2 builders who never spoke to each other

Make knowing the buyer your advantage

Understanding the customer better than any competitor is a defensible position in a way a merely good product is not, so catalogue what your users want that nobody sells rather than tracking rivals. Ask how they actually consume the thing and let that dictate the format, because a product built around your own preferences leaves you as its only enthusiast.

The method

1. 01

   Make understanding the customer better than any competitor your actual competitive advantage, since a merely good product is not enough in any market worth entering.

2. 02

   A product designed around your own preferences will end up with you as its only enthusiast.

3. 03

   Decide explicitly whether you are making something for yourself or for other people, because product work means betting on the preferences of people who are not you, and that instinct improves only with deliberate observation.

4. 04

   Stop tracking competitors and instead catalogue what your users want that nobody currently sells.

5. 05

   Do not stock or build on the strength of your own enthusiasm; find out which criteria your customers actually buy on first.

What it returned

• 25

  Justin ordered the 25-pair minimum of Blackspot sneakers at high wholesale cost, displayed them at his shop entrance, put them in advertising and wore them himself; exactly one other person bought a pair.

• 16

  His friends all said the specials were good but that they had never got to the end, which told him an hour was too long; he cut his to 16 minutes.

• $10

  Zue's four quadrants of wanting something special versus plain, with or without money, left him only the plain-and-broke segment, who could already get a free template or a $10 Etsy one and type the names themselves.

• Bill Gates said at D5 that he approached such decisions as engineering problems while Steve Jobs decided them from an intuitive read of people.

Sources

• Compounding returnsJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Accumulated experience is the foundation of success · undated
• It's not us, it's themJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Me, me, and more of me · undated
• Why many products struggle, and only a few succeedJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Taylor Otwell, PHP, and Laravel · undated
• Keep making thingsJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Keep making things · undated
• No one wants to buy my sneakersJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · The lesson · undated
• The marketing genius of Andrew SchulzHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · Part 1 · undated
• Balancing Multiple ICPs: Strategies for Solo FoundersArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · The Universal Challenge · 2025-09-19
• The Place Card TeardownCory Zue · coryzue.com · There’s not a gap in the market · 2017-04-30