When you're doing something new as an early stage startup,
you need a way to "generate demand" for it.
🎉 Introducing the Fletch Demand Generation Canvas 🎉
The middle stack describes the market segment you're trying to reach.
They aren't quite in market yet, because they aren't attempting the use case your product solves for in any way.
Take the example of Navattic.
For people unfamiliar with the category of "interactive demo software," it's unlikely that simply telling them "you can embed your product on your homepage!" will be very compelling.
Since they aren't in market (yet), their response would be "...why would I do that?"
You first need to convince them that this is a use case worth doing.
And the way you do this is by finding a "desired outcome" (in the example below, it's "increasing conversions") and then showing how the current ways of reaching that outcome aren't working.
You then have created a spot in their brains where your NEW solution/category can exist.
From there, you need to explain how it works (at a Features/Capabilities level) and also the benefits those Features and Capabilities unlock.
This ULTIMATELY should help them reach the desired outcome they wanted in the beginning.
Note*
→ Robert Kaminski 🎯 and I would not recommend using the left side of the canvas on the homepage.
Hopefully by the time they reach your homepage, they are ALREADY convinced that they should be adding an interactive demo to their page
(to use the Navattic example again).
They get this right — by the time someone has been convinced of the concept, their homepage hero messaging WILL land:
"Make buying easier with interactive demos.
Delight prospects with hands-on product access. Embed on your website, share in the sales cycle, and send in email campaigns."
Ben Wilentz
Founder, Stealth Startup