Course 15A · Lesson 5 of 12
Positioning, strategy and start-up go-to-market
| Work | Grade | Verdict | What we take |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crossing the Chasm (Moore, 1991) | Mixed | Safe (original template); caveat (whole product, beachhead, one niche at a time) | "Who are dissatisfied with..." positioning template |
| Inside the Tornado (Moore) | Weak | Caveat | The bowling alley; strategy changes by stage |
| Play Bigger (Ramadan and others, 2016) | Weak | Caveat; do not teach the 76% claim | A point of view; one coordinated launch moment |
| The strategic narrative (Raskin, 2016) | Weak | Safe | A five-move narrative; a movement, not a category |
| Building a StoryBrand (Miller) | Weak | Caveat | The customer as hero, Maktura as guide |
| Start With Why (Sinek) | Debunked (limbic neuroscience) | Do not teach the neuroscience; ordering device with caveat | A copy-ordering device only |
| Made to Stick (Heath, Heath, 2007) | Mixed | Safe | The SUCCESs tests for a message |
| Jobs to be done four forces (Moesta, Spiek) | Weak to mixed | Safe | Push, pull, anxiety, habit; reduce anxiety rather than add features |
| Demand-Side Sales 101 (Moesta, Engle, 2020) | Weak | Safe | Help buyers make progress; more features can raise anxiety |
| Traction (Weinberg, Mares, 2014) | Weak | Safe | The bullseye: test three channels cheaply, then focus |
| Disciplined Entrepreneurship (Aulet, 2013) | Weak | Caveat (three market conditions verified; full beachhead criteria unverified) | Beachhead criteria |
| Zero to One (Thiel, 2014) | Weak | Caveat | Distribution is part of product; start small |
| Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim, Mauborgne, 2005) | Weak | Caveat | Strategy canvas and eliminate, reduce, raise, create grid as a messaging discipline |
| The SaaS Playbook (Walling, 2023) | Weak | Caveat | If nobody pushes back on price, you are underpriced |
| The Cold Start Problem (Chen, 2021) | Weak | Caveat | One firm as the smallest working network; seat expansion inside firms |
| The Empty Promise of Data Moats (a16z, 2019) | Mixed | Safe | Describe a learning loop, not a network effect |
| The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Horowitz) | Weak | Caveat | Process over heroes |
| Inbound Marketing (Halligan, Shah, 2010) | Weak | Caveat; do not claim HubSpot coined the term | Free tools and content as a lead engine |
| Conversational Marketing (Drift) | Weak | Caveat | A caution on category creation |
| Product-led sales and PQLs | Weak | Caveat; do not quote "5x as likely to convert" | Several sign-ups from one firm's domain |
| Superhuman PMF engine (Vohra) | Mixed | Caveat | Qualify the waitlist; measure "very disappointed" before scaling |
| Shooting Stars (Bessemer, 2025) | Mixed | Caveat | Benchmark against durable growth, not the outliers |
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