The Buyer Psychologist | Sell more using science (not guru B.S.) | 63,000+ marketing geeks read my free newsletter

You’re dangerously smart.

Yet people with half your experience are making 10X more. Why?

It’s not talent or connections.

And it’s definitely not by “hacking the algorithm” (sorry, LinkedIn gurus).

The wealthiest consultants, agency owners, and coaches all have one thing in common:

→ They own an idea in their buyers’ minds.

And that idea? It does the selling for them.

It positions them as an authority, spreads while they sleep, and sticks in your brain like superglue.

I call these “ownable ideas.”

Think “boring businesses” or “Start with Why”.

Those ideas made their creators famous. But more importantly, those ideas sell—attracting clients and building leverage money can’t buy.

Just one idea, built on a strategic foundation and spread relentlessly, changes everything.

I know because I’ve lived it...

In 2020, I was an unknown growth consultant.

Well-respected, sure. I’d built a $250K/year business on referrals and hustle. But I was also burnt the F out.

Revenue was lumpy and I was exhausted from trying to do ALL THE THINGS: client work, sales, creating content.

Then I found my first ownable idea. Everything changed.

→ $1M/year in revenue as a solopreneur (and new mom
→ 140K+ followers on Twitter
→ 92K+ followers on LinkedIn
→ 63K+ newsletter readers
→ Recognized as a global authority on “buyer psychology” (the first ownable idea I named and claimed)

Since then, I’ve helped 1,900+ big-brained experts become unignorable. (I bet one of your favorite thinkers on LinkedIn is a past client or student.)

Now I’m building UNIGNORABLE, the Ownable Ideas agency.

We help expert entrepreneurs find, shape, and share their first ownable idea.

Your big breakthrough isn’t hiding in some growth hack or viral hook formula.

It’s already in your head.

Don’t just share ideas. Own one.

→ Follow me to see how it’s done.

–
P.S. I accept a handful of new clients each month.

Join my newsletter to learn how to apply: beunignorable.com

Katelyn Bourgoin 🧠

Them: “Say one thing 1,000 ways.”
You: “Ok. But how da f*k do I do that?”
Me: *tada*

Everyone says repeat your core message, right? I’ve said it too because it’s true.

But nobody really explains how do it. “Just stay on topic” is shitty advice. Especially if you want to create content the gets clients—not just claps from peers.

What you need is a repeatable system. One that’s specifically designed to convert attention into clients and compounds authority systematically. 

That’s where my Authority Flywheel comes in.

Here’s how it works:

Your ownable idea sits at the center, and four content types form the engine:

Problem. Name their struggle
POV. Share your unique take or approach
Promise. Show what’s possible
Proof. Demonstrate you delivered

Repetition is the multiplier. 

Each post reinforces the same mental territory from a different angle, and each rotation produces raw material for the next. 

Problem-led content attracts prospects. POV reframes how they think. Promise speaks to their aspirations. Proof converts.

When you get results for a client, you surface new Problem angles, new POVs, and more client wins that become Proof. The flywheel spins and your authority grows.

This system works... with one important caveat.

You need to nail your ownable idea at the center.

Codie Sanchez can post about pricing, hiring, and loan negotiations in the same week without anything feeling scattered—because every topic traces back to one idea: you can buck the system and build wealth by owning “boring businesses.”

The ‘topics’ or formats of her posts can change drastically. She can post listicles or graphics or story-driven shorts. But Codie’s core idea stays the same.

But most people don’t do it this way.

They hammer the same topics over and over thinking *that’s* consistency—but talking consistently about a topic that sounds like everyone else in your space will still keep you painfully invisible.

Buyers aren’t starved for information. They’re drowning in it. What they want is a fresh take on a familiar problem—from someone whose perspective changes how they think.

People need to buy into your thinking before they buy from you.

So let me ask: do you have a consistency problem? Or a content problem? Or is the deeper problem that you don’t know what to say in a way that makes people care?

If it’s the latter, posting more won’t help.

Find your center, nail it, and then share it relentlessly in 1,000 different ways using the Authority Flywheel

Katelyn Bourgoin

Top paid experts have one thing in common:
They sell ideas (not just time).

And idea owners get rich.

Simon Sinek charges $100K+ for a keynote today.

But before his famous “Start With Why” TED Talk? He was a relatively unknown marketing consultant.

Yup. One idea can change everything.

Not a product.
Not a service.
An *idea*.

A well-sculpted idea—supported by a strategic story and shared religiously—can build your authority, spread while you sleep, and generate demand (without chasing).

I call these “ownable ideas”.

And there are 6 types:

// 1. Distinctive Philosophy

Offers a belief about how things should be done that others can live by.

↳ “Start With Why” (Simon Sinek)
↳ “Everything is Figureoutable” (Marie Forleo)

// 2. New Category

Defines a new type of solution or market space you can lead.

↳ “Zero-Click Content” (Amanda Natividad)
↳ “Dark social” (Chris Walker)

// 3. Coined Problem

Names a struggle people recognize but didn’t have words for.

↳ “Law of Shitty Clickthroughs (Andrew Chen)
↳ “The Dip” (Seth Godin)

// 4. Method/Framework

Provides a repeatable methodology, framework, or system others can follow to solve a specific problem.

↳ “Storybrand canvas” (Don Miller)
↳ “5-second Rule” (Mel Robbins)

// 5. Identity Label

Creates an aspirational identity that someone can step into.

↳ “Solopreneur” (Justin Welsh)
↳ “Growth Hacker” (Sean Ellis)

// 6. X vs. Y

Frames a this-or-that distinction that changes how people see their choices.

