Hey Reader,

If you can’t tie your daily actions to revenue, directly or indirectly, I really don’t know what the f you’re doing. The number of founders doing weird loops around the actual work… Perpetually busy. Doing universally applicable horizontal fluff.

I hear you.

You’ve got a big plan. A bigger roadmap. A new onboarding flow. A new design system. A BIG integration unlock. A pathway to go from point-solution to suite, maybe even platform!!

Cool.

But until someone trades something they value for what you built, none of it matters. The other stuff is just noise.

So. What did you do today to drive revenue (value)? Say it aloud. Was it unreasonable?

Before you rage email me, even if your model delays revenue, your ability to extract value is still the test. If not money now, what’s the proxy? Engagement? Retention? Referrals? You still have to have some value exchange.

Because if you didn’t move money, attention, or commitment in your direction, what exactly did you move?

Short-term. Long-term. Directly. Indirectly.
Time, cash, attention... Real, equitable value.

Nope, you cannot use "prepping" or "positioning" or "getting ready to" and you 1000% cannot use "building a complex system of automation for responses that don't exist, aka ghost funnels."

Commercialization isn’t a phase and it isn’t just about making money. It’s how you know the problem you’re solving is real. Real enough that people will pay to make it go away. That’s the whole game. Right? If not? What else?

So if commercialization is a muscle, if you’re not flexing it, I am not actually sure what it is you're doing.

What’s the difference between building a product and building a business? Do you think about them differently?

One is functional.
The other is financial.

A product is what you make.
A business is what people pay for.

We don’t need people to believe in you, we need people to pay you.

...and we need that to happen asap, because people owe you nothing. You, your product, your vision, your hustle, your positioning, whatever it is, has to earn the transaction.

You don’t validate the business by finishing the feature. You validate it by charging something and seeing who pays!!

When you try to sell, everything gets sharper. Out of the illusionary world and hypothetical personas. You get punched with real objections, real decisions, real learnings.

Commercialization is a forcing function, it's forced clarity, forced understanding, forced reality, forced everything,

It lets you know where you stand. Do people agree with the pain you are solving? Do they understand your solution? Do they still not pay?? For many, commercialization is a lesson that the $$ are in the vertical.

You might have a real pain point. You might have a solid solution. That’s horizontal value. It’s vague. Applies to the entire market. Almost abstract!

This you?
- We help companies onboard users faster.
- We help startups respond to customer support faster.
- We help teams manage internal knowledge.
- We make B2B payments more efficient.

Nice. Sure. But nice in the early days, generally doesn’t close. Not until it’s paired with vertical urgency.

HORIZONTAL: We help companies onboard users faster.
​VERTICAL: We help SaaS companies reduce day-1 churn from 40% to 15%.
​SUPER VERTICAL: We help B2B SaaS companies with freemium models convert trial users to paid accounts within 7 days by eliminating the 3 most common setup friction points.

HORIZONTAL: We help startups respond to customer support faster.
​VERTICAL: We help early-stage SaaS teams cut first-response time from 24 hours to under 1 hour.
​SUPER VERTICAL: We help B2B SaaS founders with no support team automate 80% of inbound questions using AI-trained workflows, so they don’t lose users while sleeping.

Horizontal value doesn’t convert without a vertical context. A who, a why now, a this matters to me because… aka a wedge.

Commercialization is making your value specific enough to be actionable, testable, and monetizable.

If you’re not getting traction, maybe your problem isn’t your product. Maybe your problem is that you never got specific enough to make anyone care.

Most founders build vague solutions and wonder why no one pays. You’re not failing at sales. Maybe you’re failing at specificity. And it’s insanely common.

• Most founders stop at horizontal because it feels safer. Bigger market, solve for everyone. Don't want to box ourself in. We don't have an ICP yet so we need to look attractive for everyone. Wrong.
• Horizontal is where you drown in “interesting but not urgent.”
• Vertical is where you start to matter.
• Super vertical is where you become crystal clear.

(If you’re struggling to identify who exactly should be paying you, read this: Atomic ICP Framework)

(If you are wondering where to start. What shoes does your buyer wear? Start there.)

So, as a reminder, you are not trying to build a project, you are trying to build a company. And if no one is giving you time, attention or $$, then it cannot possibly be a company.

Which brings us back to the beginning. What are you doing today to ensure you are creating value. Which comes from someone.. a user, a company, a customer giving you something of value in return.

Because, I am not sure what else you could be doing that is more important.

For the second week in a row, this is NOT hustle porn, this is not grind harder, spam harder, pitch harder, it’s a reasonable question about truth.

Commercialization is the most honest test you’ve got. It's clarity. It’s the moment your startup becomes a business.

If you’re avoiding commercialization, you cannot be surprised if people avoid paying you.

So, just one more time, for fun. What are you doing right now to drive revenue.

If I can be of service, feel free to grab time.

LFG.

-- James

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