And then there are those few you can’t live without.

They don’t just work, they get you.

They make you feel seen, inspired, even a little more you.

So what makes something so magnetic that people don’t just use it, they obsess over it?

The story of Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty

When Rihanna started Fenty Beauty in 2017, many people didn’t take it seriously.

They thought, “Another celebrity makeup brand. This one won’t last.”

And honestly, that was a fair guess.

The beauty world was already full, and it mostly served only a few kinds of people.

Most brands focused on one kind of beauty and ignored everyone else.

So how did Fenty Beauty not only succeed but change everything?

They solved a problem no one else was solving.

For years, makeup came in very few shades.
If your skin was darker, you couldn’t find one that matched you.

Rihanna noticed this and decided to do something about it.

When Fenty launched, it came out with 40 foundation shades right away.

Each shade made people believe:

You exist. You matter. You belong.

And for the first time, millions of people finally felt seen.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Fans didn’t just buy makeup. They joined a movement.

#FentyFace went viral.

Women and men all over the world shared selfies, swatches, and stories about finally finding a match. For the first time, an entire segment of consumers felt recognized by the beauty industry.

Rihanna was not just selling makeup. She invited people into a community where representation was the foundation.

Their success lasted beyond just the day of launch. Rihanna’s team built ongoing engagement:

• Limited releases that created excitement

• Celebrity collaborations that felt aspirational yet attainable

• Tutorials, swatches, and social media content that educated and inspired experimentation

Every touchpoint was designed to bring people back. Every interaction reinforced the sense that Fenty wasn’t just a brand. They were a part of your story.

Fenty made beauty fun. Playful. Experimental.

• Users could track their own evolution by trying new shades, following tutorials, and sharing results online.

• Every swatch, swipe, or selfie was a little victory, a little marker of growth, a little boost of confidence.

Products that let you see progress are sticky. They’re addictive. They make people feel invested in themselves and in the brand.

Here’s the final piece: Price

Fenty didn’t feel out of reach. It wasn’t bargain-bin. It wasn’t unattainable.

It was just right. Mid-range luxury. High-quality. Overdelivering on every front.

People felt like they were investing in a feeling, a solution, a little slice of empowerment. It was beyond just buying a product.

The Deeper Lesson Behind It All

We live in an era of choice overload.

App stores have over 5 million apps, yet most are abandoned within days.

Cosmetic shelves overflow, yet people only buy a handful of products repeatedly.

Even products designed to simplify life often end up becoming more clutter.

And it’s not just a consumer problem.

Founders face it too.

You can build something brilliant, but if it doesn’t connect deeply, it dies quietly.

The challenge isn’t building more products. It’s building products that matter, products that embed themselves into human behavior and culture.

The Anatomy of a Great Product

Great products aren’t built on features, trends, or marketing gimmicks.

They’re built on psychology. On human behavior. On the invisible threads that tie desire, belonging, and meaning together.

When you look closely at any product that changes culture, you’ll find five core elements running through it like DNA.

These five aren’t just design choices; they’re psychological levers that shape how people think, feel, and act.

They are:

1. A predictable system solving a clear problem

2. A built-in community

3. Engagement loops

4. Progress tracking

5. Unbeatable perceived value

Nail these five, and people don’t just buy your product. They live it.

Element 1: Predictable System Solving a Clear Problem

Humans crave certainty in chaos. When a product gives them predictability, it gives them peace.
A predictable system does three things:

• Clarifies the problem. People know exactly what’s being solved.

• Shows a step-by-step path to resolution. It feels like someone’s holding their hand through the fog.

• Builds instant trust. Predictability creates safety, and safety drives loyalty.

Think about it. The reason you open your favorite app daily isn’t randomness, it’s rhythm. It’s the subconscious comfort of knowing what comes next.

Confusion is the death of adoption. The second someone feels lost, they leave.

Actionable tip: Ask yourself, if someone picked up your product blind, could they understand what it does and how it helps within three minutes?

Element 2: Community

Humans are wired for connection. It’s not enough for a product to work, people want to feel seen inside it.

The secret behind truly sticky products is social belonging. When people see others using it, celebrating it, and building identity around it, they want in.

Fenty Beauty nailed this. They went beyond just makeup. They made it about representation.
People weren’t buying foundation, they were buying the feeling of being included in a movement.

When your users find themselves reflected in your product, they don’t just buy it. They defend it.

Actionable tip: Build ways for users to interact, share wins, and celebrate each other. Community is the emotional glue that makes your product unforgettable.

Element 3: Engagement Loops

Engagement here is about emotion, not time. You don’t want people to just stare at your product or app. You want them to feel something positive when they use it.

The idea of habit architecture is this. The best products create small, repeatable experiences that make users feel rewarded. For example:

• A notification reminds you of something useful or fun.

• A progress bar shows you how far you’ve come.

• A streak celebrates consecutive days of using the product.

• A new update gives you something fresh to explore.

Each of these is a tiny “win” that makes you feel satisfied or accomplished. When these wins happen often, your brain starts associating the product with positive feelings like happiness, progress, or confidence.

The goal is not tricking people or keeping them busy. It is creating momentum. People start coming back because it feels good, not because they have to.

In short: great engagement is about designing your product so that users get small rewards that make them want to return, naturally forming a habit.

Actionable tip: Identify the moments in your user journey that create emotional reward. Then amplify them.

Element 4: Progress Tracking

Nothing motivates like visible growth.

When users can see their progress, they start believing in themselves through your product.

This is why feedback loops are so powerful. They transform abstract effort into tangible achievement.

When Fenty customers share their before-and-after looks or watch their makeup skills evolve, they experience more than the product. They witness their own transformation and growth.

Gamification, dashboards, streaks, progress bars, these are more than UX tools. They’re mirrors reflecting back a user’s competence.

Actionable tip: Don’t just promise transformation. Show it. Create visible milestones that remind your users how far they’ve come.

Element 5: Unbeatable Price and Value Perception

Pricing is more than just numbers. People feel emotions when they see a price.

• If something costs too much, they feel left out or think they cannot afford it.

• If something costs too little, they might think it is cheap or low quality. It lacks aspirational value.

The best price makes people feel like the product is just right for them. They feel they are getting something valuable without paying too much.

Fenty found this balance. Their makeup felt high quality and luxurious, but the price was still reasonable.

People felt excited to buy it and proud to use it.

When the value feels bigger than the price, people don’t just buy. They want it and trust it.

Actionable Tip: Make sure every price feels like a smart choice, not a gamble. People should feel “I got so much for what I paid.”

People Don’t Buy Products. They Buy Possibility

At the end of the day, people don’t buy what you make.

