How to Fake Being Good at Marketing
“I’m not a marketer.”
I hear this all the time — from founders around kitchen tables and from CEOs getting ready for investor pitches.
Sometimes it’s honest. Sometimes it’s an excuse for an idea that doesn’t have much strategy behind it.
Either way, that statement is a lie because good marketing usually comes down to two things most adults already know how to do:
Understand people.
Solve their problems.
Spend enough time around founders building brands — from household names to those just getting started — and you start to notice something: the ones who succeed almost always get the same thing right.
They understand who the people are. And they understand what problem actually matters to them. Because people are defined by their problems more than their demographics.
Some problems are functional: “I wish my car was more reliable.”
Others are emotional: “I want to feel like a respected professional.”
Great brands understand both. Take Liquid Death.
Water isn’t new. But they paired sustainability with an irreverent brand identity that resonated with a specific group of people. Same product category — different problem solved.
And that’s the thing many founders miss.
The problem you built your product to solve may not be the one that ultimately scales.
Good marketing is simply figuring out which problem people actually care about — and meeting them there.
Bring you to them, not them to you.
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