↳ “Shallow vs. Deep Work” (Cal Newport)
↳ “One-Way vs. Two-Way Doors” (Jeff Bezos)

—
Some types of ownable ideas are harder to pull off than others. But all 6 types of ownable ideas do the same thing when executed well: they work even while *you* don’t.

Your idea becomes your best salesperson. It attracts clients, commands premium prices, and builds leverage you can’t buy.

The lesson?

Don’t just share ideas.
Own one.

—
P.S. wanna learn more? My new Unignorable newsletter will go deeeeeeeep on this topic.

What you see is my ownable idea map. What you DON’T see is the graveyard of legitimately good ideas that didn’t make the cut.

This one-pager captures my ownable idea, my positioning, and the repeatable messages I’ll use at different stages of the buyer’s journey that tie it all together.

This is one of several deliverables clients will get when they work with us.

It looks clean. Simple even.

But getting here meant exploring dozens of possible angles and killing ideas I genuinely loved.

*That’s* the real work.

And it all hinged on one decision: the central argument.

Your central argument is the foundation your entire brand narrative builds from.

And finding the right one is tricky. 

We dig into your brain to find the sparks, then I do buyer and market research to shape it into an idea you can own—supported by full positioning and messaging strategy.

It's hard work. And necessary work. 

Before I clarified my argument, every idea felt equally good. Equally worth pursuing.

I could’ve gone in 100 different directions and made a case for each one.

And I sorta did. And it confused my audience (and hurt my soul).

Sound familiar?

That’s the trap most experts fall into.

You’re not short on ideas. 
You’re drowning in them.

And without committing to a central argument that anchors everything, you just keep drifting from idea to idea—lost.

Creating the messaging map is the easy part.

Killing good ideas so you can commit to ONE epic one?

That’s what’s hard.

—
P.S. Have you figured out your ownable idea? Or are you trying to share 10 ideas while never becoming known for one?

It’s International Women’s Day. But I don’t feel like celebrating. I feel angry. 

Today, like too many days before it, we’re reading horrifying allegations of grown men abusing little girls.

Not women. Girls.

Women shouldn’t have to fight for equal recognition.

Women shouldn’t have to fight for equal pay.

And women and girls—children—shouldn’t have to fight for basic human rights. 

But here we are.

Still fighting. 
Still mad as hell. 
Still not giving up.

ChatGPT says I'm the #1 buyer psychology expert on LinkedIn. But I cheated...

No, I don't know some voodoo magic for ranking in ChatGPT. My "hack" is years in the making.

Honestly? It's probably the best thing I did in my business. It made everything else easier.

Here's the backstory...

When I started my Why We Buy newsletter in 2020, I had a decision to make:

How would I cateogorize it?

Technically it was about "behavioural economics"—using cognitive biases and heuristics in marketing.

Sounds science-y, right? Yeah, that was the problem.

My ideal readers weren't academics. They were marketers and founders building online businesses.

Now I could have used a sexier term: “consumer psychology”. 

But my target readers mostly ran B2B businesses. They didn't sell "consumer" products. They sold services and software.

So I took a strategic leap. I created the world's first "buyer psychology" newsletter. No other person owned that specific category, so I:

→ named it 
→ framed it
→ claimed it

This brings me to my "hack"...

If you want to be known for something specific, you can literally choose to name that thing (eg. think “boring businesses” or Storybrand). 

But making it spread isn't just about choosing the right words.

You must attach meaning to those words (aka. frame it).

The easiest way to do that is by starting with a problem your audience already feels.

In my case, that problem was chronic overwhelm. Marketers are exhausted by constant change—always chasing, never catching up. But human behavior doesn't change. It's a steady anchor in the raging sea.

So I crafted a simple mantra: Marketing changes fast. People don't. Learn buyer psychology.

I framed the problem (ie. speed of change) and offered a distinctive solution (ie. buyer psychology.)

Then to claim it? I just spread that idea everywhere. It became the dominant narrative underpinning all my content.

Not once. Not twice. But consistently across 100s of posts... for... years.

Finding my first ownable idea changed my business. It can change yours too.

So if you want to be seen as an authority in your space (and get paid like one), I've got a new mantra for you:

Don't just share ideas.
Own one.

That's the best "hack" there is.

--

P.S. Claiming a new category isn't the only type of ownable idea. It's actually one of six (and probably the hardest to pull off).

I'm breaking down all six in my new UNIGNORABLE newsletter. Next issue drops this Thursday.

Drop a 🧠 if you want in.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

Your buyer already knows what they want. They’re waiting for someone to show them why everything they’ve tried falls short.

That’s why an ownable idea is so powerful. When you find the right one, you stop chasing clients and start attracting them.

But not with a catchy tagline or a polarizing take. What you need is an argument that meets your buyer’s existing goals and exposes the gap in how the market currently serves them.

An example?

Justin Welsh built a $10M business on his ownable idea. He didn’t invent solopreneurship. The word already existed—but before Justin, nobody wanted to claim it. 

Calling yourself a “solopreneur” felt like admitting your business was small. Like your ambitions weren’t serious enough to build a 'real' company.

Justin reframed its meaning entirely. He argued that choosing to work solo was an act of rebellion. It was the smart path to ditch "the rat race" (Justin's words) and live on your own terms. 

Being a solopreneur became a statement. You valued freedom over fancy titles or unicorn exits.

Justin didn’t change what people wanted. He told a story that changed what it meant to want it and gave them a new identity to proudly step into.

You can see how powerful that is, right? 

Here's where people go wrong: 

You won't find your ownable idea by guessing at a clever phrase. 

You have to understand your buyer’s world first—what they want, and why everything they’ve tried has failed to deliver it. That gap is where your argument lives.

The graphic above breaks down the method we use with clients to find, shape and share their first ownable idea. 

In Excavate, we surface your thinking and map it against your buyer’s world (their goals, desires, and where existing solutions are falling short). 