They buy what it makes possible.

They buy how it makes them feel.

They buy the identity they get to step into every time they use it.

Look at the products you swear by. You’ll notice the same five elements running through all of them.

Reflection Prompts

1. Which of the five elements, predictable system, community, engagement loops, progress tracking, or perceived value, matters most to you when you decide to invest in a product?

2. How does your favorite product make you feel seen, understood, or part of a community?

3. How could you apply these lessons to your own work or ideas to create something people do not just use, but live?

How Did We Do?

What were your biggest takeaways from this? Hit reply and let me know. I read every message, and your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

You already had enough information to move.

You had a sense of what the right call was.

And you still waited.

Most founders have never been taught how to decide. They have been taught to think harder, or trust themselves more, or sleep on it.

None of that produces a decision.

It just produces a longer loop of the same thoughts.

What produces a decision is a structure that turns what you know into a clear next move.

How Instagram Made the Decision That Changed Everything

In 2010, Kevin Systrom had a problem.

He had built an app called Burbn. It could do a lot of things. Check-ins, social points, location tagging, photo sharing.

It was trying to be everything.

And nobody was using it.

A few dozen users but no growth. And Foursquare was already doing the main thing better.

So Systrom sat down with his co-founder Mike Krieger and asked a simple question.

What is actually working?

They pulled up their data and looked at how people were spending time inside the app. Most features were being ignored. But one thing kept showing up.

People were sharing photos.

And photos was not even the big idea or feature they had.

Photos were almost an afterthought when they built Burbn. But users kept coming back to that one thing, without being asked to.

That was the signal.

So they made a decision that felt scary at the time.

They threw out almost everything they had built. The check-ins. The points. The location features. All of it.

They kept only the photos.

Then they asked themselves four questions.

Did they have what it takes to build this well? Yes. Small team, fast builders, investors already on board. The leverage was there.

Was it simpler to execute than what they were doing before? Much simpler. One feature instead of ten. Cleaner to build, easier to explain.

Were they taking on more risk by pivoting? They looked at this honestly. Staying on the current path, in a market they were losing, with users who were not growing, was the riskier move. The pivot was actually the safer bet.

And what was the potential return? A focused product in a space nobody had clearly won yet. The upside was real.

They rebuilt the app in eight weeks and renamed it Instagram.

They launched on October 6, 2010.

The servers crashed within hours. A million users in two months. Facebook acquired them two years later for a billion dollars.

What Systrom and Krieger did in that room is what I now call the LERR model.

Leverage. Ease. Risk. Return.

They did not go with their gut. They went with a way of thinking. And that way of thinking changed everything.

The Cost of Deciding Without a System

Most founders I speak to are exhausted from making the same decisions repeatedly, because they never built a system to make them once.

Every week the same questions come back.

Should I raise my prices. Is this the right niche. Am I working on the right thing.

Without a structure, decisions become emotional.

You go with how you feel that morning, or what someone said last week, or whatever doubt happens to be loudest in the moment.

Over time, you stop trusting yourself.

You think you’re bad at deciding. Butin reality, you just have never had a reliable process to return to.

Decision-making is a skill. It improves with the right tools and deliberate practice.

The founders who scale have built better systems for how they think.

The LERR Model: How to Choose Between Options

When you are sitting with a decision and you have more than one path in front of you, this is the framework to use.

LERR stands for Leverage, Ease, Risk, and Return.

Leverage asks: do you already have what it takes to make this work?

The skills, the team, the resources, the relationships.

You are not starting from zero if the assets are already in your hands.

Ease asks: how simple is this to execute relative to your other options?

The simpler path is not always the weaker one. Often it is the smarter one.

Risk asks: what specifically could go wrong if you choose this?

Write it down. The lost money, the lost time, the lost reputation. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Once you can see it clearly, you can decide if the tradeoffs are worth it.

Return asks: what is the realistic upside if this works?

Score each option from one to five across all four dimensions. For risk, the lower the risk, the higher the score.

Add them up. The highest score points you to your next move.

Your Action Steps

Step 1. Pick one decision you have been sitting on for more than two weeks. Write it down.

Step 2. List every option in front of you. Even the ones that feel unlikely.

Step 3. Score each option from one to five on Leverage, Ease, Risk, and Return. Add them up.

Step 4. Look at the highest score. If it surprises you, that is useful information. If it confirms what you already knew, now you have a reason to move.

Step 5. Give yourself 24 hours to commit to a direction. Not a final answer. A direction.

Let's Build It Together

I put together a free decision-making workbook that walks you through five decision-making frameworks that I personally use in my life and business.

It includes scorecards, worksheets, and reflection prompts for each model.

This is the same resource I give my paying clients before they start any new launch or major pivot.

Download the Free Decision Framework

How Did We Do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

Six months of refining the offer. 

Perfecting the messaging. 

Waiting for the right moment. 

And still, no clients.

Thinking too much is a trap that feels productive. 

But at the end of six months, if you still have zero clients and a very refined set of opinions about your niche, and you still don’t feel ready to start..

It’s about time you took action.

How Jeff Bezos killed the “perfect plan”

In 1994, Jeff Bezos was working at a hedge fund in New York. Good job, good money, good future.

He read a statistic that web usage was growing at 2,300% per year. 

He did not spend six months building a business plan. 

He did not wait for certainty. 

He quit, drove across the country with his wife, and started writing the business plan in the passenger seat on the way to Seattle.

He called it the regret minimisation framework. 

He asked himself one question: when I am 80, will I regret not having tried this?

The answer was yes. So he went.

Amazon did not win because Bezos had a perfect strategy. 

He actually had a very simple one. Sell books online. Start there. See what happens.

What he had was a deadline he set for himself.  So he put his decision in motion before he had all the answers.

Most of us are waiting for the answers before we move. Bezos moved and found the answers on the road.

The difference between a plan and a sprint

Here is what I have found after building several companies and now watching founders inside Greater Inside do this in real time.

A plan gives you comfort. A sprint gives you data.

And data is the only thing that actually tells you if your offer works, if your market is real, if your pricing makes sense.

You cannot get data by thinking. You can only get data by doing.

A six-week sprint is a solid, tested system. 

It compresses a year of gradual drift into 42 days of focused movement. 

And in those 42 days, you will learn more about your business than you would in six months of planning.

The reason it works is simple. 

Six weeks is short enough that you cannot hide from it. A year feels distant, so your brain allows procrastination. 

Six weeks feels immediate. Every week counts. Every conversation matters.

Why most service founders stay stuck before they even begin

There are three places I see people lose momentum before they even launch. And it is almost always one of these three.

