Hi there -
Here is this week’s “1 principle, 2 strategies, and 3 actionable tactics” for running lean…
1 Universal Principle
“You have < 8 seconds to win or lose.”
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink reveals how people make snap judgments with very little information. Marketers put that window at under 8 seconds before someone scrolls past, clicks away, or tunes out.
Earning attention is the first battle for any new product, yet most founders fail here because they confuse features for outcomes.
A compelling unique value proposition isn’t about how your solution works—it’s about what people get after using your solution. Think desired outcomes, not feature lists.
When Tesla launched their first electric car in 2006, they didn’t lead with “lithium-ion battery technology.” They positioned it as “the fastest, greenest car on the planet.”
That’s the difference between talking about your solution versus the transformation it delivers.
2 Underlying Strategies at Play
I. Your true competition isn’t who you think it is.
Most founders look for competition only within their immediate product category. This is a critical mistake.
Tesla could have said they had no competition since no other electric cars existed. However, people were buying cars every day—their real challenge was getting buyers to choose their car over others.
Your true competition is whatever people use today to accomplish the core job, not just products that resemble yours.
II. Incrementally better loses to incumbents every time.
If you’re only incrementally better, the incumbent wins because they were there first with established trust and relationships.
To cause a switch, you need to be 3-10x better. But competing on features incumbents already have is a losing game.
Instead, focus on things they don’t have that customers still care about, then go to extremes on those dimensions.
Tesla picked sustainability and performance, two axes where you could only have one or the other. They went to extremes on both, creating a “fastest and greenest” positioning that was impossible to ignore.
3 Actionable Tactics
I. Map your positioning landscape.
Start with what your product is for (the core job), then identify what people use today to accomplish that job. Don’t limit yourself to your product category.
For Tesla, the job was transportation/mobility, not just “electric vehicles.” This revealed their true alternatives: high-performance sports cars and hybrid vehicles.
II. Find the broken tradeoffs.
List what’s broken with existing alternatives, then identify dimensions where customers are forced to choose between two things they want.
Create a simple 2x2 matrix with these dimensions.
Tesla looked like:
- High performance, low sustainability (sports cars)
- High sustainability, low performance (hybrids)
- Low performance, low sustainability (most cars)
- High performance, high sustainability (Tesla’s opportunity)
III. Go to extremes on what matters.
Don’t try to be slightly better across all dimensions. Pick 1-2 dimensions that your ideal early adopters care about most, then make bold claims.
Tesla didn’t promise “pretty fast and somewhat green.” They claimed “fastest” and “greenest”—extreme positions that were impossible to ignore.
Your UVP should prompt people to think, “That sounds too good to be true,” while still being believable enough to warrant further investigation.
That’s all for today. See you next week.
Ash
Author of Running Lean and creator of Lean Canvas
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P.S. This week's video:
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P.P.S.
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