“Our market is massive.”

“Our TAM is huge.”

“We can sell to everyone.”

Cool.

Now say it again without using the word everyone.

Most can’t.

Because Big TAM is often not strategy.

It’s a hiding place.

A way to avoid hard choices.
A way to avoid saying no.
A way to avoid being wrong.

And under the hood, it usually isn’t ambition.

It’s anxiety.

The myth: Big market = big outcome

Founders love Big TAM because it feels safe.

If the market is enormous, then your startup must be worth something.
If the market is enormous, then your lack of traction is “just timing.”
If the market is enormous, then every investor deck looks better.

But reality doesn’t care about your market size.

Reality cares about this:

Can you win a specific customer, with a specific problem, in a specific way, repeatedly?

That’s it.

That’s the whole game.

Bezos didn’t start with “everything”

If Jeff Bezos were starting Amazon today, he wouldn’t say:

“We sell everything to everybody.”

He would do what he did back then.

He would start with books.

Why?

Because books were a wedge.

A sharp entry point into a market that looked infinite, but could only be conquered one narrow beachhead at a time.

Same with Facebook.

Zuckerberg didn’t start with “the whole world.”

He started with college students.

Not because the world wasn’t attractive.

Because focus creates momentum.

The real reason founders cling to Big TAM

Here’s what’s happening most of the time.

A founder raises a bigger round than they expected.
Or they feel pressure because everyone else is raising.
Or they’re trying to justify valuation.

And then the language changes:

From “we solve this one painful thing for this one type of buyer”
to “we’re a platform”
to “we’re horizontal”
to “we’re for every company that has X.”

Which is basically every company.

The problem is not that big markets are bad.

The problem is that founders use big markets to avoid committing to a real one.

Because committing means you have to choose.

And choosing means you have to exclude.

And exclusion feels like death to a founder with runway anxiety.

So instead you say:

“We’ll start broad and narrow later.”

That sentence is usually the beginning of the end.

Big TAM creates small execution

When you try to sell to everyone, this is what you actually build:

• A generic message

• A generic website

• A generic pitch

• A generic product roadmap

• A generic outbound list

• A generic sales process

Which means you compete in the most crowded part of the market.

And you wonder why it’s so hard.

It’s hard because nobody can tell why you matter.

When you’re for everyone, you’re differentiated for no one.

Narrow isn’t limiting. It’s a weapon.

The best startups I see aren’t “bigger.”

They’re sharper.

They pick a wedge where they can dominate.

They choose a buyer where the pain is obvious.
They choose a use case where the ROI is undeniable.
They choose an environment where competitors are lazy or generic.

Then they become the obvious choice.

And once you’re the obvious choice for one group, expanding becomes earned.

Not imagined.

A practical test: can you name your wedge in one sentence?

If you’re a founder, answer these without thinking too hard:

1. Who do you want as your first 25 customers?

2. What do they have that makes them similar?

3. What problem do they already agree is urgent?

4. What’s the one outcome they will pay for this quarter?

5. Why are you the best choice for them, not “everyone”?

If you can’t answer those, your TAM is not helping you.

It’s distracting you.

Another test: if you disappeared, would they be upset?

Most founders claim they’re building “critical infrastructure.”

So here’s the question:

If you shut down tomorrow, would your buyer feel real pain in 7 days?

If the answer is no, you’re not in a huge market.

You’re in a nice-to-have market.

Which is fine.

But then your strategy needs to reflect that reality.

Big TAM language won’t save you there.

The truth

Big TAM thinking feels confident.

But it often signals the opposite.

It signals a founder who is nervous about focus.
Nervous about limiting the story.
Nervous about picking the wrong customer.

So they pick none.

And call it a platform.

Here’s the punchline I want you to sit with:

If you can’t pick a narrow wedge, you don’t have a strategy.

You have anxiety.

What I’d do if I were you

Pick a wedge for the next 90 days.

Not forever.

Just 90 days.

Pick a buyer.
Pick a use case.
Pick a problem.
Pick a single “why now.”

Then build everything around that.

Your messaging will tighten.
Your outbound will get easier.
Your product decisions will stop being debates.
Your sales cycle will shorten because buyers will recognize themselves.

And for the first time, you’ll feel momentum that isn’t forced.

If you’re stuck, steal this framework

Use this fill-in-the-blank:

“We help [specific customer] solve [specific painful problem] so they can achieve [specific measurable outcome], without [common alternative / constraint].”

If you can’t fill that in without using vague words like “optimize,” “streamline,” or “AI-powered,” you don’t have a wedge yet.

You have a vibe.

Final thought

Can you clearly say who you win with and why they buy now?

Not in a deck.
Not in theory.
In a real sales call.

If not, that’s the bottleneck.

Not pipeline.
Not TAM.
Not awareness.

Clarity.

That’s exactly what I fix in the Sprint GTM Reset.

→ https://daverubinstein.com/sprint-gtm-reset

It says:

• We don’t know who we’re best for

• We’re afraid to say no

• We’re hoping volume will fix clarity

It won’t.

The lie founders tell themselves

Most founders think ICP is a market-sizing exercise.

Who could buy this?
How big is the TAM?
How many logos fit the slide?