The first is trying to serve everyone. 

Which really means serving no one. When your offer is for everybody, it connects with nobody. 

The narrower you go, the faster things move. I have watched this happen again and again.

The second is building everything before selling anything. 

The website, the funnel, the email sequence, the landing page. 

All of it before a single real conversation. Revenue comes from conversations, not visual aesthetics.

The third is pricing too low and hoping volume fixes it. 

If you are not running significant ads or operating at real scale, a low-ticket offer requires too much volume to be sustainable. 

Five clients at three thousand dollars is a completely different business than fifty clients at three hundred. And it is usually easier.

The 6-Week Sprint Framework: How to go from idea to revenue in 42 days

There is a very specific structure to this, and if you follow it, things actually move. Here is how the six weeks break down.

Week 1: Get specific

• Who you serve.

• What you solve.

• What success looks like in a number

Not "coaches." Coaches making their first $50k.

Specificity isn't limiting. It's what makes people feel seen.

Week 2: Work the room you already have

20–40 names. Past clients. Warm contacts. People who know you.

Send them a personal message: "I thought of you. Would a quick call make sense?" That's it. No funnel needed.

Week 3–4: Have the conversations A live call will outsell any sales page at this stage. Listen first. Find the gap, and make the offer.

Give them a window of 48 hours and a real reason to decide now.

Week 5: Deliver and listen hard

Every question your client asks is market research.

What surprises them. What's harder than expected.

This is the intelligence that scales your business later.

Week 6: Measure and decide

Ask yourself three questions:

1. Did it create revenue?

2. Did I learn something?

3. Would it grow if I ran it again?

Yes → run the next sprint. No → adjust and go again.

Either way, you're running on data. Not hope.

We go deep on all of this inside Greater Inside Founders, our flagship program for coaches ready to build from the inside out. Join the free webinar on March 28th and I'll show you exactly how to get inside the room.

Your action steps

1. Name your market as specifically as you can right now. Write one sentence that describes exactly who you serve and what they feel before they find you.
   

2. Write down your exit criteria for the next six weeks. A number of clients, a revenue target, a number of conversations you need to have.
   

3. List twenty to forty warm contacts and send your first message this week. Not next week. This week.
   

4. Commit to presenting your offer live on a call before you finish building anything else. The conversation is the product right now.
   

5. At the end of six weeks, measure. Not just revenue. Conversations, lessons, assumptions you tested. Then decide.
   

Let's build it together

If this landed for you, the next step is to come build it with us in real time.

On the 28th of March, I am hosting a live webinar specifically for coaches and service founders who want to know exactly where AI fits inside a sprint like this. 

Because the fastest way to compress your six weeks even further is to stop doing manually what a tool can do in minutes. 

First drafts. Follow-up emails. Offer documents. Summarising your calls.

We will walk through exactly which tasks in a service business AI handles well, which tools are worth your time right now, and how to set something simple up without adding more complexity to manage.

Seats are limited. This will not be recorded.

Reserve my spot here

How Did We Do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

Maybe it was a podcast. Maybe it was a post. Maybe it was someone in a group you are in, talking about all the tools they have set up and all the time they are saving.

And you felt a small pull of panic. Like you are already behind.

Here is what I want to say to you today:

The most useful thing you can do right now is get very clear on the difference between what genuinely helps and what just feels like it should.

How Steve Jobs thought about focus

Steve Jobs is one of the most studied figures in business history.

When he returned to Apple in 1997, the company had dozens of products across a sprawling, confusing lineup.

His first major move was not to build more. It was to cut. He killed roughly 70 percent of Apple's product line.

He said later that he was as proud of the things Apple chose not to do as the things it did.

Focus, to him, was not about working harder. It was about saying no to almost everything so you could say yes to the one thing that truly mattered.

That is not the message most people are sharing about AI right now.

Most of what you see is about doing more. Creating more content. Automating more touchpoints. Building more systems.

Jobs's instinct points in the opposite direction.

AI is only useful if it creates space. If it is adding complexity, it is not serving you. It is running you.

For a service founder, this matters more than almost anyone else.

Your business runs on your thinking, your relationships, and your judgment.

The moment you use AI to fill every gap with more output, you start diluting the very thing people are paying you for.

Is it novel? Or it it usable?

Most founders are asking the wrong question when it comes to AI. They are asking: what can this do?

The better question is: What does my business need?

There is a difference between novelty and usability.

Novelty is what gets shared online.

Usability is what gives you two hours back on a Tuesday so you can spend them on something that actually matters.

The founders using AI well are not the ones experimenting with the most tools.

They are the ones who identified one or two specific bottlenecks in their business and found tools that address exactly those things.

Writing first drafts. Summarizing calls. Preparing outlines. Turning bullet points into full emails.

A few specific places where something takes longer than it should. One tool for each. That is the whole system.

Everything else is optional until you feel the gap yourself.

Where AI actually earns its place in a service business

There are three areas where founders consistently find genuine, repeatable value..

Writing you do over and over. Proposal outlines, follow-up emails, social captions, newsletter drafts. AI gets you to a rough first draft fast. 

You still edit it in your voice. You are just not starting from nothing. For most service founders, this is the single fastest win available right now.

Summarising and organising. If you are spending an hour after every call writing up notes and action items, AI can handle that. 

Tools that transcribe and summarise meetings are among the most practically useful things available for coaches and consultants. 

You get off the call and the summary is already waiting for you.

Repurposing content. If you have already said something well in a video, a podcast, or a training, AI can turn that into a newsletter section, a social post, or part of a proposal. 

You have already done the thinking. AI just helps it travel further.

If a tool does not help you write faster, process information faster, or extend work you have already done, it is probably not worth your time right now.

The TIM Framework: How to map AI to the right tasks in your business

There are only three types of tasks in your business that AI is genuinely useful for. Everything else is noise.

T — Tasks you repeat 

These are the things you do more than once a week that follow roughly the same pattern every time. 

Writing follow-up emails. Drafting proposals. Creating social captions. Summarising discovery calls. 

These tasks eat real time and they do not require your full thinking every single time. AI can take the first 70 percent of that work off your plate. 

Your job becomes editing and adding your voice, not starting from scratch.

I — Input-heavy tasks 

These are the tasks that require you to process a lot of information before you can do anything with it. 

Reviewing a long email thread. Listening back to a recorded call to pull out action items. Reading through notes from multiple client sessions to spot a pattern. 

AI is exceptionally good at digesting large amounts of information and pulling out what matters.

It does not replace your judgment. It gets you to the point where your judgment is actually needed, faster.

M — Multiplying what already works 

This is the highest-value use of AI for a service founder. You have already done the thinking.

