GoKawiilStartup positioning advice: speak to what customers already want, veteran advisor says
A go-to-market consultant who has worked with over 100 startups—including Temporal, Netlify, Pinecone, and Pydantic—argues that founders routinely fail to communicate in terms customers actually care about. The core prescription is deceptively simple: instead of pitching your product's features or vision, describe it using the language and priorities of the people you're trying to reach.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
Positioning mistakes quietly undermine fundraising, hiring, and sales even when the underlying product is strong, making this a widespread but underappreciated failure mode for founders. The advice echoes Paul Graham's 'make something people want' but shifts focus to messaging, suggesting that many startups don't have a product problem so much as a communication problem rooted in founders' own expertise blinding them to outsider perspectives.
- A consultant who worked with Temporal, Pinecone, Netlify and others says startups often fail to speak in terms customers care about.
- Founders' deep expertise and conviction can widen the gap between their pitch and what prospective users actually want to hear.
- The suggested fix is to abandon conventional positioning frameworks and directly research the audience's own priorities and language.
Obviously Awesome" by April Dunford — If your demo keeps ending with a blank stare and "so you're like a gateway thing?", this is the book that turns positioning into a repeatable process. April Dunford walks through how to frame what you do in terms of the category and value customers already understand — exactly the "say something people want" problem the article describes.
See Obviously Awesome" by April Dunford on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: gkogan.co, 2026-08-26
Published there as: “Just say something people want”
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