That’s not ICP.

Real ICP work is uncomfortable because it forces tradeoffs.
And tradeoffs feel risky when you’re staring at burn and runway.

So founders avoid them.

What ICP actually means (and why most get it wrong)

ICP is not:

• Job titles

• Company size bands

• “Anyone with this problem”

ICP is who you can win, deliver for, and repeat.

All three.
Not one.
Not two.

If you can win the deal but churn them later, that’s not ICP.
If you can deliver but can’t close consistently, that’s not ICP.
If you close one-off deals you can’t repeat, that’s not ICP.

That’s noise.

Why “broad” ICPs slow growth

I’ve seen this pattern over and over in founder conversations.

Broad ICPs create:

• Longer sales cycles

• Messier demos

• Feature sprawl

• Custom everything

• Inconsistent delivery

• Confused positioning

Founders call this “early-stage chaos.”

It’s not.

It’s self-inflicted.

When you don’t know exactly who you’re for, every deal feels like a maybe.
And every maybe steals focus from the customers you could actually dominate.

The hidden cost of unclear ICP

Here’s what most founders miss.

ICP clarity doesn’t just improve sales.

It improves:

• Messaging

• Pricing

• Roadmaps

• Hiring

• Onboarding

• Retention

When ICP is fuzzy, every downstream decision gets debated.

When ICP is clear, decisions get faster.

Speed follows clarity.

A better way to think about ICP

Instead of asking:
“Who might buy this?”

Ask:

• Who closes fastest?

• Who gets value without hand-holding?

• Who renews without drama?

• Who refers others like them?

• Who stretches the product the least?

That cluster is your ICP.

Not the biggest market.
The cleanest one.

Why founders resist narrowing

Narrowing feels like shrinking.

In reality, it’s concentrating.

Amazon didn’t start with “retail.”
They started with books.

Facebook didn’t start with “everyone.”
They started with college students.

Those weren’t limitations.
They were leverage.

You earn the right to expand after repetition works.

The dangerous middle ground

The most common failure mode I see isn’t being too narrow.

It’s being vague.

Founders say:

• “We sell to SMB and enterprise”

• “We’re horizontal”

• “It works across industries”

What they really mean is:
“We haven’t earned focus yet.”

That vagueness infects everything.

Sales can’t qualify.
Marketing can’t target.
Product can’t prioritize.
Founders stay involved forever.

A simple ICP gut check

If you can’t answer these in one sentence, you don’t have ICP clarity yet:

• “We win fastest with ___”

• “We deliver best for ___”

• “We can repeat this sale because ___”

If those answers change every week, growth will too.

Final thought

Growth doesn’t come from a bigger market.

It comes from precision.

ICP clarity is the multiplier behind:

• Faster sales

• Cleaner delivery

• Stronger word of mouth

• More confident expansion later

“SMB and enterprise” isn’t ambition.

It’s avoidance.

Pick who you can dominate first.

Everything else gets easier after that.

If this hit, you already know the truth.
You don’t have a pipeline problem.
You don’t have a product problem.
You have a clarity problem.

And adding more top of funnel is just making it worse.

I run a 5-day Sprint GTM Reset with founders in this exact spot.
We isolate the one constraint slowing growth and fix it fast.

Not theory. Not frameworks.
One clear decision you’ve been avoiding.

If you’re serious about fixing it:
https://daverubinstein.com/sprint-gtm-reset

That logic used to work.

It doesn’t anymore.

The uncomfortable shift

Products have never been easier to build. Teams are smaller. Tooling is better. AI compresses development cycles.

Which means the advantage of “having a great product” expires faster than ever. A feature that felt differentiated six months ago is table stakes today. A clever workflow gets copied. A shiny demo becomes a checkbox.

If your advantage is the product you have right now, you’re already behind.

What actually compounds

In the conversations I’ve had with founders across industries, the pattern is clear. The companies that keep winning aren’t the ones with the deepest feature set. They’re the ones that decide faster, align teams quicker, adjust direction without drama, and stay clear on who they’re for and why.

That’s not a product advantage. That’s a leadership advantage.

The trade most founders miss

You can optimize for more features, broader use cases, more “what if” scenarios. Or you can optimize for faster decisions, cleaner priorities, and clear ownership.

In fast markets, the second list wins. Every time. Because execution speed doesn’t come from code — it comes from clarity.

Why great products still lose

I’ve seen this play out repeatedly. A startup has a strong product, smart engineers, real customer interest. But leadership is fuzzy. Decisions linger. Strategy shifts weekly. Everyone has an opinion. No one owns the call.

The product keeps improving. The company stalls.

Meanwhile, a competitor with a simpler product but stronger leadership keeps moving. They ship fewer things — but the right things, at the right time, for the right customer. And they win.

What leadership actually looks like

Leadership isn’t charisma. It’s not vision decks. In early-stage companies, it looks like saying no when it’s uncomfortable, picking a wedge and defending it, ending debates with decisions, and repeating the same priorities until they stick.

That’s the moat. Because most teams can build. Very few teams can stay aligned while building.

The founder as constraint — or catalyst

In almost every stalled company, leadership is the bottleneck. Not because the founder isn’t smart. But because they’re carrying too many options at once. They want to keep flexibility. They want to avoid being wrong. They want to keep everyone happy.