You have a training, a talk, a workshop, a podcast episode. Something where your best ideas are already captured. 

AI can help you extend the reach of that work without you thinking it through again from scratch. 

A training becomes a newsletter. A workshop becomes a series of social posts. A discovery call framework becomes a guide you send to every new prospect.

Your action steps

1. Write down the three tasks in your business that take the most time relative to the value they produce. Not the ones you enjoy least. The ones that eat time without growing your revenue or deepening your client relationships.
   

2. Put each one through TIM. Is it a task you repeat, an input-heavy task, or something that multiplies work you have already done?
   

3. Pick the one task that fits most clearly and find one tool that addresses it. Set it up this week.
   

4. Use it for two weeks before adding anything else. At the end, ask: did this create space, or did it just give me something new to manage?
   

5. Only keep it if the answer is clear.
   

Let’s build it together

If this newsletter landed for you, the next step is to come build it with us in real time. I am hosting a live webinar on the 28th of March specifically for coaches and service founders who want to know exactly where AI is worth their time and where it is not.

We will walk through the specific tasks in a service business that AI handles well, the tools worth using right now, and how to set something simple up without adding more complexity to manage.

Seats are limited. This will not be recorded.

Reserve my spot here

How Did We Do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

And look, that makes sense. 

Somebody comes to you in pain, and you help them out of it. That is the whole thing, right?

But here is what I have noticed after years of working with coaches and consultants.

The ones who build great businesses, the ones with clients who stay and refer and upgrade: they are not thinking about problems at all.

They are thinking about desires. And that helps them create clients who stay longer or keep coming back.

The Client Who Paid a Hundred Grand for a Calendar

There’s this client I worked with a while back.

On paper, what I did for them was not complicated. 

I made sure they had a marketing calendar. And I made sure they delivered to it. 

That was it. There was no big strategy overhaul. No complex system. Just a calendar and accountability to it.

What happened next is the part people do not expect.

Their entire business reorganized around that one thing. When you have a marketing calendar and you actually deliver to it, everything else starts to line up. 

The leads come in consistently. 

The revenue becomes predictable. 

The chaos that was eating their week starts to quiet down.

They made millions more.

And after a while, they stopped questioning the price. They stopped calculating ROI. They just asked: what is the next container, and how do we get in?

Now here is the thing I want you to notice about that story. 

That client did not come to me asking for a marketing calendar. 

They came to me because their business felt out of control. That was the stated problem. 

But what they actually wanted was a business that worked without them white-knuckling it every single day.

The calendar solved the problem. But the desire beneath it was freedom. And once they felt that, even a little, they did not want to stop.

I did not deliver something crazy or expensive. 

I delivered something that touched the desire they could not even fully name when they walked in. That is a rate-buster product.

Desires Always Expand

Here is the thing about desires that I want you to really sit with.

Desires do not get solved. They expand.

Think about your own journey. 

When you started this path, you had a dream. Some of those dreams have been fulfilled.

 But did you stop dreaming? No, right? 

You started dreaming bigger. 

The context changed, the size changed, maybe the whole shape of it changed. But the desire kept growing.

That is what being human is.

The only person who completely suspends desire is someone who has achieved total enlightenment and stepped away from the world. 

That is not your client. Honestly, that is not you either.

So when I am building a product, I am not asking what problem this solves. I am asking what desire does this serve. 

And then I am asking, what is the desire that comes after that one?

That second question is where rate-buster products are born.

Because a rate-buster is not just about delivering more than expected. 

You have to understand the full arc of what your client actually wants and build for that, not just the thing they named when they signed up.

The Desire Beneath the Desire

Almost everyone who builds a service-led business and gets to a million dollars arrives there exhausted.

They hustled. They did things that were not sustainable. They built a team they are not sure how to manage. 

They got exactly what they said they wanted and discovered it came with a cost they did not see coming.

Here’s what I’ve seen most coaches who help founders hit that million-dollar mark do. They celebrate, wrap up the engagement, say congratulations and move on.

But that moment, that exact moment of arriving exhausted at the destination, that is not the end of the relationship. That is the beginning of a completely different one.

Because what that client actually wanted was never just the million. They wanted freedom. 

They wanted a business that did not depend entirely on them showing up every day.

They wanted the life they imagined when they first decided to build something.

The desire beneath the desire was always there. They just could not see it yet.

If you know that desire is coming before your client does, you are not selling them anything. 

You are simply opening a door they were already walking toward. 

That is what makes a product a rate-buster. Not the volume of what you deliver. The depth of what you understand.

Build for the desire, and you build something that lasts.

Know the next dream before your client does, and you will never have to sell renewal.

The best product is not the one that fixes everything. It is the one that makes your client want to keep becoming.

The Pain, Peak, Promise Framework

This is how I think about building products that over-deliver on what clients expect.

Step 1: Pain-Urgency-Pay (PUP)

Purpose: Enter through the urgent, not just the important. 

Core idea: For a product to be a rate-buster, you have to be solving the right problem first. 

Not just a painful problem. A painful, urgent problem that the client is already willing to pay to solve. 

All three things have to be true at the same time. 

Painful but not urgent means they will get to it someday. Urgent but not something they are willing to pay for means they want someone else to handle it. 

You need all three. That intersection is the only place worth building. 

Example: The client who paid a hundred grand for a calendar was not paying for the calendar. 

They were paying because the pain of running a chaotic business was urgent enough, and they had already decided that investing to fix it was non-negotiable. All three things were true. That is why it worked. 

Step 2: Peak 

Purpose: Enroll clients again from their highest moment, not their last one. 

Core idea: People make their best decisions at peak moments. Not at the end of things. 

By the time a contract is finishing, the energy is already winding down in the client's mind. 

They are already half out the door emotionally before the last session even happens. If you wait until then to talk about what is next, you have already missed it. 

The rate-buster move is to be present to your client's peaks throughout the program and use those moments to open the door to what comes next. 

Example: My retention rate at the higher tier is close to 100%. Not because I have a great pitch at contract renewal. Because I never wait for contract renewal. 

Around month eight or nine, when a client has just had a significant win, I create a conversation about what the next year looks like. 

I am not pitching. I am assuming we are continuing because they are in their best state, and they can feel what is possible from there. 

That is when a yes comes easily and genuinely. 

Step 3: Promise 

Purpose: Deliver the desire beneath the desire, not just the stated outcome. 

Core idea: The goal your client names when they sign up is the first desire. The rate-buster product delivers on that and then reveals what comes next. 

When you can name the next desire before your client can, you are not just a good coach. 

You become the obvious next step. 

