Startup life isn’t just brutal; it’s relentless. You’re juggling ten things at once, moving at full speed, trying to build something meaningful while the market keeps shifting beneath you.

Here’s the thing: even the best idea can crash and burn if you don’t truly understand the market you’re stepping into—or already playing in. This piece is your cold shower. It’s here to shatter those [by-now outdated] assumptions you made when putting together your pitch deck, with all the talk about market size and disruption.

Keep reading. This might be exactly what you and your team need to get crystal clear on what “the market” really means for your product. Because here’s the hard truth: you can’t build products in a vacuum. You can’t leave the marketing piece until just before launch. You can’t show up with a half-baked product and a story slapped together by outsiders at the last minute.

There’s a reason Market is a core part of the Foundations program—it’s not optional, and it sure as hell isn’t an afterthought.

Everything I said in the intro is true, but don’t let it distract you from this: the market isn’t a battlefield; it’s a system of choices—yours, your customers’, and your competitors’. Sure, it’s more complicated than that, but much of it is out of your control.

Winning isn’t about brute force; it’s about clarity. Who are your customers? What do they want, need, and care about? What’s the job your product helps them do? And why should they choose you over someone else? If you can answer those questions, you might keep up with your market.

Keep up? Yes—because the market isn’t static. It’s alive, shaped by trends, time, politics, and human behaviour. Think of it as a moving target. Your job isn’t just to hit it but to anticipate where it’s headed. The founders who thrive don’t just react—they align.

Oh, and one more thing…
Building a market from scratch is tough. Educating customers, shaping demand, and convincing people they need what you’re offering isn’t just hard; it’s expensive. Sometimes, you might find yourself in no-man’s-land, planting your flag and staking your claim, as Meta did with its $10 billion gamble on the Metaverse. We all know how that went [in flames].

In any case, if your market isn’t responding, don’t blame the market. Rethink your choices.

This needs to be said: Disruption isn’t something you declare. I mean, you can, but it is like declaring yourself the emperor of the Moon when you don't even have a rocket to leave Earth. 

At its core, disruption is a feature of the market, not the ambition of the innovator. It happens when real problems and unmet needs, inefficiencies, or customer frustrations create the conditions for change.

The market may be ready. But are you? Can you articulate the problem you’re solving so clearly that customers instantly recognise it as their problem? And more importantly, can you frame your solution in a way that makes them think, “Yes, this makes sense. I need this.”
Wait, there’s more. You have to say it in a way that customers don’t just agree; they’re ready to say, “Take my money...”

Disruption isn’t just about innovation; it’s about timing and alignment. Even with a brilliant solution, if the market isn’t primed to care, you’re just another voice in the chaos.

Disruption isn’t a badge you can claim. It’s a hard-earned outcome when the market’s disruptibility meets a solution that fits and challenges the status quo. If you miss that alignment, even the best idea becomes just another failed experiment.

Let me paint a picture: you’ve built [what you consider] a brilliant product and poured your heart and soul into it, but there’s one problem—it doesn’t connect with the market. No matter how good it is, not enough customers care. The result? Irrelevance. Wasted money. And ultimately, failure.

Take the Humane AI Pin, a textbook example of a $230 million investment struggling to find its way.
The concept? Ambitious. The team? Superstars. The execution? Polished. The problem? Nobody understood what the AI Pin was for, or at least not enough people to form a segment and a market.
Six months post-launch, returns outnumbered purchases. Today? They’re searching for a buyer. 
You can read about this here.

So, what’s the takeaway? By launch day, Humane AI didn’t even have a defined marketing function. The team? Individually, they’re legends—“god-level” talents with patents and awards galore, straight out of Apple and other giants. But they couldn’t convince the world to embrace a life with less screen time.

A few companies seem to defy these laws. Investors queue up to pour money into these ventures, and some startups have access to cheap capital. Assume you’re not one of them.

Your family and friends you talk to during your alpha stage [and even beta] are not your customers. Your future customers owe you nothing: no attention, no money, no trust, no respect.

Your job as a team is to earn all of the above. You must align, build that rocket, load the precious cargo wrapped in an irresistible brand everyone is waiting for, and launch. An empty rocket is just an expensive firework in reverse.

If you’re serious about building a product that resonates, you need to understand the rules before you can break them. Paradigm Foundations’ Market workshop is where it all comes together. It connects the Alignment, Product, and Brand workshops, giving you the foundation to promote, position, and sell what you’ve worked so hard to create.

Learn to decode your market, connect with your customers, and position yourself to win. Map your customers’ needs to the value your product delivers for smarter targeting and scaling. Understand how product marketing drives adoption and shapes perception—key to effective positioning.

Overwhelmed? Don’t be. With a solid foundation, bringing in marketing pros will be simple. You’ll have the groundwork done, and your messaging will be crystal clear—from the value you create to what your market wants. That’s how you win.

Join Paradigm Foundations today. Let’s build your foundation.