That kills speed.

Clarity feels restrictive. But restriction is what creates momentum.

A simple test

• Could your team explain your top priority without you in the room?

• Do decisions feel obvious or exhausting?

• Are you shipping because you’re clear — or because you’re busy?

• If the product vanished tomorrow, would the team know what to do next?

If the answer is no, the moat isn’t the product. It’s missing leadership infrastructure.

Why leadership outlasts any roadmap

Roadmaps change. Markets shift. Products evolve. Leadership is what lets a company reorient without panic, learn faster than competitors, and keep moving when the plan breaks. That’s why it compounds — it’s reusable, transferable, and survives pivots. Products don’t.

A great product can get you attention. Leadership determines whether you keep it.

Stop asking: “How do we build more?” Start asking: “How do we decide better?”

That’s the advantage that doesn’t get copied.

From the field

If this issue raised a question about your own leadership clarity — how decisions get made, where alignment breaks down, what’s actually slowing you down — I work through exactly that with founders one-on-one.

Take the diagnostic at daverubinstein.com →

Your buyer met with ten vendors this month.

They all have AI. They all have case studies. They all have a polished deck and a demo that runs smoothly.

By call three, your buyer cannot tell any of you apart. And when everything looks the same, the easiest decision is no decision.

I hear this from founders constantly: “Our product is genuinely better. We cannot understand why we are not winning.”

Here is the hard truth from 250+ founder conversations: features can be copied in weeks. Whatever your unique capability is today, the model, the integration, the automation, your competitors can replicate it. Maybe not perfectly, but enough that buyers will not see a meaningful difference.

Product gets you in the door. It does not win the deal.

The founders swimming hardest in the sea of sameness are the ones leading with capability. The ones breaking out of it are leading with something that cannot be copied: their understanding of the buyer’s world.

Here is the counterintuitive insight: clear positioning beats superior product.

I have watched founders with genuinely better technology lose to weaker competitors consistently, because the competitor was easier to understand, easier to explain to a boss, easier to fit into a recognizable category.

Buyers are overwhelmed. They are not carefully evaluating ten vendors. They are looking for a reason to simplify the decision. Complexity confuses. Clarity cuts through.

Three things that actually differentiate at the early stage:

Industry perspective, not product features. The best founders do not start by talking about what they built. They start by demonstrating they understand the buyer’s world better than anyone else. They come with a point of view, not just a pitch.

Value before the sale. One founder I know sends a brief analysis of the prospect’s current approach before every demo, specific observations, no strings attached. By the time they are on the call, trust is already there. Nobody else did that.

The questions nobody else asks. “What has changed to make solving this now matter?” “What does this look like in six months if nothing changes?” Most vendors never ask these. The ones who do stand out immediately.

You are the product at this stage. Act like it.

A founder I worked with was losing deals consistently to a competitor with an objectively weaker product. Same category. Lower quality. Winning more.

When I sat in on his calls, the problem was obvious. He was spending 40 minutes showing features. The competitor was spending 40 minutes asking about the buyer’s specific situation and feeding back what they heard.

The buyer felt understood by the competitor. They felt informed by my founder.

Feeling understood closes deals. Feeling informed produces follow-up emails that do not get answered.

We changed one thing: he stopped opening with the product and started opening with a two-paragraph summary of what he had observed about their business from public information, a recent earnings call, a job posting, a leadership change. Something that showed he had done real work before showing up.

His next three calls all had a defined next step. The product had not changed. The approach had.

What is one thing you do in a sales conversation that no other vendor in your category does?

If you cannot answer that quickly, that is worth sitting with.

If you are not sure what is actually slowing your revenue right now, the GTM Diagnostic will show you. 12 questions, under 3 minutes, your primary constraint identified.

daverubinstein.com/gtm-diagnostic

It sounds ambitious. It feels strategic. Investors nod politely.

But in early-stage B2B SaaS, broad positioning kills momentum.

The founders who actually build large companies do not start with an empire story.
They start with a wedge.

If you are struggling with long sales cycles, inconsistent wins, or a sales hire that “isn’t working,” you likely do not have a sales problem.

You have a starting point problem.

This is the Wedge vs Empire Paradox: trying to scale breadth before you have won depth.

The Wedge Strategy: What It Actually Means

A wedge is not a small vision.

It is a precise entry point into a large market.

When Amazon launched, it did not start with “global commerce.” It started with books.
When Facebook launched, it did not start with “social networking.” It started with college students.

Books.
College students.

Specific. Constrained. Focused.

Those were not small ideas. They were deliberate constraints.

In B2B SaaS, a wedge typically includes:

• A clearly defined buyer persona

• A specific triggering event

• One urgent problem

• One measurable outcome

If you cannot describe your initial market in one sentence, you do not have a wedge. You have a wish.

Why Early-Stage Startups Need a Wedge

A real wedge does three things immediately:

1. Creates recognition
   The buyer sees themselves in your message within seconds.

2. Shortens the sales cycle
   You are not explaining your relevance. You are confirming it.

3. Builds repeatability
   Wins look similar. Objections are predictable. Messaging sharpens.

Empire positioning does none of this.

