The Signal Founders Miss When They Think They Have Traction
A simple question that reveals whether your buyers are ready to move or just being polite.
I had a call this week with a founder who thought they were getting close to product market fit.
Lots of meetings.
A few pilots.
Big logos taking calls.
Activity everywhere.
If you looked at the pipeline, you might believe it too.
But after 250 conversations with founders across SaaS, I know this pattern well.
The activity is real.
The momentum is not.
So I asked the same question I use in SPRINT, the early-stage GTM framework I built from all these interviews.
“What has changed to make solving this problem matter now?”
The founder paused.
Then paused again.
And finally said the quiet part out loud.
“I am not sure anything has changed. People like the idea. They just are not moving.”
This is the truth most early teams never say.
Meetings feel like traction.
But meetings are not the signal.
Change is the signal.
If nothing has changed in the customer’s world, then nothing forces them to act.
And if nothing forces them to act, your meetings are just polite conversations.
Founders confuse interest with urgency.
They assume a busy calendar means the market is waking up.
It usually means the market is curious.
Curious is not enough to build a business.
This is why SPRINT starts with the question of change.
SPRINT is built around six pillars that shape early-stage GTM: Speed, Problem, Results, Implementation, Niche, and Trust.
The “Problem” step centers on a single idea:
the market only moves when something has changed.
And that change shows up in behavior.
A shift in regulation.
A new KPI from the board.
A cost that can no longer be ignored.
A workflow that just broke.
A risk that suddenly matters.
A competitor doing something that raises the stakes.
These moments create heat.
Heat creates urgency.
Urgency creates deals.
If you do not understand the change moment, you cannot understand the buyer.
Most founders skip this part.
Not because they are inexperienced.
Because they are hopeful.
They want interest to be enough.
But interest without change is why so many pilots never convert.
It is why deals stretch for months.
It is why activity feels high but revenue feels stuck.
Here is the most important rule inside SPRINT.
If nothing has changed, nothing will close.
And here is the part I remind founders of every week.
Most teams are not far away.
They are usually one insight away from real traction.
One customer segment away from clarity.
One change moment away from a real sales motion.
The founder I met realized it on the call.
The product was good.
The meetings were plentiful.
But the change moment was missing.
And that is where the real work begins.
Most founders live between interest and fit.
Close enough to feel the heat.
Not close enough to feel the pull.
If that is where you are, you are not alone.
And you are not stuck.
Everything gets easier once you understand the change moment.
“What has changed to make solving this problem matter now?”
Start there.