Why founders get stuck with marketing

One of the most common things I hear from the ambitious, underestimated founders I work with who are at the $0-1M stage:

“We’ve tried everything in marketing — something is not working.”

When I dig in, here’s what that usually means:

• They posted on LinkedIn (a few times)

• Ran some paid ads (without clear targeting)

• Sent cold emails (without knowing who they’re for)

• Attended industry events (spoke to no one)

• Have had many calls (with ‘partners’)

• Got feedback (from friends)

They’re doing tactics — without a strategy.

If you’re early in building your business, your job isn’t to scale channels.

A new founder’s most important job is to figure out:

• Whom you’re solving what problem for

• What makes your solution a no-brainer for them

• Why you are better than their status quo

• Where they naturally hang out

• How they buy solutions like yours

• How to meet them on this journey

• …and, turn them into happy paying customers

Without clarity around all of these components, no tactic is going to save you.

Here’s the single action for you today: grab a piece of paper (yes!) and jot down your hypothesis for all of these key points. Then, and only then, can you prioritize one single tactic you want to try out next week.

Inside the Founder-Led Marketing Club (FLMC) - my small group coaching membership for founders on their $0-1M journey - I help founders slow down and get clear on their go-to-market fundamentals before they jump into channel-specific playbooks. It’s not glamorous — but it works. I have seen it with founders like Ashley Chang who grew her startup Sundays to $1M earlier this year using my methodology.

I know it can work for you too - pause and reflect on your fundamentals, then get to work testing it by finding real happy paying customers.

Rooting for you!
Sweta

P.S. If you’re in that early, fuzzy place (and admittedly you are not yet ready to join FLMC) — the GTM Design Pack will help you map out your customer segment, offer, positioning, and first repeatable GTM play. You’ll come away with a simple strategy you can actually test.