Familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Maslow’s hierarchy had five levels:

1. physiological
2. safety
3. love and belonging needs
4. esteem
5. self-actualization

The idea was that if you don’t have the lower levels, you won’t (or can’t) care about the higher levels.

The same concept is true in how you market your product.

Despite the marketing “wisdom” that you should always focus on “benefits” rather than “features,” this is only true if your potential customer already knows…

• What type of product you are
• What type of problem you’re trying to solve
• How you solve it (capabilities + features)

And in startup-land, this is usually NOT the case.

Only once these more “basic” messaging needs are met can you start to talk about “benefits” (i.e. “increase revenue,” “save time,” “save money,” etc.)

If you try to message at the benefit level without addressing the more basic needs, you will:

• Obfuscate what your product actually does
• Make your customer journey longer & have increased friction
• Sound like you’re bullshitting

Here’s an example using Calendly (read from the bottom up).