The product waiting on the other side of their first win is almost always worth significantly more than the one that got them there. 

Example: I knew that client did not just want a marketing calendar. They wanted a business that felt free. 

So while I was delivering the calendar, I was already thinking about what they would need next. 

That is why when we finished, there was no awkward conversation about whether to continue. They already knew there was a next level. And they already wanted it.

Your Action Steps

1: Write down the problem your product solves. Then ask yourself honestly: is it painful right now for your ideal client? Is it urgent? 

Are they already willing to pay for a solution? If any one of those three is a maybe, that is your work this week.

2: Look at your current clients and find who just had a win. Not who is near the end of their contract. Who is in a peak moment right now? 

Book a conversation with that person this week about what their next stage looks like.

3: For each of your current products, write down what your client's next desire will be after they achieve the outcome you promised. 

Do you have something waiting for them when they get there? If not, that is your next product to build.

4: Pick one client who left after getting results. What was the desire beneath the desire that never got addressed? What would you build or say differently now?

Let's Build It Together

Building a rate-buster product starts with one thing: knowing whether your idea actually has the Pain, Urgency and Pay to back it up (PUP).

I built a custom tool that walks you through it in minutes.

It helps you pressure test your product idea against all three before you build anything. It is free. Go check it out.

Try it here>>

How Did We Do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

How we Oversold by more than 2x

Last weekend, we opened enrollment for Greater Inside Founders.

We looked at how many people registered for the webinar. Based on that, we decided to open 5 spots. That felt right. That felt manageable.

The webinar was on a Saturday.

And within 12 hours, 10 people had enrolled. 

We hadn’t anticipated this. We had planned out a week-long campaign with email sequences and everything.

Since my team was off on Sunday, we ended up closing the page early Monday morning with 12 enrollments in total. 

Since these 12 people had already committed and paid, we honored it. All 12 got in.

Here's what I learned from that experience.

One: When spots are limited, people move fast. The psychology of scarcity is real.

Two: When you deliver massive value in your webinar, people don't need days to think about it. They just want in.

That Saturday taught me more about selling than months of studying sales tactics ever did.

Why "Always Available" Doesn't Work

Most founders think keeping their offer open all the time makes sense.

"If it's always available, more people can buy when they're ready."

Sounds logical, but it's backwards.

Here's what happens when your offer is always available:

People think "I'll do this later." There's no reason to act now.

You never get to say "sold out." No social proof.

Enrollments trickle in slowly. No momentum.

It feels less valuable. If anyone can get it anytime, how special can it be?

When something is always there, people forget about it. They assume it'll be around next month, so why decide today?

But when there are only 10 spots and 8 are already gone?

That changes everything.

Scarcity isn't really manipulation. Think of it as  psychology. And when it’s genuine, and you honor your commitment, it always works.

The Real Reason to Limit Spots: 

Most people think limiting spots is just a marketing tactic.

It’s not. It's an operational decision that makes your business better. Especially if you’re just starting out or have live components in your offer.

When you serve fewer people per cohort:

You deliver better results. You can give each person more attention.

You build real community. Smaller groups bond faster.

You avoid burnout. You're not trying to serve hundreds of people at once.

You create space. Time between cohorts to refine your program, rest, and improve.

By serving fewer people, you make more money and create better transformations.

You're not exhausted trying to help everyone all the time.

You get to be intentional about who you work with and when.

In 2026, smart scaling looks like:

Limited enrollment windows. Not evergreen funnels that never close.

Waiting lists that build anticipation before you open doors.

Smaller cohorts where people actually transform.

"Sold out" as proof that what you offer works.

Most founders right now:

• Have programs that are always available

• Wonder why people aren't buying

• Try discounting to create urgency

• Feel exhausted and still broke

Because they're optimizing for availability instead of value.

Your Webinar Is Where People Decide

Here's what made those 12 people enroll in 24-48 hours.

The webinar itself.

We didn't just pitch. We taught real things. We gave them frameworks they could use whether they joined or not.

People walked away thinking: "If this is what I get for free, imagine what I get inside the program."

That's the model.

Your webinar should not be a disguised sales pitch. Think of it as an experience.

It's where people get to work with you with less commitment. Less time. Faster results than reading through a sales page or booking a call.

If you deliver in that webinar, the enrollment becomes obvious.

People don't need three days to "think about it." They know.

The formula is simple: Match spots to interest

Look at your numbers. How many people registered for your webinar?

Look at your show-up rate. How many actually showed up? It’s usually 30% of the people who registered for your webinar.

Open spots based on a percentage of a number of people who will show up.

For us, we're conservative. If 50 people attend the webinar, we might open 5 to 7 spots.

Why?

Because we'd rather sell out in hours than have spots sitting open for weeks.

"Sold out" becomes your marketing for the next round. It creates momentum. It builds a list of people who missed it and don't want to miss it again.

Scarcity isn't about tricking anyone. It's about being honest with your capacity and creating urgency that helps everyone: you, your team, and your buyers.

The Waiting List Becomes Your Next Launch

When you sell out, don't just close the doors and disappear.

Open a waiting list immediately.

Tell people: "We're full for this round. Get on the list and you'll be first to know when we open again."

That waiting list is your next launch.

Those people already raised their hand. They're warm. When you open enrollment again, they're ready.

The Reverse-Fill Framework

Start with the math:

You want to fill 5 spots in your program.

If 5-7% of webinar attendees convert, you need about 70-100 people to show up live.

If 30% of registrants actually attend, you need 230-330 people to register.

Work backwards from there.

Here's the framework:

Step 1: Develop a webinar that can deliver crazy value. Teach something real that people can use immediately.

Step 2: Promote it to your audience. Track how many register.

Step 3: Based on registrations, calculate your likely show-up rate (around 30%) and conversion rate (5-7%).

Step 4: Open only the number of spots you're confident you'll fill based on those numbers.

Step 5: The moment you sell out, open a waiting list immediately.

What happens next round:

You email your waiting list first. They get early access before you promote publicly.

Some of them enroll before you even open it to anyone else.

When you do open public enrollment, you can say "spots are already filling up", which creates momentum.

That's the pattern. Simple. Repeatable. And it compounds every round.

Your Action Steps

If you want to start using the Reverse-Fill Framework, here's where to begin:

This week: Look at your email list or audience size. If you don’t have a list yet, tap into your warm audience on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Calculate how many people you'd need to register for a webinar to fill 3-5 spots.

This month: Plan one high-value webinar. Focus on teaching, not pitching. Give people frameworks they can use whether they buy or not.

Before you launch: Decide your spot limit based on the math. Don't guess. Use the 30% show-up and 5-7% conversion rates as your guide.

