Startup founders: You can’t trust your POV when developing your positioning and messaging.

Because it’s not your perspective that matters.

It’s only your customer’s perspective that matters.

And what you see is DIFFERENT than what they see.

A founder described this to me recently as: “Being on the inside of a pickle jar and not being able to read the label.”

Me and Anthony have seen this scenario play out hundreds of times:

Founders are in the pickle jar and can’t see what they are, so they default to trying to explain THEIR VISION of the product…

…and lose sight of a prospect’s view of the product.

The result?

A set of messaging that only makes sense to the founder, usually including some made-up product category.

Take Miro’s homepage message, for example (See image)

“We’re an Innovation Workspace”

I’ve been a heavy user of digital whiteboards like Miro, Figma (FigJam), and Mural for years and have never once thought of (let alone spoken of) them as “Innovation Workspaces” or even “Collaboration Platforms.”

When startups use this embellished, vision-heavy messaging to explain their product, all they are really doing is stroking their ego and preventing word of mouth from spreading.

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So when working on your positioning and messaging, don’t get sucked into the trap of just considering what YOU WANT.

You must step back and be honest about what customers will think and say.

#startups #productmarketing #messaging