Many entrepreneurs work on the principle of “do more, and something will work”, but in the era of AI, it’s not the quantity that matters, but the accuracy. To act precisely, you need hypotheses — but not everyone understands what they are and how to test them at the early stages.
90% of startups fail, and 10% of them close in the first year. The main reasons for failure:
Focusing on what doesn’t work: the idea is not needed by the market, but the founder persistently tries to sell it to someone.
Lack of fast iterations: ideas take a long time to form and test.
Chaotic actions without focus.
A product hypothesis is a description of positioning: how the product is perceived in the market. April Dunford, an expert in the field of market strategy, compares it to the beginning of a film: from the first seconds it is clear whether it is a comedy, drama or thriller.
The main elements of a product positioning hypothesis:
What kind of product are you selling?
Who uses it?
What problem does it solve?
What is the value?
How is the value conveyed (key features, format)?
What is unique compared to any alternative solutions?
Clearly written hypotheses help to quickly find working solutions, adjust marketing and avoid meaningless actions. At the same time, the main mistakes in testing hypotheses are the lack of recording hypotheses, conclusions about what worked and what didn’t, clear differentiation in the market, as well as attempts to test the channel instead of the positioning itself.
We write down all 6 elements of positioning and choose one hypothesis that seems most probable.
The first testing of hypotheses is always communication with potential buyers. For more effective testing, it is desirable to have marketing or sales materials: a website, presentations.
Any marketing and sales materials should be built based on the structure of the master sentence - sales messages developed specifically for the selected segment.
Do not be afraid to play with wording, test to find the best option. It is always worth remembering that positioning is a constant multi-iteration process.
In this part of the positioning, the main advantages of the product are described (no more than three), namely how and with the help of what it manages to convey the declared value.
- Why your product?
This part is very often missing in marketing and sales messages, which significantly delays the process of choosing a client, especially with an average and high check. If you provide the wording right away, it will speed up the client's decision to buy or go to a demo.
An example of written positioning.
The first stage of testing is always custdev, to get the necessary information faster. If you really hit the audience and its pain, then custdev can be the first sale.
If you have found an audience that is really interested in your product, then you need to clarify additional information with them:
What channels / publications / portals they read;
What events they attend;
How they search for similar products / services;
Where and with whom they communicate on professional topics;
What experts they listen to and watch.
What language the target audience speaks and how they describe your product (that is, WHAT needs to be changed to make the message more accessible).
Which audience is not ready to buy (that is, WHO needs to be changed).
Why did the audience become interested in your product? This question is a good one to ask if you are conducting a demo. This allows you to make a demo call targeted.
What value will the client receive and how will it affect their condition (value adjustment).
What do they especially like about the product or what does the client especially value? It is better to ask questions to those who have already started using the product.
All these actions will help build effective and targeted marketing through those channels that will be closest to your potential audience.
As a result, you will be able to launch marketing and sales campaigns based on the already formed positioning messages.
The main thing is to abandon illusions. If a segment does not respond to a demo or a sale, then you need to:
Revise customer pain points
For example, if customers “come to the call” (answer your questions), but do not buy. This means that they have pain, but they do not see the value or solution to their problem. If customers do not respond, then most likely you are selling a vitamin, not a painkiller.
Adjust the value proposition
Perhaps the product lacks an essential ingredient that would make the product attractive specifically to this target audience.
Detail the working segment
However, segmenting is usually extremely difficult at the beginning of work, since there is no understanding of your audience.
1. Find geeks. If you are making an IT product and are just bringing it to market, only geeks will buy it from you — people who are constantly testing something new, sitting on Product Hunt, communities of founders and entrepreneurs and following new products. And here you need to immediately figure out: where in my field can such geeks be?
2. Determine the priorities of early users. This category is also open to new innovative technologies. Therefore, it is necessary to decide what else the client should use so that your product is ideal for him? That is, to find the trigger “when my product will be most valuable” — it is necessary to study the entire value chain in the user's work.
3. Catch the buyer's intent. At what point does the target user have a need for you? What should happen to the business for him to have such an idea to contact you? Determine the moment of change in the client's circumstances, when he begins to feel severe pain and look for a solution for it.
Let's summarize. What does a fast iteration cycle give? Constantly refining the audience, increasing the conversion of marketing messages, understanding what features are missing in the product, quickly identifying unsuccessful ideas and focusing on promising ones.
Unsuccessful ideas are inevitable. The main thing is not to be afraid to discard them and look for those that will lead to success.
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