After you sell out: Open that waiting list immediately. These people are your next launch.

Let's Build It Together

If this landed for you, join me and a small group of founders for Greater Inside Founders.

Before you develop a killer webinar, do this first.

The founders who consistently fill their programs start with clarity. They know exactly who they're talking to, what keeps that person up at night, and why they're ready to pay for a solution right now.

That clarity comes from validation.

I built a free tool my paying clients swear by. They use it every time they launch something new. It takes minutes and shows you exactly what your market needs before you write a single slide.

Try it here>>

How Did We Do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

That's not true anymore.

In 2026, you can learn in weeks what used to take years. If you know how to extract what you need from what's already out there.

The $100,000 Campaign I Built Without Experience

Early in my career, I got thrown into a situation where I needed to generate six figures for a business in less than 30 days.

I had never run a campaign before. I had no marketing experience. 

So I did what felt logical. I consumed 30 to 40 hours of training material in two weeks. Barely slept. Just absorbed everything I could find.

And you know what happened?

I ended up more confused than when I started

That's when I learned the most important lesson: Information without a clear intent is overwhelming.

Here's what changed everything. 

I stopped trying to learn everything and asked one question: What do I actually need right now?

I needed one campaign. One that could generate six figures in three weeks. That's it.

Once I had that clarity, I found my answer in hours.

I looked at five successful campaigns. They all had the same pattern: 5-day sequence, irresistible offer, stacked bonuses, hard deadline.

I couldn't execute exactly what they did. So I adapted the psychology to fit my constraints.

I deployed it. It worked.

Speed came from focus, not from knowing everything. And in 2026, the tools make this unfairly fast.

What Changed Between Then and Now

Back then, if I wanted to analyze five successful campaigns, I had to study them all manually. Take notes by hand. Compare them myself. Hope I spotted the right patterns.

It took days.

Today? You screenshot ten examples. Upload them to Claude AI. 

You ask: "What's the psychological pattern here? What structure repeats? Give me a template."

Takes ten minutes.

Back then, if I didn't know how to write copy, I had to study for months or hire someone.

Today? You feed AI your voice, your audience, your inspiration sources. 

You say: "Write this in my style using this framework."

Takes twenty minutes.

Back then, learning from successful people meant buying their courses, going through everything, and synthesizing it yourself.

Today? You study their public work. Have AI analyze the patterns. Extract the principles. Adapt them to your business.

Takes an afternoon.

The founders who win in 2026 aren't the ones who know everything. They're the ones who know how to learn anything fast.

Stop Learning. Start Stealing.

The biggest mistake founders make is thinking learning equals consuming more content.

It doesn't.

Learning is about extraction. 

It's asking: What do I need? Who's already solved this? What's their pattern? How do I make it mine?

Most founders right now:

• Have 47 courses bookmarked

• 200 YouTube videos saved

• 15 newsletters they never read

And they're stuck.

Because they're trying to learn everything instead of implementing anything.

In 2026, you have an unfair advantage. AI can synthesize for you. 

Success comes from developing your ability to identify, extract, and apply the expertise that already exists around you.

Artists Don't Start From Scratch

Great artists don't invent everything from nothing.

They study what works. They find patterns. They make it their own.

Picasso said it: "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

He didn't mean plagiarism. 

He meant understanding the principles behind great work and using them to create something new.

That's what founders need to do. Not copy content. 

Study the psychology behind what works, examine how successful examples are structured, and absorb the principles that others spent years developing.

Then make it yours.

The Five-Step Framework

Here's how you master any skill you don't have, in hours instead of years:

Step 1: Define What You Need

• Purpose: Get radically specific about the problem you're solving

• Core idea: Focus your learning on what produces results.

• Example: Not "I need to do social media" but "I need Instagram carousels that get engagement for my specific audience"

Step 2: Choose Your Inspiration (3-4 Maximum)

• Purpose: Find people who've already solved your exact problem

• Core idea: Pick 3-4 inspirational sources. Any more than that will create confusion for you

• Example: If you're doing LinkedIn content, find three people crushing it on LinkedIn in your space

Step 3: Learn the Pattern (What's the Same)

• Purpose: Identify what consistently works across all your inspirations

• Core idea: Patterns reveal principles. Differences reveal personality.

• Example: When you study five successful campaigns, they might all open with contrast, tell a story, and end with soft invitation

Step 4: Refine for Your People

• Purpose: Translate the pattern into your voice and context

• Core idea: You're not copying content. You're copying psychology.

• Example: Someone uses 90% discounts to create urgency. You can't discount. So you use limited spots instead. Same psychology. Different execution.

Step 5: Systemize What Works

• Purpose: Turn your successful experiment into a repeatable process

• Core idea: A system is just a win you wrote down

• Example: After a campaign works, document the structure so you can run it quarterly

Your Action Steps

In 2026, each step gets faster with the right tools. Experiment with AI:

• For defining what you need: Tell AI your vague goal. Ask it to question you until you have something specific and measurable.

• For finding inspiration: Ask AI to identify top creators in your space. It'll give you names in seconds.

• For learning patterns: Screenshot their content. Upload to Claude or ChatGPT. Ask: "What's the psychological pattern across these examples? What structure repeats?"

• For refining: Give AI the pattern, examples of your voice, and your audience. Ask it to rewrite in your style.

For systemizing: Once something works, have AI turn it into a step-by-step process anyone could follow.

Let’s Build It Together

If this landed for you, join me and a small group of founders for Greater Inside Founders.

It's a 12-month container where we work ON your business, not just in it. Weekly coaching calls. Live workshops. A community of founders who actually get it.

We take your biggest challenges and build systems together. The kind you can replicate. The kind that scale without you having to be everywhere at once.

We’ve closed enrollments for this round, but be sure to get on the waitlist, and we’ll notify you first when we open enrollments again.

Apply here

How Did We Do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

But here's the thing: having lots of people notice you means nothing if none of them actually want what you're selling.

I see it every day. Founders chasing viral posts, tracking follower counts like they're revenue metrics, obsessing over engagement rates while their business stays stuck at the same revenue for months.

They're playing the influencer's game. And losing.

Because founders and influencers use social media for fundamentally different reasons. And confusing the two will kill both your sanity and your sales.

How I Revived My “Dead” Instagram Account

Six months ago, my Instagram was what they call a "dead account."

We posted. We shared. Nobody responded.

Not because the content was bad. But because I was confused about what I was doing there.

I'd see influencers with millions of views, watch their accounts explode, and think: "I should do that."

So I'd try. Post something provocative. Get some likes. Feel good for a minute.

