Hey Reader,
Every founder is racing to build a product. Every team calls themselves innovative. Every startup claims to be disruptive. Everyone believes they’re running a growth playbook. Every pitch deck believes itself to be funding ready.
Nope. Those are outcomes. You don’t get to say those words.
You don’t do product. You don’t do growth. You don’t do innovation. You don’t do funding. You don’t do disruption. You don’t get to self-name these attributes. They are given to you. By the market. They are outcomes.
What do you do? You do the work. Do the learning. Do the solving. Do the proof. You earn those titles.
Visionaries do the work to earn the outcomes. Wannabes just declare them.
Outcomes are what the market gives you when you’ve solved a killer problem, built something people really want and will pay for, and, done the grind of making sure your market can find, use, and buy it.
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HYPER RELATED:
Every startup founder has, is, or will feel it. The gap between all the work you’ve done and the results you’re waiting for. It's awful. It's universal. It's "The Dip."
LETS GET INTO IT:
You don't build an Oscar winning movie. You build a compelling story, assemble a talented team, craft each scene with precision, perfect the cinematography, refine the editing, and create something that resonates with audiences. The market then decides if they agree with you - first at the box office, then through critical acclaim, and maybe, just maybe, with an Oscar. But that's not up to you. That's an outcome.
You don't build a unicorn. You solve a real problem, assemble the right team, build effective systems, craft exceptional experiences, and create something that resonates with customers. The market decides if they agree with you - first with their wallets, then with their loyalty, and maybe, just maybe, with a billion-dollar valuation. But that's not up to you. That's an outcome.
The founder of Pinterest went coffee shop to coffee shop, day in day out, asking people to try his new thing. Just doing the work, the raw, unglamorous, necessary, dirty, in the trenches work. There's no "kinda" doing the work - either you do it or you don't. EVERYONE started exactly where you are right now, even the unicorn-makers.
Every bone in your body is itching to design, code, and ship. You think you're building a product. You're not. You're building a solution to a problem for people lined up ready to pay for it. Your customers decide if its disruptive or innovative.
Framework: Outcome Drivers
If you CANNOT CONTROL the outcome, what can you control….
The inputs:
- How many customer conversations you have
- How many iterations you make
- How deeply you understand the problem
- How effectively you deliver value
- How systematically you build distribution
- How consistently you show up to do the work
How quickly you can release, learn, iterate, and, release again... aka Clockspeed.
How do you organize?
The Daily Grind:
- Deep problem understanding - relentless investigation into customer pain points
- Customer conversations - constant engagement with your market
- Solution iteration - continuous refinement based on feedback
- Value delivery - consistent creation of customer benefits
The Systems Work:
- Distribution building - systematic creation of channels to reach customers
- System development - creating scalable processes and mechanisms
- Relationship cultivation - building trust with customers and stakeholders
- Data collection - gathering and analyzing market signals
The Foundation:
- Execution optimization - improving how you deliver your solution
- Market listening - staying attuned to shifts and opportunities
- Team building - assembling and aligning people around the mission
- Foundation laying - creating infrastructure for sustainable growth
The market will tell you what you’ve built. Your job is to keep iterating until it tells you something you like.
As always, if I can be of service, feel free to grab time.
LFG.
-- James
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