quality is almost never your real competitive advantage. You can have a worse product at a higher price and still win – if you have distribution and your competitor doesn't. That's not a theory. That's the market. Three things that actually matter more than your codebase: 1. Deep audience knowledge compounds. Knowing where your customers hang out, what language they use, what they actually fear – that is an asset that doesn't get copied in a product sprint. It takes years to build. Founders who have it close deals faster, write better copy, and iterate more accurately. 2. Distribution beats features, every time. Features can be cloned in weeks. A trusted relationship with 5,000 niche buyers in a Slack community or industry forum cannot. The founders winning right now aren't necessarily the most technical – they're the ones closest to the market. 3. Obsessing over your product is a hiding strategy. It feels productive. It's mostly avoidance. Every hour spent on your roadmap instead of talking to buyers is an hour your competitor with worse tech is getting further ahead – because they're in front of the people you need. The Shopify quiz app with no unique tech? If that founder deeply understands Shopify merchants, has a newsletter, a community, a warm pipeline of shop owners who trust him – he will beat a technically superior product built by someone who has none of that. The Clarity Filter Insight Your product idea is table stakes. The only moat that actually compounds is your access to the people who need it. [Share on LinkedIn] [Share on X] So be honest with yourself: in the last 30 days, how many hours went into building versus getting in front of buyers? If the ratio is off, that's your real problem – not the product. Speak soon, P.S. Don't write code for a product nobody wants to buy. I built Traction OS to give you the exact 60-day roadmap, sales scripts, and validation templates you need to hit your first $10k MRR without guessing. From complete scratch or with an existing MVP. |
Clarity Filter
Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Hey Reader, Alex had a great demo call with Billy, a marketing manager at an e-commerce brand. Billy asked good questions. Billy seemed interested. Then Billy went quiet. Alex assumed the product wasn't good enough. It was. The pitch was the problem. Alex was selling: "this tool does your email retention work for you." Billy heard: "this tool could do your job without you." That is not a sales pitch. That is a threat. Here is what most B2B founders miss when selling to employees rather than...
Hey Reader, A client came to me frustrated. They had the right targeting. The right demographics. E-commerce decision-makers, correct job titles, correct company sizes. Their LinkedIn ad campaign looked perfect on paper – and it was producing almost nothing. I wasn't surprised. Here's the thing nobody in your marketing agency will say out loud: LinkedIn's ad algorithm is years behind Facebook. It lacks the deep behavioral and intent data that makes paid social actually work. When you run a...
Hey Reader, A founder I spoke with last week put it bluntly: "Traditional marketing agencies are in complete denial." They're charging monthly retainers to press buttons in tools their clients already pay for, while the client does the actual thinking. And somehow, the clients keep paying. Here's what the agencies haven't figured out yet – and what most SaaS founders are also missing. The biggest AI opportunity right now is not a better dashboard, a smarter workflow tool, or another...