Then nothing. No clients. No meaningful conversations. Just... noise.

The breakthrough came when I stopped asking "What will get attention?" and started asking "Whose attention do I actually want?"

Within 15 days of that shift: 24 million views. Half a million interactions. 14,000 new followers.

But more importantly: actual clients. Real conversations. People who understood what I do.

The lesson: Influencers chase attention. Founders filter it.

So What’s The Difference?

Here's what most people miss about social media success:

Influencers are paid for attention.

Period. It doesn't matter what happens after someone sees their post. The metric is the view, the like, the share. More eyes = more money.

That's their business model. And it's a perfectly valid one.

But that's not your business model.

You're not getting paid for views. You're getting paid when someone trusts you enough to invest in working with you. That's a completely different game.

When an influencer posts "Life at 40 is different," they want everyone to share it. Maximum reach. Maximum chaos if needed.

When you post "Life at 40 is different," you want the right 40-year-old business owner to stop scrolling and think: "This person gets me."

Same post. Completely different intent.

Most founders try to compete on the influencer's metrics. They see viral posts and think they're failing because they're not getting millions of views.

But you don't need millions of views. You need the right 100 people to see you, trust you, and remember you when they're ready to invest.

Lead With Resonance, Not Reach

The influencer's playbook: be everywhere, post constantly, trend-jack, create controversy. Attention is the product.

Your playbook: be clear about who you serve, what you solve, and why you're different. Clarity is the product.

When someone with 5 million followers posts their morning routine, people engage out of curiosity.

When you post yours, they should engage because they see the connection to their transformation.

They want: "Wow, that's interesting."

You want: "Wow, that's exactly what I'm going through."

One creates spectators. The other creates clients.

Here's the trap: spectator content is easier to create and gets more immediate feedback.

But spectators don't buy. People who resonate with the transformation you offer do.

The Three-Layer System

Here's how to use social media as a founder, not an influencer:

Layer 1: Emotional Resonance

Purpose: Get the right attention, not all attention
Core idea: Create content that makes your ideal client feel seen, not just entertained

About 50% of your content should be emotionally resonant.

This is your wide net. But notice: it's still qualified. You're not trying to resonate with everyone. Just with people who share a specific experience that connects to your work.

Example: When I post about life at 40, I'm not trying to connect with 20-year-olds. 95% of my clients are over 40. So my wide net is still targeted.

Layer 2: Tactical Value

Purpose: Demonstrate expertise and filter for action-takers
Core idea: Give away your best thinking to attract people who value thinking

30-40% of your content should be tactical. How to manage your team. Four principles for building a million-dollar business. The framework you actually use.

This is where influencers and founders diverge most sharply.

Influencers give tips. You give systems.

They want people to think they're smart. You want people to think clearly.

Example: I don't post "5 productivity hacks."
I post "How to get 20 hours of overthinking back."
Same topic, different intent. One optimizes for shares. The other optimizes for identification.

Layer 3: Experience Stories

Purpose: Build trust through transparency
Core idea: Share personal transformation to create “cult” following, not mass following

10% of your content should be experience-based. How I overcame impostor syndrome. What happened when my business almost failed. The moment everything shifted.

These posts usually get the lowest engagement. People watch them but don't share them.

And that's perfect.

Because these aren't for going viral. They're for going deep.

Someone scrolls past your tactical post. They like your emotional post. But they remember your story post.

Example: When I share how I rebuilt after my account was dead, I'm not trying to inspire everyone. I'm trying to connect with the founder who's in that exact moment right now.

Your Action Steps

All you need to do is register for the FREE social media masterclass I’m hosting on 7th February.

We'll walk through how to build your content base so you're never starting from scratch, the exact carousel structure that converts browsers into buyers, how to use AI to create weeks of content in hours, and why most "viral" content actually kills your business (and what to do instead). This isn't about getting more followers. It's about getting the right business.

Register here

How Did We Do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

But the creators winning in 2026 aren't working more hours. They're protecting their creative energy like it's their most valuable asset.

Because it is.

Why High-Performers Still Waste Time (And How I Fixed It)

Here's what nobody tells you about being a creator.

The presentations, the formatting, the research, the email drafts, the content repurposing... it all feels productive.

But it's stealing the hours you need for actual creation.

When I started building, I tracked my time for one week. The results shocked me.

Six hours making slide decks. Four hours formatting documents. Five hours researching and synthesizing information. Three hours rewriting the same email in different ways.

Eighteen hours of busywork.

Eighteen hours I could have spent creating content, building relationships, or..

Radical idea - living my life!

I charge $5,000 for a presentation. That's my intellectual property. My unique insights. My years of experience distilled into frameworks that transform businesses.

But I was spending eight hours just formatting slides and making things look pretty.

The thinking, the strategy, the breakthrough insight…

That took me 30 minutes!

The rest was just grunt work that had nothing to do with why clients pay me five figures.

Then I asked myself the question: What if I stopped doing work that something else could do better?

Your AI Team Member (Not Your Replacement)

This is where Claude AI changed everything for me.

Think of Claude as your most capable assistant who never gets tired, never needs a lunch break, and actually wants to format your presentations at 11 PM.

It can research, synthesize, and draft faster than any human.

You still own the vision. The strategy. The creative spark that makes your work yours.

Claude just handles everything between your brilliant idea and the finished product.

Real example from last week: I had an idea for a masterclass framework.

I fed Claude my previous work, my core concepts, and the key insights I wanted to teach.

In five minutes, I had my thinking documented. Fifteen minutes of review and refinement later, I had a complete $5,000 presentation ready to customize.

• The intellectual property is still 100% mine.

• The frameworks are built from years of my experience.

• The insights are uniquely mine.

The difference: Instead of eight hours formatting slides, I took my morning for a workout, had a relaxed breakfast with my family, and still delivered premium work to my clients.

I saved seven hours and got my life back.

That's strategic leverage. And when I say Claude here, I mean using any form of AI to actually outsource all the grunt work that's not adding any meaningful value to your effort.

The Creator Economy 2.0: Getting Paid for What Matters

In the old economy, you got paid for output. In the new economy, you get paid for thinking, creativity, strategy.

In the next five years, the most valuable creators won't be the ones who can grind out content fastest.

They'll be the ones who can generate breakthrough ideas, craft compelling strategies, build authentic relationships, and see patterns others miss.

I don't get paid because I can move text boxes around in PowerPoint.

I get paid because I've spent years developing frameworks that actually work. Because I can see what others miss. Because my strategic insights transform businesses.

The tactical execution is where AI becomes your unfair advantage.

You dream it. AI builds it. You strategize. AI documents it. You create. AI packages it.