Empire thinking sounds like:

• “We can support multiple use cases.”

• “Different industries buy for different reasons.”

• “We will start broad and narrow later.”

Translation: we do not yet know who this is truly for.

Exploration is fine. Pretending you are ready to scale while still exploring is not.

The Hidden Cost of Skipping the Wedge

When founders avoid narrowing, the damage shows up quickly:

• Sales calls become long explanations

• Demos turn into feature tours

• Marketing messaging becomes generic

• Early wins cannot be replicated

• The first sales hire struggles

Founders often interpret this as a go-to-market execution issue.

It is not.

It is a clarity issue.

Scale amplifies clarity.
It does not create it.

How to Identify a Real Wedge in B2B SaaS

If you are unsure whether you have a true wedge, answer these four questions:

1. Who is this definitely not for?

2. What specific problem are we solving this quarter?

3. What measurable outcome should this buyer achieve in 90 days?

4. Why are we the obvious choice for this specific segment?

If those answers feel restrictive, that is a good sign.

Constraint forces precision.
Precision creates traction.

What Successful Founders Understand About Sequencing

The biggest misconception about wedge strategy is that it limits long-term potential.

It does the opposite.

A wedge is temporary by design. It earns you:

• Proof

• References

• Revenue

• Pattern recognition

• Product insight

Once you dominate one defined segment, expansion becomes easier, not harder.

You move from:

“Can this work?”
to
“Where else does this obviously apply?”

The founders who win think sequentially:

Win here.
Then expand.
Then expand again.

Wedge vs. Total Addressable Market (TAM)

Investors love TAM slides.

But early-stage execution is not about theoretical market size.
It is about demonstrated traction within a narrow segment.

A focused wedge:

• Improves customer acquisition efficiency

• Reduces messaging confusion

• Increases referral velocity

• Clarifies product roadmap decisions

Broad TAM positioning without a wedge increases:

• CAC

• Sales cycle length

• Product bloat

• Internal confusion

If your positioning requires five minutes of explanation, it is not a wedge.

A Simple Founder Test: “What’s Your Books?”

Instead of asking:

“What is our market?”
or
“Who else could buy this?”

Ask:

What is our “books”?

What is the one group we are going to dominate first?

If you cannot answer that in one sentence, you are not ready to scale.

And that is okay.

What is dangerous is hiring, spending, and forecasting as if clarity already exists.

Key Takeaways

• A wedge is a precise entry point, not a small ambition.

• Early-stage B2B SaaS growth requires depth before breadth.

• Skipping the wedge leads to long sales cycles and inconsistent wins.

• Scale amplifies clarity; it does not create it.

• Expansion becomes easier only after you dominate a narrow segment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a wedge in B2B SaaS?

A wedge is a narrowly defined initial market segment with a clear buyer, urgent problem, and measurable outcome. It serves as the entry point for broader expansion.

Does focusing on a wedge limit growth?

No. A wedge accelerates growth by creating traction, proof, and repeatability. Expansion is easier once you have earned credibility in one segment.

How do I know if my positioning is too broad?

If your value proposition requires multiple use cases, multiple industries, or multiple buyer types to explain, it is likely too broad for early-stage scale.

When should a startup expand beyond its wedge?

After consistent, repeatable wins within the initial segment and a clear understanding of why those wins occur.

Is a wedge only for venture-backed startups?

No. Any early-stage company selling into a competitive market benefits from narrow positioning before scaling.

Empires are built sequentially.

Conquer one territory completely.
Earn proof.
Build references.
Then expand.

Before you pitch your TAM, before you hire a sales team, before you declare product-market fit:

Define your wedge.

Originally published at https://daverubinstein.com/narrow-before-you-scale. More frameworks for founders at the moment founder-led sales starts to break.

Most founders still think product-market fit is a product problem.

Build something better than what exists.
Add features.
Improve UX.
Ship faster.
Out-execute everyone.

That mindset used to work.

Today, it quietly kills a lot of great companies.

After speaking with more than 250 founders across stages, geographies, and product categories, I keep seeing the same pattern.

It does not vary by geo.
It does not vary by category.
It does not even vary by pricing model.

It varies by one thing.

Whether the market can recognize you fast enough to care.

The old model: win by being better

A decade ago, “better” was differentiation.

If your product was 20 percent better, you could earn attention.
If you shipped faster, you could outpace incumbents.
If you had a sharper UI, you could win deals.

Now “better” is table stakes.

AI made “better” cheap.

Everyone can ship faster.
Everyone can add features.
Everyone can look polished.

So buyers do what humans always do when overwhelmed.

They default to what feels familiar.
They pick the safe option.
They avoid evaluating new vendors because it is exhausting.

This is why founders feel like they are doing everything right, but growth feels heavier than it should.

The product works.
Customers like it.
Early deals happen.

But escape velocity never shows up.

The modern constraint: recognition beats differentiation

The constraint is not whether you can build something strong.

The constraint is whether a buyer can understand, in seconds, why you exist and why you matter.

In crowded markets, buyers are not evaluating capability.

They are evaluating clarity.

They want to collapse risk quickly.

And the fastest way they collapse risk is not feature comparison.