In Distill, we find the argument that’s genuinely ownable and fits where your buyer already is.

Stage 3 is Claim. The idea gets locked. Not invented. Chosen.

In Shape and Activate, we build the full language system and strategic narrative around your idea and help you put it into the world. 

This is how you stake your claim on an idea that sells…. like Justin did. 

Justin’s idea didn’t spread because he just chose the right words. It spread because he named something people already wanted to claim as their own. 

That’s what the right ownable idea does: it doesn’t just attract clients. It creates believers.

—
P.S. Are you becoming a believer in the power of ownable ideas?

undefined undefined

Heyyy!

Here's the link to join the PAINKILLER waitlist and get access to your new bestie, Sparky, the Ouchy Pain Finder bot: https://www.customercamp.co/painkiller-waitlist

This message is automated but if you reply with a question I'll answer it

Have a brainy day!

Idea owners get rich

Let’s normalize disagreeing with someone without disliking them 

If you’re saying anything even remotely interesting people will disagree 

Thems the breaks 

But that doesn’t mean it needs to be mean-spirited—accept it as feedback and keep rocking

You just wrote something good...

Then deleted it because it felt "too obvious".

That's the Expert's Paradox in real time.

What feels like common sense to you is genuinely rare insight to someone two steps behind.

The idea you almost didn't post? 

Could be your best one.
Post it.

Being invisible just got more expensive.

Before?

You could do good work and hide behind your results. Client referrals were enough. 

Now? 

The experts winning aren’t always the best or the most experienced. They’re often the most visible.

They think in public, daily. 

And because they show up and say something different—something people didn’t know they needed to hear—these expert entrepreneurs attract believers (not just followers)   
 
Here’s what kills me about this: most of the experts I work with are *brilliant.*  

Genuinely.  

But ask them to explain what makes their thinking different… and they freeze.  

You get the same vague answer as everyone else.
  
That’s the Expert’s Paradox at work. Your best insights feel like common sense so you never share them. 

Your audience has no idea how you actually think.
 
That gap—between the quality of your thinking and the visibility of it—
is the real threat. Not AI.
 
Get it right and AI becomes your advantage.  

Keep ignoring it and you’re competing on price with a robot. 

And spoiler alert: that’s not a game you can win. 

So don’t just share ideas. Own one.

I (foolishly) shut down my profitable agency because I was sick of the feast-famine cycle.

I started a tech company instead. Surely that would be easier, right?

Wrong. I went bankrupt.

But let me back up...

--
In 2010. I founded my branding agency, RedRiot. 

My vision was crystal clear: we'd be the only agency in Eastern Canada that specialized in guerrilla marketing. 

Guerrilla marketing was new, it was gutsy, and I was obsessed with it.

The wee problem? I was new to business and had zero contacts. Finding clients was haaaaard.

So I got clever...

I used some black hat SEO to rank us for keywords like "marketing agencies Halifax." (No one was searching for "guerrilla marketing" back then)

And it worked. Leads started rolling in from Google.

Except these weren't people who cared about guerrilla marketing.

They were typically small business owners with tiny budgets. They didn't understand what made our approach different. They didn't want what I actually wanted to offer.

They just knew they needed "a marketing agency." 

And I had bills to pay, so I said "yes" to every project anyway...

Want us to build a website? Sure. 
Need social media content? We got you.

Every project was different. Our clients were cheap. And I was burnt the F out.

So I did the only thing that felt logical at the time: I decided to blow up my agency and start a tech company.

How hard could that be, right? 

Turns out... VERY hard. 

As I soon learned, SaaS was way harder than selling services.

--
Looking back, I know what I should have done differently...

I should have built my personal brand. 

I could've created content that showed my ideal clients why guerrilla marketing was the future. I could've pre-educated and pre-qualified potential clients through content.

My personal brand would've done the heavy lifting before we ever talked.

Instead, I convinced myself that building an audience was just an ego play. But that was my own insecurity talking. It wasn't true.

--
If you're running a service business today, don't make the same mistake I did. 

Don't blow up your current business searching for an "easy" business. (There aren't any.) 

Start creating content and sharing your rebel POV on your industry. Figure out what you want to be known for and double-down.

Build an audience who buys into your ideas *first* and shows up ready to hire you.

Your personal brand isn't vanity. It's strategy.

It's the difference between chasing clients and making them chase you.

So what's stopping you?

--
P.S. This pic is from one of the cool guerrilla branding projects we did back then. We helped our vodka client create the world's first double-label and create an insider brand for true vodka lovers. Cool, huh?

This might surprise you given the fact that I’m pushing 100K followers here, but… 

I don’t jump out of bed every day excited to create content.

Nope. 

The thing I really love is *PRODUCT*.

↳ Product design
↳ Product strategy
↳ Product marketing

But because I wake up every day and create content… I get to sell more products.

Funny how that happens, huh?

I also get to clarify my thinking about the problems our products solve and how they should evolve. That is a MASSIVE second-order benefit to content creation.

So if you don’t love creating content, that’s fine. That’s normal. Most people don’t.

But it’s still worth doing.

Get it right? And it can change your life. It changed mine.

The smartest experts I work with can solve anyone's problem... but their own.

Chris Piper is brilliant. He’s helped multiple businesses scale past 8-figures. He even helped Codie Sanchez grow her business from $2M to $10M in 12 months.

But when he started consulting last year, he agonized over his own messaging. Spent months spinning his wheels.

Chris’s story isn’t uncommon. I've watched this pattern play out hundreds of times...

Smart people. Impossibly stuck when it comes to how to talk about their own business.

I call it "The Expert's Paradox".

It's a double-whammy.

The deeper your knowledge runs, the more "obvious" your best thinking feels. 

