Today was a rough day. Not dramatic. Not terrible. Just one of those days that leaves you sitting there later thinking, yeah… I needed that, even if I didn’t enjoy it.
I joined two public sessions. One was a business networking meetup. The other was a landing page review with an expert designer in a Discord startup community. I went into both, telling myself I was just there to listen, which is what I would normally do in these kinds of spaces.
But for some reason, I didn’t want to stay quiet this time.
At the meetup, I explained my product. No slides. No preparation. Camera off. I already knew that wasn’t ideal, but I figured I’d treat it as a trial run since I’m still new to pitching.
People didn’t really react to what I said. They reacted to the fact that my camera was off.
One guy joked in the chat about how no one could trust someone who wouldn’t turn their camera on. I explained that I didn’t expect to present and that I was just trying to get more comfortable talking about what I’m building.
Then the same guy, whose whole brand is about helping people pitch, told me I should join his course.
I respectfully declined. Not because he was wrong about his honesty. But because of the way he said it, which didn’t feel like genuine help.
And what made it weird is that I was technically his target audience. I probably would have been interested in what he had to offer. But the trust just wasn’t there anymore.
That stuck with me more than I expected.
I don’t want to be someone who talks about helping while making people feel small. I don’t want to sell confidence. I want to build it, slowly, with people.
Later that day, I joined the design session.
I was honestly nervous. He reviewed two landing pages before mine and didn’t hold back at all. Normally, I would have just stayed quiet and observed. This time I didn’t.
I shared mine.
PromptMe (placeholder product name).
The audience and the expert didn’t attack it. They didn’t try to be clever about it either. They just asked simple questions.
What is this website actually about?
Why should I care?
What problem does this solve for me?
He said I was trying to say too much. That I needed to pick one benefit and let everything else wait.
And yeah… he was right.
Friends had reviewed my product before. They helped. But they were also kind in a way that made it harder to see what really wasn’t working. This room wasn’t kind. It was just honest. And that honesty helped more than encouragement. It reminded me of the book The Mom Test (recommended for those entrepreneurs and product developers), which I forgot to apply the strategies to.
That’s when it hit me.
My product wasn’t unclear.
My explanation was.
I wasn’t lying about what it did. I just wasn’t translating it into something people could feel.
I keep thinking about how marketing isn’t really about convincing people. It’s about understanding what someone is already struggling with, and then choosing what to say first. My landing page tried to say everything. It should have just said one thing clearly.
The day wasn’t embarrassing. It was grounding.
Two rooms. Two different kinds of discomfort. Both necessary.
I don’t want to sound confident if I’m not. I don’t want to sell authority. I don’t want to be ready. I just want to build things that help people, and slowly get better at explaining them.
If you’re building something and only showing it to people who already like you, you’re probably protecting yourself more than your product. I’m still learning that too.
Slowly. Publicly. A little awkwardly.
And honestly, that’s what this stage and process actually feels like.
—Surukode
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.