It is recognition.

Do they understand my world?
Do they sound like people who work with companies like mine?
Do they talk about problems I actually have, without me translating?

If the buyer cannot answer those questions quickly, you are noise, even if you are excellent.

The trap founders fall into: selling math instead of certainty

When categories get crowded, founders often reach for ROI math to force belief.

There is a huge number here.
If we win back 10 percent, it is millions.
It pays for itself.

The intent is good.

The result is not.

The moment you lead with percentages, buyers start negotiating assumptions instead of engaging the problem.

Where did that number come from?
How do you know those deals are revivable?
What portion was timing versus competitive loss?

You end up in a conversation you cannot win.

The better move is to sell certainty.

There is real value here.
You are not working it consistently.
We can prove impact quickly.

Earn the right to quantify later.

The only durable advantage: target, not features

Features get copied.
Workflows get copied.
AI gets copied instantly.

In a world where product parity happens fast, the most durable advantage is not what you built.

It is who you built it for.

Most founders optimize differentiation around capabilities.

The winners optimize around recognition.

Because you can copy a product in weeks.

You cannot copy a posture, a customer set, a language, and a reputation in weeks.

The niche test: if it feels comfortable, it is not small enough

When founders tell me they are niching down, I ask one question.

Does it make you uncomfortable?

If everyone on the team nods and nobody gets nervous, it is not a bet.

Real niches force tradeoffs.

They change who you say no to.
They shape your roadmap.
They affect your messaging.
They determine where you show up and who vouches for you.

They make your company easier to understand and harder to ignore.

The Bezos move: win small, then expand

Many founders chase the biggest possible TAM.

They think going smaller is limiting.

It is the opposite.

The companies that win become the obvious choice somewhere specific first.

They earn trust faster because buyers feel understood.

Then they expand.

This is not about playing small.

It is about avoiding the eye of the storm.

You do not outshout a crowded market.

You step slightly to the side and become undeniable.

The punchline

Product-market fit is no longer “better than what exists.”

Everything is better than what exists.

Modern product-market fit is recognition.

How quickly does a buyer feel this was built for me, by people who understand my world, for customers who look like us?

If you can create that feeling, you do not need to convince.

You get pulled.

A question to sit with

If your product is objectively good, but growth feels heavier than it should, ask yourself:

Are we trying to differentiate by adding features, or by becoming recognizable to a specific buyer?

One creates noise.

The other creates gravity.

And gravity wins.

---

**If you liked this, you might also like:**

→ The Sea of Sameness: How B2B Founders Stand Out

→ Big TAM Is Not Ambition. It's Avoidance.

→ The Moat Isn’t The Product

For years, the best sales advice in the world could be summarized in one sentence:

Your biggest competitor is “do nothing.”

Deals died because buyers stayed put.
They waited.
They delayed.
They chose comfort over change.

In 2026, that framing is outdated.

Your biggest competitor is not “do nothing.”

Your biggest competitor is noise.

And if you sell anything that looks remotely like AI, automation, enablement, platforms, agents, or efficiency, you already know this is true.

You are not losing because buyers do not want to act.

You are losing because they do not know who to trust.

Do nothing was passive. Noise is active.

“Do nothing” meant stagnation.

Noise looks like movement.

Buyers are:

• taking meetings

• running pilots

• forwarding vendors internally

• asking for decks

• comparing options

• “aligning with stakeholders”

From the outside, this looks like progress.

Inside the buyer’s head, it is paralysis disguised as productivity.

They are not disengaged.
They are overloaded.

And overloaded people default to the safest possible move.

Not because they are lazy.

Because they are trying not to be wrong.

Why noise is more dangerous than do nothing

When “do nothing” was the enemy, your job was to create urgency.

In 2026, urgency already exists.

Most buyers feel pressure to:

• “do something with AI”

• “run experiments”

• “modernize the stack”

• “prove innovation to leadership”

• “avoid falling behind”

The problem is not motivation.

The problem is decision confidence.

Noise destroys decision confidence in three ways.

1. Everything sounds the same

Most products are good enough.
Most pitches are polished.
Most demos look impressive.

When buyers cannot tell the difference, they assume there is no difference.

And when there is no perceived difference, the safest move is to wait, expand the evaluation, or choose the incumbent.

Noise does not kill deals loudly.

It quietly erases distinction.

2. Fear of choosing wrong outweighs desire to choose right

In 2026, buying AI feels less like buying software and more like choosing a direction.

Buyers are thinking:

• “If this fails, it’s on me.”

• “If I choose wrong, we lose a quarter.”

• “If this becomes foundational, I better be sure.”

So they hedge.

They add vendors.
They extend pilots.
They increase scrutiny.

They move slower while convincing themselves they are being thorough.

3. Activity replaces intent

Noise creates motion.

Motion creates false confidence on your side.

This is the most dangerous trap for founders and early GTM teams.

You see:

• meetings booked

• pilots launched

• enthusiastic feedback

• internal handoffs

And you assume momentum.

But the buyer is not buying.

They are learning.
They are protecting themselves.
They are staying non-committal on purpose.

Noise is not the buyer’s fault

This part matters.

Buyers are not irrational.