You dismiss insights that took years to develop because they don't feel special anymore.

Worse yet? Your brain literally reasons more clearly about *other* people's problems than your own. (This is proven by multiple behavioral science studies. Not my opinion.)

So yeah. Figuring out your own positioning and messaging feels damn near impossible.
But it's not just a *brain* problem... 

It’s also a *time* problem.

You're running a service-based business that eats every available hour.

↳ Proposals 
↳ Client work 
↳ Discovery calls

Unlike full-time creators, you can't burn 3 hours a day leisurely fleshing out ideas. You've got client deadlines to hit.

And the better you are at doing the work for clients, the BUSIER you become… leaving even less time to figure out your own business. Fakkkk. 

This is the Expert's Paradox:

👉 The smarter you are, the harder it is to articulate what makes you different.

Your brain can't see yourself clearly. 

Your calendar won't give you the space to try.

But here's the good news: 

This isn't a flaw—it's a side effect of being really damn good at what you do.

The answer isn't to just think harder or magically carve out more time. It's to get someone on the outside to help you see what's been there all along.

That's what Chris did. He stopped trying to white-knuckle it alone. We worked together to extract what he couldn't see himself.

Chris has already just begun using his new messaging in client pitches and newsletter. We haven’t even rolled his full strategy out publicly yet, but he’s already on track to do over $1M in his first year of consulting.

Chris always had the raw ingredients locked in his head. He just couldn't bottle his own brilliance.

None of us can.

—
P.S. Have you overcome the Expert’s Paradox? If so, what helped you finally break through?

I used to own a branding agency. So it's a wee bit embarrassing that UNIGNORABLE's first logo was made in Canva in 3 minutes 😬

It didn't necessarily hold us back too much—we still manageed to generate $1.2M from the original UNIGNORABLE Challenge (while running it as a side gig).

But the old UNIGNORABLE branding just kinda felt... ignorable.

Ironic, right? 

We never sat down and got intentional about the visual side of the brand. We basically just mashed together a few elements from the Why We Buy brand with a few elements from Demand Curve, and called it a day.

So when I finally decided to commit full throttle to building UNIGNORABLE 2.0, the Ownable Ideas agency, I knew it was time for a glow-up.

The first person I called? 

Sarah Hart ✤ (duh).

And she understood the assignment. 

We wanted UNIGNORABLE be a distinctive brand while still giving a nod to the sister brand, Why We Buy.

She kept my signature "burn-your-eyes-out yellow" and used our blueish purple as a highlight color. 

But while Why We Buy's visual brand is playful and punchy—I wanted to make behavioral science feel accessible and fun—the new UNIGNORABLE brand is built around one idea: the spotlight.

We help big-brained experts to step into the spotlight and finally become known for an idea they own.

Why? Because idea owners get rich.

UNIGNORABLE's brand is dripping with gravitas and vibey AF. 

I'm obsessed with it.

So let's give is up for Sarah, right? She killed it!

Fun fact: Sarah did this branding work while 39 weeks pregnant. Her due date is today so there's a very real chance that Sarah is having a baby as I type this post. 

Calling her insanely talented doesn't even cut it.

Go have that baby, Sarah. You've earned it. 👏

UNIGNORABLE Branding

Two brains read your content.
Most people only write for one.
(That’s a problem)

This ideas comes from behavioural science. Jonathan Haidt called it the 'Elephant and the Rider'.

The Rider is your logical brain. Slow and analytical. It evaluates arguments and reads the fine print to the letter.

The Elephant is your emotional brain. Fast and instinctive. It decides in milliseconds whether something is worth its attention.

On social media, the Elephant is almost always driving.

Which means if your message requires effort to decode—it's jargon-heavy, no signal of "What's in it for me?", long-winded—the Elephant's already gone. Onto the next shiny thing.

Many smart people intuitively write for the Rider. The ideas are brilliant and worth sharing... but the Elephant ignores them because their point is buried under heaping piles of cognitive load.

It's a tricky balance to get right. 

Want an example of writing for the Elephant?

Last week, I changed my LinkedIn headline. Several people sent connection requests, saying it's the reason they followed me.

The new headline: "Idea Owners Get Rich."

Four words. 
Low cognitive load.
Provocatively teases value
The Elephant gets it immediately.

Now don't worry. Your social content doesn't need to be dumbed down. You can still share big ideas and deep takes. It just needs to be packaged in a way that makes it more digestible for hungry Elephants. 

Know when and where to write for the Elephant. That's how you get a shot at talking to the Rider, too. And the Rider gets the last say on purchasing decisions.

--
P.S. What's your current LinkedIn headline? Drop it below and let's audit it ↓↓↓

P.P.S. I don't share my title or what I do in my headline because all my clients come inbound. But I think if you're doing any outreach or social selling, it's important to clarify what you do.

Someone DMd me this question at 7am. 

It’s an important question:

“Do experts struggle because they lack a distinct idea… or because they haven’t committed to repeating one long enough for it to stick?”

My answer: both. 

But one is way more dangerous than people realize.

Almost everyone I talk to knows they have the first problem. Their ownable idea exists—they can feel it—but it’s tangled and foggy in their brain. They know they need help untangling it, shaping it, figuring out what to say and what to leave out.

What they don’t see coming is problem two.

You find your idea. You post about it a few times. You start to feel like a broken record. So you pivot to something new, something fresher.

And just like that, your idea dies quietly.  

The idea was good—it had real promise. Life changing promise. But you abandoned it before it had a chance to become *yours*.

I know this one firsthand. Years ago I spent ages developing my Trigger Technique framework. 

(A methodology for turning buyer journey stories into laser targeted marketing campaigns).

