Nobody wakes up looking for your product. They wake up with a problem. And somewhere between your vision and their morning, something gets lost.

The vision is clear on the inside. The product is good. The work speaks for itself. Except it doesn't. Not without an answer to the question every customer is already asking before you've said a word.

Why should I care.

Not what does it do. Not how long it took to build. Not how much you believe in it. Why does it matter to them. In their words. On their terms.

And you won't find that answer in a new tactic. You already know which tactics aren't you. You feel it the moment someone pitches them. Something doesn't sit right. It's not your voice, not your world, not the way you do things. That instinct is good. Trust it.

But instinct gets you halfway. The other half is being able to answer why should I care so clearly that the right person feels it immediately.

A point of view isn't a tagline. It's not a platform strategy or a content calendar. It's the answer to why should I care, said in a way only you could say it. Tactics feel like action but they can't manufacture that. No trend replaces it. No new format gets you there faster. The work is the work.

Sit in that discomfort first. The tactics can wait.

The founders I talk to already have the answer. It's in the way they describe what they do when nobody's watching. The casual conversation. The frustrated rant about what their industry gets wrong. The thing they say when they stop trying to sound like a founder and just talk.

The work is getting that version out of your head and into something the world can actually receive. That's where it gets hard. And that's where most people get stuck.

If that's where you are, that's exactly what I do.

— Ian Adams, Founder @ sofa.

Twenty years in global advertising. Now I work with founders on the stuff that actually matters.