When a marketer arrives and says, “This is better,” he’s wrong. He actually means, “This is better for someone and it might be better for you.”

1. Start with empathy to see a real need. Not an invented one, not “How can I start a business?” but, “What would matter here?” 2. Focus on the smallest viable market: “How few people could find this indispensable and still make it worth doing?” 3. Match the worldview of the people being served. Show up in the world with a story that they want to

If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile. The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. Who’s it for and what’s it for are the two questions that guide

You cannot change everyone; therefore, asking, “Who’s it for?” can focus your actions and help you deal with the nonbelievers (in your head and in the outside world).

Are you the kind of person who buys the cheapest wine on the menu? What about the most expensive? Notice that neither question said anything about the wine itself. Not about its taste or its value. Simply the price.

Slack began by doing a pattern match, offering new software to people who like new software. A new way of doing work for people looking for a new way of doing work. But then came the leap. They gave this group a tool to create a pattern interrupt. Peer to peer. One worker saying to another, “We’re going to try this new tool.” That single horizontal

Begin instead with the smallest viable market. What’s the minimum number of people you would need to influence to make it worth the effort?

a focus on the customer as the only project of a startup. Customer development is the act of gaining traction with customers, of finding a fit between what you make and what they want. This traction is worth far more than fancy technology or expensive marketing. That, and only that, separates successful projects from unsuccessful ones.

The other kind of marketing, the effective kind, is about understanding our customers’ worldview and desires so we can connect with them. It’s focused on being missed when you’re gone, on bringing more than people expect to those who trust us. It seeks volunteers, not victims.