3 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Own one space in the buyer's head
Positioning is the single idea people associate with you, reached by being deliberately different rather than generally good, and a mission gives the audience a reason to read you as a cause rather than a curiosity. If you cannot say who the customer is, no channel will fix it.
Where this splits
Positioning is called the thing to settle first, and separately called wasted effort until demand has been confirmed.
5 claims against 1
Harry Dry · Justin Jackson · Luca Restagno
Settle positioning first, no channel fixes a vague one
- 01Treat positioning as owning one space in the customer's head, and get there by deliberately differentiating rather than by being generally good.
- 02Attach a mission to whatever you are launching so the audience reads you as people on a cause rather than as an oddity.
Leave positioning alone until demand is confirmed
Do not spend early effort on positioning, sales and marketing until demand is confirmed - none of it moves a product nobody is pulling for.
- 03If you cannot answer who the customer is, the problem is positioning rather than marketing, and no channel will fix it.
- 04When building software becomes cheap and abundant, the remaining advantages are distribution, taste about what to leave out, trust in your brand, and founder-market fit - so stack those rather than coding ability.
- 05Assume most ideas still fail for reasons that have nothing to do with building them - missing founder-market fit or no route to distribution - so spend your scepticism there.
What it returned
- 99%
Justin puts it at 99% of ideas, including good ones, failing for such reasons.
Uses Ted Morgan's crowded-bus image: most brands pile into the same seats rather than taking the empty row
Mark and Rox Hoyle's food bank cause reframed a novelty song about sausage rolls
Justin's analogy: early App Store fart apps made real money until everyone made them and the value collapsed with the scarcity.
Sources
- The value of software in a Fable worldJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · What's the value of software now? · undated · dissenting
- Business is like surfingJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Picking the right wave (choosing your market) · undated · dissenting
- How LadBaby started a movementHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · 1/ Start with story · undated
- My guide to brand positioningHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · undated
- The right questions that help you with marketingLuca Restagno · solopreneurtofreedom.com · The right questions that help you with marketing · 2023-12-10
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in positioning
- Do the boring market homework yourself7 unconnected · contested
- Build for a market you already belong to6 unconnected
- Aim everything at the segment you already win6 unconnected
- Narrow the category until you are its only occupant6 unconnected
- Pick the fight the incumbent cannot win6 unconnected
- Pick the market nobody is excited about6 unconnected