I labored over it. Circulated it to most brilliant people I knew for feedback. I easily spent 80 hours just writing the blog post revealing it. 

Then I posted about it a handful of times. Got some claps. Got bored. Moved on. 

Shockingly (heavy sarcasm), the Trigger Technique never became the thing I was known for.

Luckily I learned from my mistake. When I started talking about buyer psychology a year later, I didn’t stop. 

I repeated the same core message—again and again and, yes, again!

The ugly truth?

You have to say the same thing 1,000 ways before people actually associate it with you. 

That’s not repetition—that’s how ownership works.

Sorry. I don’t make the rules.

Play for the game for the long-term (or miss out on the best prizes).

—
P.S. So which problem are you stuck in—the foggy idea, or the follow-through?

1,878 entrepreneurs did the Unignorable Challenge since 2023. The final exercise was always the toughest…

Everything in the challenge laddered up to one thing: identifying your big idea (what I now call your “ownable idea”).

After watching thousands of entrepreneurs work through this, I’m now convinced it’s THE most important thing to figure out if you want to build authority that sells.

Everything else is a nice-to-have by comparison.

Here’s why:

👉 You hear James Clear, you think of ‘atomic habits’
👉 You hear Mel Robbins, you think ‘5-second rule’
👉 You hear Justin Welsh, you think ‘solopreneurship’

That’s not just good content. That’s not just clear positioning. That’s an ownable idea doing its job.

A few years ago, you didn’t necessarily *need* one.

You could create solid content, be clear in your positioning, and still attract clients. That was enough.

Plenty of UNIGNORABLE alum built very profitable audiences without nailing one central ownable idea.

They won because their content was f*cking great.

But that’s not enough. Not anymore.

Everyone’s creating content now. AI made it easy.

So what separates the people who break through *today* from the people who blend in?

An idea people can buy into.

Because people need to buy into your idea before they’ll buy from you.

I’ve always known it was important...

But it’s really in the last year—after going deep with clients 1:1 on this—that I realized the ownable idea isn’t just part of the process.

It IS the process.
Everything else flows from it.

Get it right, the rest just sort of clicks together.

→ Creating content gets easier
→ Right-fit clients pay attention
→ People show up pre-sold on working with you
→ You get leverage to earn more (without working more)

Without it? Stuff just feels... harder.

So let’s start with the tough question: What do you want to be known for?

Old game:
Good work attracts clients

New game: 
Good thinking about the work attracts clients

The (lazy) narrative: "agencies are dead"
The reality: good marketers will get VERY rich

—
Building a product used to require a ton of capital, years of engineering or R&D, and a team you probably couldn't afford.

(Trust me. I built a VC-backed tech startup without a technical co-founder way back in 2014. It was haaaaaaard.)

But now that everyone can vibe code, the bottleneck shifted. Overnight.

What's hard now?

↳ Distribution
↳ Making people care
↳ Crafting a story that spreads

These aren't product problems. They're marketing problems.

That means budgets shift—less spent to build. WAY MORE spent on building demand.

Which gives us a distinct advantage.

Marketers are already the founders behind some of your favorite brands.

Canva.
Olipop.
Webflow.
Hubspot.
Shopify.
Glossier.
Liquid Death.

The entrepreneurs who founded these iconic companies all ran agencies or consultancies first.

Sometimes they built solutions to scratch an itch for themselves and their clients.

Sometimes they saw an opportunity no one else did.

"Soda" that's good for your gut-health?

Canned water with a name like "LiquidDeath"?

Only a marketer could dream those up.

—
And the best agencies and marketers are about to get dramatically more leveraged.

I see two winning paths:

Path 1: Productize your expertise—building high-margin service businesses that run like software.

Think niche, highly scalable agencies that build internal tools that blend their team's proprietary approach and craftsmanship with AI-efficiency.

I call these "brainware" agencies. And that's what I'm building.

Path 2; Build that crazy product the world wants, but doesn't know it yet. Because unlike the non-marketers, you actually know *how* to build demand.

The speed of change will be insane. But us marketers have always navigated rapid change while focusing on what doesn't change fast: people.

—
The people betting against agencies are dead wrong.

Sure, some won't make it. But others—the smart ones—will win bigger than they ever imagined.

And us marketers already think big, right?

—
P.S. did I miss another marketer-led giant on this slide? Drop the name below

“I don’t know if this is going to work.” ~ my ‘pitch’ to each Unignorable beta client

Now I’m no sales pro (marketer over here 👋) but that’s probably not the beeest way to land a client.

But it was true. Not because I doubted my ability to deliver for the client.

(I’ve been doing positioning and messaging work for 16 years—I’m damn good at it.)

The question was whether I could make it repeatable and predictable. 

I didn’t start Unignorable so I could be a consultant again. I’m building a scalable business that can deliver consistent results without me in every room.

Honestly? For the first 4 beta projects, I thought I was screwed.

I’d made a massive promise…

We weren’t just building a content strategy or crafting new messaging. Nope. I’d promised to help my clients find, shape and share their first big ownable idea. Not just for their company—for themselves, personally. That’s haaaaard to do.

And initially, the whole thing ran on gut feel, with no transferable pattern I could actually teach someone else. It was all art and no science.

Then the 5th project cracked it open.

I had an aha moment that changed everything. Within a few days I had codified my intuition into a step-by-step process that was teachable.

A lot of creative people resist this part. Like systematizing your instincts somehow makes the work less inspired.

(For what it’s worth: Darwin, Andy Warhol, and Jony Ive all had documented creative processes. The magic looked effortless. The methodology was very much not.)

I didn’t have a clear process when I made that promise to my first beta clients. But I trusted in my ability to build the method through the work.

And I did, finally.

There’s a lesson there: The answer rarely comes before you start. It comes because you started.

Agreed?

