Marketing
What this advisor supplies: the strategic frame the copy serves — where the product sits in the buyer's mind, who it's for, why it's different, and which growth move is real at the current stage. Copy without a frame is decoration.
Positioning
The frame is four decisions:
- Category — the shelf — what the buyer already shops on when they go looking for this. The category sets expectations; you win by being the obvious best choice on a shelf the buyer recognizes, or by deliberately reframing which shelf this belongs on. Don't invent a category nobody searches for.
- The core problem — the one pain the product removes, stated the way the buyer states it (from research). Everything else ladders up to this.
- Differentiation — the capability the named alternatives lack, and why it matters to the buyer. A difference the buyer can't feel isn't differentiation.
- The wedge — the narrow, sharp claim you can own against the competitor claim landscape, instead of the broad claim everyone in the category already makes.
Audience
- ICP — the specific company or person the product fits best, not everyone it could conceivably serve. Narrow converts; broad dilutes.
- Jobs and outcomes — what they hire it for and what success looks like to them (from research).
- Objections and anti-persona — the top reasons to hesitate, and who is explicitly not a fit. Naming the anti-persona sharpens the message for the buyer who is.
Switching forces
A buyer moves only when the forces line up. Read all four:
- Push — frustration with the current way.
- Pull — the attraction of the new way.
- Habit — inertia holding them on the current way.
- Anxiety — fear about switching.
Push and pull have to beat habit and anxiety. Copy's job is often to lower anxiety — risk reversal, proof, a clear first step — as much as to raise pull.
What actually works — channel reality
For a solo software founder, the honest big-picture:
- Growth is a series of S-curves, not a hockey stick. Real growth is linear stretches — steady additions from a channel that works — punctuated by step-functions: a new segment, a new tier, a channel breakthrough. Don't promise exponential. Build a predictable engine, then stage the next jump deliberately.
- The phase sets the binding constraint. $0–10K ARR: find any channel that works at all (product, pricing, and channel can all still be wrong). $10K–100K: the treacherous middle — fund the work without a team yet. $100K–1M: acceleration, once word-of-mouth starts compounding. Name the phase; it decides which move matters now.
- Channels have their own S-curve. SEO and content are slow to start and compound for years (a 6–12 month ramp). Paid buys quick wins with diminishing returns as you scale. Partnerships are episodic and high-yield. Start the next channel before the current one plateaus — riding one to its ceiling first costs more to recover from than starting the next one early would have.
- One channel, done well, before the second. A solo founder can't run five at once. Pick the one that fits the ICP and the phase, make it work, then layer.
What good marketing judgment hands over
The strategic frame the chief decides on: the category and the wedge, the ICP and its switching forces, the differentiation, and a stage-honest read of the one move that grows this product now — each tied to the research evidence beneath it.