They are responding to a market where:

• dozens of vendors sound credible

• value claims blur together

• implementation risk is real

• teams are understaffed

• attention is fragmented

So they gather more information.

And then they get stuck.

Not because they do not care.

Because caring too much feels risky.

How to sell when the buyer is overwhelmed and cautious

If noise is the enemy, adding more noise will not save you.

More slides.
More features.
More follow-ups.
More “just checking in.”

That does not differentiate you.

It makes you another tab they will never close.

In 2026, winning means reducing complexity, not adding to it.

Make the decision smaller than it feels

Overwhelmed buyers think they are making a permanent choice.

Reframe the decision as:

• limited

• time-bound

• measurable

Not a pilot that “explores possibilities.”

A pilot that answers one specific question.

Bad:

“Let’s see what AI can do for your team.”

Good:

“In 21 days, we will prove whether this removes 30% of inbound load without harming outcomes.”

Clarity creates confidence.
Confidence breaks noise.

Replace value claims with a point of view

Outcomes do not differentiate you anymore.

Everyone promises outcomes.

What differentiates you is helping the buyer make sense of their situation.

A real point of view sounds like:

• “Most teams think X is the issue. It’s actually Y.”

• “The model isn’t failing. The workflow is.”

• “The risk isn’t adoption. It’s internal ownership.”

Noise thrives on sameness.

Insight cuts through it.

Create a one-sentence “why you”

If your buyer cannot explain why you exist in one sentence, you do not have positioning.

And in a noisy market, lack of positioning is fatal.

If they cannot repeat it to their boss, they will not fight for you internally.

Make implementation feel inevitable

Overwhelmed buyers hate hidden work.

Teams are smaller than ever.

The winning pitch is not:
“We have a powerful platform.”

It is:
“We will do the work.”

Reducing internal burden makes you feel safer.

Safety closes deals when the market is loud.

Ask the question others avoid

Noise survives on vagueness.

Clarity kills it.

Ask early:
“What changed to make solving this matter now?”

If they cannot answer, you do not have intent.

You have curiosity.

And curiosity is not pipeline.

The 2026 takeaway

The old playbook was:
Create urgency so they don’t do nothing.

The new playbook is:
Create clarity so they can choose.

Noise rewards the loud.
Revenue rewards the clear.

If your buyer feels overwhelmed, your job is not to persuade harder.

Your job is to make the decision feel obvious, safe, and contained.

That is how deals get done in 2026.

Last week, I posted on LinkedIn asking for a simple call recording tool that worked with HubSpot.

Nothing enterprise.
Nothing heavy.
Something a real startup could use immediately.

The response was fast.
Dozens of tools.
All confident.
All helpful.

And almost all indistinguishable.

That experience had nothing to do with call recorders.

It was a perfect snapshot of how founders are selling right now.

What Changed And Why This Matters Now

Five years ago, this would have been easier.

Fewer tools.
Clearer tradeoffs.
Obvious leaders.

AI changed that.

Features ship faster.
Parity arrives quickly.
Demos look impressive on day one.
Every product tells a clean, confident story.

So the old filters no longer work.

Does it integrate? Yes.
Can it do X? Yes.
Will it save time? Yes.

That is no longer differentiation.
That is table stakes.

And paradoxically, buying feels harder now than when there were fewer options.

What My Call Recorder Post Actually Exposed

On paper, 20 to 30 tools fit what I asked for.

Every one of them could truthfully say:

• we do that

• we support that

• we integrate there

Almost none made me think:

This was built for a business like mine.

Instead, I got a lot of:
Yes, we can do that.

That distinction is subtle.
And it is everything.

“Yes, we can do that” answers a feature question.
“We built this for teams like yours” answers a risk question.

Buyers are not trying to confirm capability anymore.
They are trying to reduce uncertainty.

This Is the Same Failure Across AI, SDRs, AEO, and Everything Else

Replace “call recorder” with almost anything today.

AI SDRs.
AI agents.
AEO platforms.
Revenue copilots.
AI analytics tools.

Every founder says:
We help you move faster.

But buyers are already moving fast.

What they want to know is:

• What breaks if we move fast with you?

• What becomes hard to unwind later?

• What should we not do yet?

Speed without context does not create momentum.
It destroys trust.

Why Founders Lose Here

Founders default to speed because:

• they know the product deeply

• they want to be helpful

• they are rewarded for responsiveness

But buyers experience fast answers without context as noise.

When everything sounds right, buyers do not choose the best option.
They choose the least risky narrative.

Founders who cannot articulate risk lose, even with better products.

SPRINT Is How Founders Escape the Commodity Trap

This is exactly why SPRINT exists.

Not as a sales framework.
As a filter for relevance.

Here is the shift founders must make.

Speed
Only matters after context. Before that, it signals sameness.

Problem
Must anchor on what changed that makes solving this matter now.

Results
Must describe behavior change, not feature output.

Implementation
Must match real constraints, not ideal workflows.

Niche
The most important lever.
Not “we can do that,” but “we built this for teams like yours, at this stage, with these constraints.”

Trust
Shows up when buyers feel understood before they feel persuaded.

Most AI tools nail speed.
Very few earn trust through niche understanding.