Ramli John

Author of Product-Led Onboarding (+30K copies sold) | First Round Fast Track Mentor | Content Director at Appcues.

⭐️ Follow me for helpful tips to onboard, delight, and keep your customers coming back to your product.
📔 Author of Amazon #1 bestselling book "Product-Led Onboarding." 👉 𝙎𝙀𝘼𝙉 𝙀𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙎, Founder of GrowthHackers.com: "Product-Led Onboarding is 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭-𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 embarking on the critical activity of improving their user onboarding." 


⚡️ I use my multi-disciplinary skills in marketing, design, and software development to help product-led SaaS companies analyze their whole customer's journey and funnel to identify growth opportunities to 2-3X their MRR. 

Often, that means designing and implementing experiments to increase activation rate (trial-to-paid or free-to-paid conversions), decrease churn rate, or increase average revenue per user (ARPU)

If you asked my friends and colleagues how they would describe me, they'd say I'm resourceful, proactive, and entrepreneurial

►► CONTACT INFO
▷ Send a connection request
▷ Write me a note at ramli [at] ramlijohn.com

Founder

A weekly show and newsletter for marketers looking to level up their marketing and career. I interview world-class marketers to uncover the secrets, strategies, and frameworks behind their wins. In each episode, guests reveal three things:  (1) a marketing power-up,  (2) a real-world example of that in action, and (3) a power-up that’s helped them take their career to the next level.

Ramli "RJ" John

When your product team skips user research (and just builds fast with AI)... 🤡


AI lets you ship in days, not weeks. But without user research, speed just gets you to the wrong place faster.

A product leader was about to ship a feature last week. AI-assisted code. Cloud deployment ready. Built in 3 days.

Then someone from customer success flagged something: "This solves a problem our users stopped complaining about 6 months ago."

One conversation. Saved weeks of wasted effort.

We can build faster than ever. AI tools, cloud code, vibe coding—the speed is real.

But speed without direction is just efficient wandering.

The real question isn't "Can we ship this?"

It's "Should we?"

That's where user research becomes non-negotiable.

Here are 5 ways to quickly validate ideas before you ship:

1. Run a 5-second test on your concept (does it communicate what you think it does?)
2. Send a quick survey to your target segment (10 questions max)
3. Do 3-5 unmoderated usability tests on a prototype
4. Interview 5 users who match your ICP (even 15-min calls work)
5. Card sort your information architecture before building navigation

None of these take weeks. Most can be done in days.

Tools like Lyssna make this even faster. You can recruit from 690K+ vetted participants, run moderated or unmoderated tests, and get results before your sprint ends.

Speed is a competitive advantage.

But only when you're building the right thing.

What's your go-to method for quick validation?

PS. Save this for the next time you're tempted to ship something fast without validating it first. Future you will thank you.

Join the AI Product Leaders Summit on 3/24 for free at PLSummit.ai. Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

Less than 5 days until the AI Product Leaders Summit with 12 speakers from Adobe, Google, and more. Register for free https://lnkd.in/gWfqMNZN

Every speaker is actively building AI products or leading teams through AI transformation right now. No theory. Just what's actually working (and what flopped).

The lineup:

→ Deepti Pradeep  and her team (Adobe) on how Photoshop got 100k+ of users in 30 days by launching inside ChatGPT

→ Jacob Bank (Relay.app, ex-Google Gmail/Calendar) on the 3 AI agents every product leader should "hire"

→ Mickey Alon (Foldspace AI) on Agent-Led Growth—when your product does the work for users

→ Christine Itwaru & Katy Nardozzi (Userflow) on dogfooding their way to better product decisions

→ Joe Formica (Lyssna) on where AI misleads product decisions (and how to avoid it)

Plus two expert panels:

→ Angela Sze (Sr. Director of Product at Fullstory), Shannon V. (CEO/CPO at Usersnap), Lauren Schuman (VP of Product Growth at Close) on shipping AI features without losing customer trust

→ Betsy Shaak (VP Product Voxpopme), Greg Leach (Sr. Director at 7shifts), and Partho Ghosh (VP Product @ Uberall) on how product teams are using AI to cut the busywork

Here's what you'll walk away with:

1. How Adobe turned ChatGPT into a growth channel (and whether you should too)
2. Which AI agents actually save PMs time vs. pure hype
3. How to ship AI features without confusing users or breaking trust
4. Where AI creates blind spots in product decisions

March 24th. 10 AM - 3:30 PM ET. Virtual. Free.

Register for free: https://lnkd.in/gWfqMNZN

What's the biggest challenge you're facing with AI products right now?

PS. Tag a product leader who needs to see this. They'll thank you for it. 😊

It's been 2 years since I've had a podcast show. Tomorrow, that changes! Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path drops at 8 am ET. 🎉


I waited because I didn't want another show. I wanted something that actually aligned with what I'm building—a media and community brand for product leaders.

The first episode is "The AI Adoption Pressure."

Your team is scrolling LinkedIn, seeing posts about AI replacing jobs. Leadership is pushing hard on adoption. Everyone's overwhelmed. No one knows where to start.

Two product leaders faced this exact moment. Same pressure. Completely different approaches.

Greg Leach (Sr. Director/GM of Expansion Revenue at 7shifts) built a cross-functional AI committee. Volunteers from every department. Monthly demos drawing 100+ people. Department budgets for experimentation. Bottom-up learning across the entire company.

Joseph King (Sr. Director of Product at Crucial Learning) took a different path. His team invested in sending four leaders to Kellogg for AI certification. Frameworks first. Leadership alignment before company-wide rollout. Top-down, methodical approach.

Both worked. But for very different reasons.

This episode breaks down what each leader did, why they chose their approach, and what you can learn from both paths.

