Anti-Marketing
I have a fun exercise for you that usually beats founders up a bit. I call it “Anti-Marketing,” and it’s, at worst, an exercise to sharpen your marketing copy and customer persona and, at best, the way you’ll get the majority of early customers interested.
When you don’t have much of a brand or social proof, it’s hard to build trust in the 6 seconds of attention you’ll get from customers in your cold emails or social ads or mailers or whatever. Often, the fastest way to build fast trust is to describe who you aren’t for and what you don't do, rather than who you're for and what you do. It's also hard to do, because our instincts are always that we can help everyone.
Here’s an example: When I started Tacklebox, no one knew who I was so there was no reason to trust me. Our early ad campaigns promised to “help idea stage entrepreneurs build a startup the right way from square one,” but that messaging was flimsy. It held zero weight because that promise — helping you do something right - requires you to trust that I know how to do something right. If you don't know me, why would you trust that? So I did an anti-marketing exercise. Who am I specifically not for ?I made a list. I’m not for…
People already in the startup world
People who already quit their jobs to build their startup
People trying to build big, venture-backed startups
People trying to build side-hustles with no intention of ever doing it full-time
People building in domains where they aren't already experts
Jerks
This should be hard. You should feel like you’re leaving out people who you think you could help, and that's the point. If you aren't uncomfortable about who you leave out, you haven't left out nearly enough customers. Next, I tried some anti-messaging. I suggest 10-15 of these - here are a few:
“A startup program for people who aren’t trying to raise venture funding”
“A startup program for people with full-time jobs who aren’t going to quit them unless the idea gets traction”
Then, start to combine them and see what lands. This formula is magic:
“We aren’t for X + we are for A, and we help them do B so that they can C”
“We aren’t for people who are trying to raise funding or people looking for an excuse to quit their job + we help people flesh out their startup ideas around their jobs to see if they could support a business that makes sense to start
We aren’t for people looking for a side revenue stream or people trying to build something based on flashy new tech. We help people flesh out their startup ideas around their jobs to see if they could support a business that makes sense to start.”
I polished and tested this a ton, getting it down to 15-20 words, and the anti-messaging drove far more interest.The big idea here is that you’re trying to align with people’s values to build trust, and often people are better at recognizing what they don’t like than what they do. You don’t like this, we don’t like it either. A twist on Seth’s “people like us do things like this” - “people like us don’t do things like this.”
You'll start to notice brands, particularly new brands, do this all the time. Apple launched what's widely known as the greatest commercial of all time by saying who they weren't for. Until you’ve got a brand, the most potent rallying cry might be what you’re against. Which requires you publicly calling out who you aren’t for, which is tough. But necessary.
And, when what you're against is accepted as status quo or good enough by most people (and the people this isn't good enough for know it), this can really work. Here's the exercise:
List specific types of customer you aren't for, at least at the start. Pick people you've interviewed. Your initial product shouldn't be for most of them.
Create some anti-messaging. 10 to 15 "we aren't for..."
Tie it in with the we help Y sttc Z: "We aren't for X. We help A do B so that they can C" or "We aren't for X. We help A so that they can B."
Who are you aggressively not for?