Why Niche Is the Only Differentiator Left

In an AI-first world:

• Speed compresses

• Features converge

• Messaging homogenizes

Context does not scale easily.
Niche does not scale easily.

That is why they matter.

If your pitch sounds good to everyone, it is memorable to no one.

Buyers do not need more options.
They need help recognizing which ones are not for them.

Founders who can do that stand out instantly.

If your pitch sounds right to a lot of buyers, but deals still stall, that is not market noise.

It usually means buyers cannot tell who your product is actually built for.

That is the cost of speed without context.

The most valuable conversations right now are not about what to buy.
They are about what to ignore, what to delay, and what not to over-engineer too early.

When that clarity shows up, the right buyers tend to recognize themselves.

If you are unsure whether your GTM motion reflects how buyers actually decide today, that uncertainty is the signal.

That is the moment to slow down before you speed up.

That is where I spend my time.

I met Mikhiel from Seam AI as founder number 199.

By the end of the call, one thing was obvious.
He is not trying to invent a cute new category.
He is going straight after a hated incumbent with real budget and real pain.

Seam is going after 6sense.
On purpose.

They are not running from the ABM label.
They are reframing it.

Here is how Seam lines up inside the SPRINT framework.

Speed: Two Weeks To Live

Speed is not just about shipping features.
It is about how fast you move between learning loops.

Seam has already lived through:

• A full pivot

• A repositioning

• A reframing

• A brand new message that is only about a month old

They learned what did not work and moved aggressively toward what did.

And the GTM version of speed is even clearer:

A two week POC that gets a buyer from zero to running.

Buyers do not want six month experiments.
They want clarity.
Fast.

Seam treats speed as a product.

Problem: A Pain That Gets Worse Every Month

Most founders solve interesting problems.
Seam solves a painful one.

The modern GTM stack is drowning in signals.
More tools.
More indicators.
More data.
Less action.

Here is the part most teams miss.
The problem compounds.

If a company does nothing:

• They collect more signals

• They add more tools

• They create more noise

• They take fewer actions

• They miss more buying windows

• They let competitors move faster

Signal value decays every single day you wait.
Doing nothing does not leave you in place.
It pushes you behind.

Seam steps directly into this pain.
And then makes the smartest move possible:

“We are the new 6sense.”

Why this matters:

• 6sense is expensive

• 6sense is not beloved

• 6sense already has an existing budget line

They are not trying to create interest.
They are replacing frustration.

Results: NRR That Tells A Real Story

Seam is not bragging about signups.
They told me something better.

“Customers burn through their annual credits in six months.
Then they double.”

That matters.

Their outcomes are also clear:

• Identify the highest fit accounts

• Combine first party, intent, and external signals

• Automatically orchestrate outbound and paid engagement

Better targeting.
More intelligent sequencing.
More revenue pulled from the same accounts.

This is a real results narrative, not a vanity one.

Implementation: Opinionated And Low Lift

Most tools brag about flexibility.
Buyers do not want flexibility.
Buyers want something that already knows how to work.

Seam leans in:

• Two week POC

• Out of the box plays

• Automated persona sourcing

• Direct deployment into Outreach sequences, LinkedIn ads, email platforms

• No RevOps lift required

This is how enterprise software should feel.

As Mikhiel said:

“When I buy accounting software, I do not want to design accounting. I want the software to tell me how accounting should work.”

That mindset is rare.
It is also exactly what wins implementation.

Niche: High Budget And Perfect Timing

Niche is not just who your buyer is.
It is when they are ready.

Seam has two lanes:

Rip and replace

• Renewal is coming

• Team is frustrated

• Six figure invoice is on the way

Series B to Series C scale up

• Fresh budget

• New demand gen leader

• Pressure to scale pipeline

• Needs an ABM style platform but hates legacy tools

Both lanes share:

• Budget ready

• Category understood

• Pain already felt

• Timing pressure built in

They also draw a clean line:

Clay is enrichment.
Seam is growth.

That is niche done right.

Trust: Experience, Fundraising, And Zero Noise

Seam has the ingredients buyers look for:

• Founders with real GTM and data engineering experience at Okta

• A CTO who understands how to productize a growth engine

• Backing from F7 and Bessemer

• Customers like Dremio, Betterment, Cribl, Drata

Add their fundraising approach:

• No Zoom

• No deck

• In person only

• Product in the room

• Advisors who matched their ICP and spoke directly to VCs

They did not show what they are today.
They showed the future VCs were buying at a discount.

That builds trust in a way slides never will.

What Founders Can Steal From Seam

If you are building in GTM or AI, here are the takeaways:

• Replace a disliked incumbent rather than invent a category no one budgets for

• Focus on problems that get worse if buyers do nothing

• Anchor your proof in NRR, not logo spikes

• Treat implementation like a product

• Time your niche around renewals and new budgets

• Tell a clear story in a market that loves noise

And the biggest lesson:

“It is better to be different than pretty good.”

Seam is early, but against SPRINT they are doing a lot right.
If you are trying to understand what real GTM structure looks like from zero to ten, this is a team worth watching.

Yesterday I had a conversation that has been stuck in my head.

It was with Xiaoyin Qu (heyBoss AI).