No generic advice. Just real decisions, real trade-offs, and real outcomes.

🎧 Search "Product Leaders Lab" on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Tomorrow. 8 am ET. See you there!

Most product onboarding fails because of "click tax." More clicks = higher drop-off. AI can fix this. Here's how...


First, here's what the traditional flow could look like:
→ Click on Document Templates
→ Pick a template
→ Update the template
→ Save and send

4 steps. Each one adds cognitive load. In B2B, it's worse. You've got multiple personas with different expertise, different outcomes they're chasing.

One-size-fits-all education doesn't work.

AI can fix this. The shift: Don't educate → generate.

Instead of teaching users how to navigate your platform, help them generate the outcome directly.

Anvil did this. Now users just describe what they need: "Create a template for a B2B SaaS purchase agreement."

Then they watch it get built. Custom-made for them.

From 4 steps to 2. From education to generation.

Tools like Foldspace AI are making this possible without custom code. Your team doesn't have to build an agentic experience from scratch.

This is where activation is headed. Less hand-holding. More instant value.

How are you using AI to reduce click tax in your product?

ChatGPT isn't just a tool anymore; it's a growth channel. It's how Adobe got 100K+ new users in 30 days. They're sharing exactly how they did it...


Most product leaders are asking: "How do we add AI to our product?"

Adobe asked a different question: "How do we get our product INTO AI platforms?"

That reframe led to one of their boldest growth bets.

They launched Photoshop inside ChatGPT. Six weeks. Ungated. No login required.

Here's the shift that matters:

Instead of treating AI as a feature to bolt on, Adobe treated AI platforms as the new top of funnel.

Think about it:

→ Millions of people already inside ChatGPT daily
→ Zero friction to try Photoshop (no login, no paywall)
→ Users discover Adobe where they already are

This isn't about adding AI to your product anymore.

It's about getting your product in front of AI users.

Want to hear the full story?

Deepti Pradeep (Sr. Director of Product Management, Growth at Adobe) is sharing the decision, the trade-offs, and what they learned—along with her team members Anthony Lewis (Principal PM) and Shalini Ahuja (Senior PM, Photoshop).

They're speaking at the AI Product Leaders Summit I'm hosting.

📅 Tuesday, March 24 | 10 AM - 3 PM ET
💻 Virtual. Free.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/gWfqMNZN

What AI platform could be YOUR distribution channel?

Your biggest product launch just flopped. Do you protect your team or fix the product first? What do you do? Here's what Christine and Matt did...

Christine Itwaru (VP Product and Design at Userflow) knew two hours in. She immediately went into "mama bear" mode—told her PM to shut out Slack, took the heat herself, and shielded her team while they fixed it.

Matt LeMay (Product Advisor and Author) watched their Bitly relaunch get publicly destroyed. Roger Ebert posted about how terrible it was. People threatened to burn down their office! It took months before they could pivot.

One moved in hours. One struggled for months. Both eventually recovered.

This episode breaks down:
→ How to protect your team when everything's on fire
→ Why setting success criteria BEFORE launch saves you from rationalizing failure
→ When to fix fast vs. when a full pivot is the only path forward

🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. 
Search "Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path."

💬 What's the most common reason you've seen product launches fail? 
Drop it in the comments.

🔁 Share this with a product leader who's been through launch hell.

—

Thank you to our partners for supporting the show:

🏆 Userflow: Guide users, answer questions in the moment, and continuously improve product adoption—all without writing code.
🙋‍♀️ Lyssna: Create research studies, recruit the right participants, and gather feedback to shape products users truly love
🤖 Foldspace AI: The AI Operator that turns your SaaS AI-first in days. Their embedded agent understands your users' intent and executes it on their behalf. 

—

My favorite quote from this episode: "Someone's threatening to come to our office and burn it down. Should we delete that or keep it?" — Matt

Episode 1 of Product Leaders Lab is officially LIVE. 🎉 Leadership is pushing AI. Your product team is overwhelmed. They're watching what you do next. What do you do? 

Two product leaders faced this exact moment. Same pressure. Completely different solutions.

Greg Leach (7shifts) built a cross-functional AI committee. Volunteers from every department. Monthly demos drawing 100+ people.

Joseph King (Crucial Learning) was one of four leaders from his company who joined the Kellogg School of Management's AI certification. Frameworks first. Leadership alignment before rollout.

Bottom-up vs. top-down. Both worked. But for very different reasons.

This episode breaks down what they did, why they chose their approach, and what you can learn from both paths.

🎧 Search "Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path" on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

💬 Drop your biggest takeaway in the comments.
🔁 Share this with a product leader feeling the AI pressure.

PS. Thank you to the founding partners of the Product Leaders Lab: Userflow, Lyssna, and Foldspace AI. They've made this possible and whole 10-episode season possible.

Product Leaders Lab show drops next week. And honestly? It's never been harder to be a product leader.

The pressure to ship AI features. The endless stakeholder alignment. The decisions that keep you up at night.

Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path is where real product leaders share how they handled their toughest moments.

The decisions.
The tradeoffs.
The consequences.

Featuring stories from leaders at Google, Spotify, and more.

No theory. Just real leadership.

📅 First episode drops February 24

🎧 Follow & subscribe:
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g2FsrjUb
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gWwS-Rv8
Apple: https://lnkd.in/gAzQJb7Q

See you there.

Hey!

Thanks for commenting on my post about my User Onboarding audit template. 

You can grab it below for free, which includes a video explaining it.  

There's also the link to join my weekly newsletter there.

Let me know if you have any questions!

https://www.appcues.com/product-adoption-academy/templates/user-onboarding-flow-audit-template





Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path

"AI is going to kill SaaS." I keep hearing this take. And I think it's wrong. Here's what people forget...

