If I had to pick one word to describe most founders, it would be “overwhelmed”.
When you’re trying to start a business, you’ve got a million things to juggle.
You’ve got to build your product, figure out the pricing, explain why it’s the best thing ever, and find people who actually want to buy it.
Trying to do all of this while learning new skills and paying your bills is enough to drive anyone crazy.
It’s no wonder that 90% of businesses fail before generating any real revenue.
But there’s a hack that can make every one of these tasks 10 times easier.
It’ll give you a huge unfair advantage over founders who don’t use it.
In fact, I’ve seen many founders who don’t use this hack destroy their business before they even start.
Why is that?
Well, if you don’t use the hack, you:
- Make a worse product, leading to less happy customers.
- Waste an embarrassing amount of time and money on marketing that gets no results.
- Spend all your time building something that no one wants.
(This last one in particular is soul-crushing.)
But I’ve found that if you use this hack, everything becomes much easier.
All of a sudden, you:
- Make an incredibly effective product on autopilot.
- Instantly know how to capture the hearts and minds of your target market (even if you’ve never written a word of marketing copy before).
- Guarantee you’re building something people want.
So, we know it’s important - but what is this hack?
Well, you need to be a Facilitator for your business.
What is a Facilitator?
The term “facilitator” was coined by Nir Eyal, the author of the famous product design book, Hooked.
In the book, he explains that founders take one of four roles when they start a business:
Dealer: Dealers create products that are harmful to the user and they wouldn’t use themselves (don’t be these guys).
Entertainer: Entertainers create products that aren’t good for the user, but they would use themselves. (Think: Video game developers, most social media)
Peddler: Peddlers wouldn’t use the product themselves, but they know it will help the people who do. (Example: someone who’s never struggled with weight making a weight loss product)
Facilitator: A facilitator makes a product that improves the user’s lives and they would use themselves (or would have in the past).
This last one is who you want to be.
But why is this so effective?
First, let’s talk about the marketing benefits of being a facilitator.
Benefits: Marketing
The hardest thing for most people when starting a business is figuring out how to convince people to try their product or service.
First, you need to figure out where and how to tell people about your business.
You need to get your message in the right place and in the right format so that your target market actually sees it.
For example, I wouldn’t recommend marketing a game for teenagers in a newspaper.
To solve this, big businesses spend millions of dollars a year doing market research and tests.
They spend all this money just to understand where their users already are.
But as a founder, you don't have the time or money to do that.
Luckily, if you’re a facilitator, you don't have to.
You know where the users are because you’re already there.
Let’s say you teach people to produce songs.
If you’re a facilitator, then you’re probably already a member of the groups and spaces where people go to learn, share, and practice production.
You’ll know the best stores to get equipment, the best online groups for producers, and the best studios in town to record.
Those are the places you should market your product.
So, by being a facilitator, you save yourself countless hours working out where your target market is.
But, that’s only half of the equation.
Finding potential buyers isn’t enough; you also need to explain why they need your product.
This is where the second half comes in - understanding how to connect with your target market.
Again, big businesses solve this with focus groups and testing.
They quiz potential buyers to understand their challenges and fears.
They need to learn what problems to solve to make a product people want.
But, you are (or have been) your target market.
You know exactly what problems they’re facing, and this makes marketing your product a piece of cake.
You can just address the problems someone is likely to be having and explain how your solution solves them.
When people see you understand their problems, they're more likely to trust you to help solve them.
If you can find your market, know their needs, and talk to them, you’re 90% of the way there to great marketing.
Marketing isn’t complicated when you’re marketing to yourself.
And neither is building a great product.
Benefits: Product
When you solve your own problems, you avoid one of the biggest killers of new businesses: not understanding your users’ problems.
If you misunderstand something small about your user, you'll waste some time and money building unnecessary features or services.
Not ideal, but salvageable.
But when you’re starting out, this can go even more wrong.
You could end up building something that is based on fundamentally wrong assumptions.
When you do that, your business is doomed from the beginning.
(This is called ‘failing to find product-market fit’, meaning building something no one wants.)
But this is much less likely when you’re a facilitator.
You’re building a product to solve problems you had.
When you do that, you know at least one person has had this problem.
And usually when one person has a problem, you'll be able to find way more people with it too.
That means no more research groups and less testing early on.
By just using your own experiences you'll be able to build a great product much more quickly.
Summary
So being a facilitator makes you a better marketer and a better product builder, even if you are new to both of these things.
It takes complicated skills and turns them into common sense.
You suddenly aren’t trying new things; you’re solving old problems.
This makes you an expert with years of experience in your business, even if the business is brand new.
And all of this has one extra surprise benefit: confidence.
When you know what you’re doing is important, will help people, and is something that people need, it makes you more confident in your decisions.
And confidence helps with consistency and motivation, which are the biggest killers of new businesses.
(But more on this next time.)
So, if you’re starting a business or thinking about starting one, remember to ask yourself two questions:
1. Does this product improve my users’ lives?
2. Would I use this product (or would I have a few years ago)?
If the answer is yes to both, you’re a facilitator.
So start building something great.
Thanks as always for taking the time to read this - I hope you found it useful.
Have a great week,
Tim