She has the kind of resume that usually signals a big swing at a brand-new frontier:
Facebook and Instagram product roles. Stanford MBA. A previous startup that took off during COVID. A sizable fundraise. An exit.

On paper, you expect the next company to be something futuristic in AI or a new software category.

Instead, she is building something deceptively simple:
an AI-powered product that creates and manages websites for small businesses.

Yoga studios. Auto detailers. Tax consultants. Neighborhood shops.

People who are not debating model architectures.
People who are not browsing Product Hunt.
People who just need something that works.

At first glance, you might think:
“Do we really need another website builder?”

But that is exactly the point.

Sometimes it is not about inventing something new.
It is about doing something familiar better, faster, and cheaper for a very specific buyer…especially in early-stage founder-led sales.

The “I just need this to work” economy

If you talk to small business owners long enough, you hear the same story:

They hire someone to help build a website
They go back and forth for weeks
They struggle to explain what they need
The site works… kind of
And they still have to manage hosting, SEO, updates, email, everything

It is not a “new” problem.
In fact, it is one of the most mature and crowded markets in software.

Wix.
Squarespace.
WordPress.
Webflow.

But the small business owner is not thinking in categories or TAM slides.

They are thinking:

“Can someone just handle this for me so I can get back to running my business?”

That is where her product stands out.

You answer a few questions.
The AI generates your site.
They host it.
They update it.
They handle SEO.
They manage ongoing content.

All at a price point that makes sense for someone with a thousand other responsibilities.

The technology is not the story.
The simplicity is.

The trap founders fall into in GTM

Most founders proudly pitch:

We are faster.
We are cheaper.
We are smarter.

But then they aim that message at everyone.

Tech companies.
Agencies.
Enterprises.
SMBs.
Anyone who will take a meeting.

The math on the slide looks exciting.
The TAM looks huge.
The conversations feel promising.

But nothing sticks.

“Better, faster, cheaper” only works when:

The problem is painful for your specific buyer
The language feels familiar to that buyer
The alternatives are clearly worse for that buyer

This is what I appreciated about Xiaoyin’s approach.

She started broad.
Then she paid attention to who stayed.

Not tech workers.
Not product managers.
Not AI hobbyists.

The sticky segment was everyday business owners who do not have the time, technical fluency, or patience for complex software.

Once she saw that, everything clicked.

Crowded markets look different from the inside

People assume crowded markets are impossible to enter.

But once you zoom in on the buyer, the picture changes:

Their problems are different
Their workflow is different
Their expectations are different
Their friction points are different

From the outside, it looks like “another website tool.”
From the inside, it becomes:

“Finally, something built for my life.”

That difference does not show up on a competitive matrix.
It shows up in retention.
It shows up in referrals.
It shows up in founder-led sales cycles that actually convert.

The founder-led sales angle

Right now, most of their growth comes from:

Social posts
Word of mouth
Virality
Light inbound

Classic early-stage founder-led selling.

And here is what I liked the most:

She is not chasing the shiny segment.
She is not pitching AI to every tech leader in Silicon Valley.
She is going to the group with the clearest pain and the simplest story.

This is something I see every day in my own research with hundreds of early-stage founders.

You do not need a new category.
You do not need a breakthrough model.

You need:

The right buyer
The right story
The right level of simplicity

When you get those three things right:

Messaging gets sharper
Referrals increase
You stop mistaking curiosity for intent
You stop running pilots that were never real

Because you are no longer trying to be everything to everyone.
You are trying to be obvious to someone.

What this conversation reminded me about GTM

A lot of founders believe their advantage must be differentiation at the product level.

But many of the strongest opportunities in 2025 look exactly like this:

Familiar problem
Mature market
Clear alternatives
Overlooked audience
A dramatically simpler experience

We talk a lot about moats in GTM.

Sometimes the moat is the buyer you choose.
Sometimes it is the simplicity of your experience.
Sometimes it is how deeply you understand the life of the person you serve.

That is extremely hard to copy.

“We can sell to SMBs or mid-market or enterprise.”
“Our tool works for healthcare, fintech, SaaS, even retail.”
“Anyone with a sales team is a target.”

That’s not an ICP. That’s a wish list.

Here’s the blunt truth:
A wide ICP isn’t strategy. It’s insecurity.

When you try to sell to everyone, you dilute your story for everyone.
When you narrow to one, you resonate with many.

Think about it.
It’s easier to win when you can say…

• “We help healthcare CFOs cut claims costs by 30%.”
  vs.
  

• “We help companies manage finance better.”

It’s not just clarity for buyers. It’s clarity for you.
A tight ICP means:

• You know who to target.
  

• You know what language to use.
  

• You know how to measure success.
  

• You know who you are building for.
  

And here’s what founders often forget:
It’s way easier to expand outward from a beachhead than it is to shrink backward from a messy sprawl.

Amazon started with just books.
Facebook started with just college students.
Even Salesforce started with just SMB sales teams.

Focus isn’t a limitation.
It’s a launchpad.

If your ICP feels uncomfortable because it’s so narrow, you’re probably on the right track.

Don’t spray. Don’t pray.
Pick the customer you can win and double down.

Because the fastest way to grow is to go smaller first.

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