SaaS platforms aren't just "dumb databases" with pretty menus.

They encode years of business logic, compliance rules, permissions, and audit trails. They reflect the exact processes enterprises rely on to run safely.

You can have the smartest AI in the world. But, without trusted infrastructure, it can't:

❌ Close payroll
❌ Enforce a security policy
❌ Run a complex supply chain workflow

Execution liability has to live somewhere.

But here's where the shift IS happening:

The future isn't AI replacing SaaS.

It's an Agentic Layer sitting on top of SaaS—making it exponentially more productive.

Mickey Alon (CEO of Foldspace AI) breaks this down into three layers (h/t for the image he created)

1. Interactive AI Layer (Synchronous) – Captures real-time intent and orchestrates complex UI instantly. No more "click tax."

2. Asynchronous AI Layer (Proactive) – Continuously processes data, surfaces insights, and triggers actions before you even ask.

3. SaaS Layer (Deterministic) – The system of record. Trusted execution, rigid permissions, business logic.

SaaS isn't dead. It's getting a massive upgrade.

Mickey's going deeper on this at the AI Product Leaders Summit (March 24)—his workshop on "Agent-Led Growth" covers how to implement an agentic roadmap to unlock growth

If you're building AI into your product, this is the session for you.

Register via my profile link → Ramli John

What's your take—will AI replace SaaS or sit on top of it?

Teams are using AI to build faster. They're not using it to validate faster.

Tools like Cursor, Bolt, and v0 let you go from idea to working prototype in hours. PRDs are getting shorter. Shipping is faster than ever.

But here's the problem:

Speed without validation is just efficient wandering.

AI made it easier to skip research. And many teams do.

The result? Fast, confident, and wrong.

Here are 3 ways research keeps you from building the wrong thing faster:

1. Validate direction before building

AI lets you prototype in a day. But a prototype of the wrong idea is still the wrong idea. A few user interviews before you build can save weeks of wasted effort.

2. De-risk big roadmap bets

Major launches carry uncertainty. Research lets you pressure-test before you scale. The cost of 5 usability tests is nothing compared to a failed launch.

3. Diagnose why metrics are moving

When activation drops or conversions stall, analytics show what's happening. Research shows why. It turns "users aren't converting" into "users don't understand the value on step 2."

Tools like Lyssna make this faster. You can run usability tests, recruit participants, and get real human insight before your sprint ends.

Joe Formica from Lyssna is speaking at the AI Product Leaders Summit on March 24th about exactly this. 

He'll share how to use AI to validate product features more quickly. Real examples of insights that only surfaced through deeper research.

AI made building faster. It didn't make building the right thing easier.

That still takes research.

How has AI changed your team's approach to validation?

🚀 Only 3 days to go! The first episode of Product Leaders Lab drops this Thursday! 🎙️ Don’t miss it, follow us and turn on notifications so you’re ready!

#ProductLeadersLab #Countdown #ProductManagement #LeadershipJourney #TuneInThursday

4 product leaders. 4 company sizes. 1 obsession: killing the product team coordination tax with AI.

Product teams are drowning in status meetings, Slack threads, and decision docs. The busywork is eating the actual work.

This panel at the AI Product Leaders Summit breaks down how high-performing teams are fighting back:

→ Greg Leach (Sr. Director, 7shifts) — Chairs a cross-functional AI committee at a 250-employee SaaS. His focus: cutting the red tape that slows teams down.

→ Betsy Shaak (VP Product, Voxpopme) — Using AI prototyping and AI agents to collapse the product development timeline.

→ Partho Ghosh (VP Product, Uberall) — Rethinking the entire product lifecycle as AI-native from day one.

→ Priyanka Sahni (Product Lead, Meta) — How a +75,000-person company is using AI to move faster, not slower.

What they'll cover is how their team is using AI to create:

- Meeting summaries that actually get read
- Async updates that replace status syncs
- Decision documentation that doesn't take hours

Less time coordinating. More time shipping and talking to customers.

March 24th. 10 AM - 3:30 PM ET. Virtual. Free.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/gWfqMNZN

What's the biggest time sink on your product team right now?

AI isn't optional anymore. It's the future of your business. But forcing it with memos and hoping it'll stick? That’s a recipe for failure. 

Building an AI-ready culture starts with genuine support, not just mandates. What’s your biggest challenge with AI adoption? Drop your thoughts below.

🎥🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 

#AITransformation #LeadershipTips #FutureOfWork #BusinessGrowth

People rush to add ChatGPT features or AI tools, expecting instant wins. But without a clear strategy, those features often flop after months of effort.

What's your biggest concern with AI adoption right now?

🎥🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts!

#AIstrategy #ProductGrowth #BusinessInnovation #TechTips

Two years ago, we thought AI would take our jobs. Turns out, standing still is what actually will.

I talked to Joseph King, Sr. Director of Product at Crucial Learning, about how his team went from fear to treating AI as a collaborator.

But here's the part that stuck with me:

His company had an AI strategy. It just sat in a Slack channel nobody checked.

Teams didn't know the company's actual stance on AI. So they guessed. Or did nothing.

The fix wasn't complicated. Document it. Share it. Make it visible.

Most companies aren't failing because they lack an AI vision.

They're failing because nobody knows it exists.

Does your team actually know your company's AI stance? Or is it buried somewhere?

🎥🎧 Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Search "Product Leaders Lab."

taplio

The Battle

Katelyn Bourgoin 🧠

Ramli "RJ" John

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreKatelyn Bourgoin 🧠's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRamli "RJ" John's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Katelyn Bourgoin 🧠

Ramli "RJ" John

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Katelyn Bourgoin 🧠's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRamli "RJ" John's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreKatelyn Bourgoin 🧠's LinkedIn Performance