And while AI handles the busywork.

• You're at the gym.

• You're with your kids.

• You're taking that walk that leads to your next breakthrough idea.

• You're living the life that makes your work better.

The future isn't "AI or humans." It's "creators with AI" versus "creators drowning in busywork."

The 3-Level Leverage Framework

Here's how I think about using AI (I’m currently using Claude for this) to reclaim my creative life.

Level 1: Do the Boring Work

Purpose: Let AI handle tasks that drain your energy

Main idea: If a task doesn't need your creative brain, let AI do it

Examples:

• Format your slides and documents

• Research information and make summaries

• Write routine emails

• Turn your messy notes into organized outlines

Questions to ask yourself:

• What weekly tasks feel like busy work?

• If you had 10 extra hours this week, what would you create?

Level 2: Make More from Less

Purpose: Turn one idea into many pieces of content

Main idea: One good idea can become 10 different things

Examples:

• Turn a podcast into a newsletter, social posts, and slides

• Expand your bullet points into complete frameworks

• Convert your case studies into teaching content

• Create different versions of your message for different people

Questions to ask yourself:

• How many ideas stay in your notes because you're "too busy"?

• What if every good idea you had reached your audience?

Level 3: Make Your Ideas Better

Purpose: Use AI to improve your thinking

Main idea: AI doesn't replace your thinking. It makes it stronger.

Examples:

• Test if your ideas work in different situations

• Find angles you didn't think of

• Get quick feedback on your message

• Find deeper meaning in your work

Questions to ask yourself:

• When did you last have time for deep thinking?

• What if you spent 80% of time creating and only 20% doing tasks?
  

Reflection Prompts

• What percentage of your week is spent on work only you can do?

• If you eliminated all busywork tomorrow, what would you create?

• Are you protecting your creative energy or just "staying busy"?

• What would change if you gave yourself permission to work less and think more?

• How much is one hour of your creative flow worth?
  

Your Action Steps

Step 1: Track Your Busywork For the next 3 days, write down every task that doesn't require your unique creative thinking. Just notice. No judgment.

Step 2: Pick One Task to Delegate Choose the most time-consuming task from your list. This week, use Claude (or any AI tool) to handle it. Start small. A presentation. A research task. An email draft.

Step 3: Reinvest Your Time Take the hours you save and protect them fiercely. Use them for deep thinking, creative work, or simply rest. Notice how it feels.

That's it. Three steps. This week.

The shift doesn't happen overnight, but it starts with one delegated task.

Let’s Build it Together

I see a lot of new founders feeling stuck with social media and content creation.But here's what's changed: AI made the execution simple. What you need now is the strategy. The plan. The right ideas.

That's why I'm hosting a FREE masterclass where I'll give you a simple, repeatable content structure that leads to paid client conversations.

You'll learn how to build visibility that attracts high-paying, soul-aligned clients.

Sign up for free

How did we do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit

Is your product going to solve a pain in the market? Or is it going to amplify a gain?

That single choice determines your customers, your marketing, your retention, your energy, and the kind of company you’ll still want to run five years from now.

Two Very Different Billion-Dollar Businesses.

Let’s look at two real examples.

Weight Watchers was born to solve a pain

Weight Watchers founder, Jean Nidetch started the business because she observed a real pain in the market.

Women were gaining weight and didn’t know how to stop.

Diets were confusing. Extreme. Lonely. Most plans worked for a few weeks and then failed.

Clothes stopped fitting. Energy dropped. Doctors raised concerns. Confidence disappeared.

The pain was obvious.
And it showed up daily in mirrors, photos, and health reports.

Weight Watchers didn’t promise self-love or confidence.
It didn’t sell becoming your best self.

It sold control.

• Clear results

• Simple rules

• Weekly check-ins

• A system you didn’t have to invent on your own

For women, this wasn’t exciting. It was grounding.

Once the system was in place, leaving felt risky.
Going back meant guessing again.
Eating with guilt.
Starting over alone.

That’s why people returned again and again.

Not because Weight Watchers inspired them.
But because it removed pain they didn’t want back.

Now look at Apple.

Apple didn’t fix a broken computer or phone market.
People already had PCs. People already had phones.

Apple sold gain.
Identity. Aspiration. A way of seeing yourself as creative, modern, and ahead.

Think differently.
Create more beautifully.
Work smarter.
Be someone who shapes the future, not reacts to it.

No one wakes up in panic thinking,
“I must buy an iPhone or a Mac today.”
Yet millions do, repeatedly.

Lesson
Weight Watchers monetized a solution to a real pain.
Apple monetized aspirational identity.

Both won.
But they built entirely different machines.

The Hidden Economics of Pain vs Gain

This is where things get interesting for founders.

Pain Markets

Pain buyers decide faster because the cost of inaction feels dangerous.

But that speed comes with less-obvious dynamics:

• Customers talk about problems constantly

• Support expectations are higher

• They are hyper-aware of what’s still not working

• If pain drops, urgency drops with it

Pain markets reward precision and reliability, not inspiration.

They are excellent for:

• Clear ROI

• Predictable revenue

• Enterprise, health, finance, operations

But they require emotional stamina.
You are paid to sit inside other people’s friction.

Gain Markets

Gain buyers move slower because nothing is “on fire.”

But when they commit, they often stay longer.

Why?

Because they are not buying a fix.
They are buying a future self.

Gain markets tend to have:

• Lower urgency upfront

• Higher emphasis on trust and resonance

• Strong brand and community effects

• Higher lifetime value when done right

These businesses reward vision, narrative, and consistency.

But they don’t like vague promises.
If the transformation isn’t felt, buyers drift.

Why Some Founders Burn Out (And Others Don’t)

Here’s the part no one talks about.

Pain customers externalize their discomfort.
They come to you carrying it.

Gain customers internalize responsibility.
They see you as a guide, not a rescuer.

Neither is better.
But they require different nervous systems.

If you are energized by:
• Diagnosing problems
• Creating certainty
• Being indispensable

Pain markets will feel clean and motivating.

If you are energized by:
• Vision
• Growth conversations
• Long arcs of transformation

Pain-heavy audiences may exhaust you.

Pricing in these markets

Pain markets are usually larger. More people are stuck. More people are struggling.

But they often have tighter budgets.
They want relief, but they are careful with how much they spend.

Gain markets are smaller. Fewer people are actively looking.

But the ones who are looking usually already have momentum.

They’ve made money. They’ve solved the basics. They are willing to invest more to grow further.

This is why the choice isn’t just about demand.
It’s about fit.

• If you get energy from listening to problems and fixing what’s broken, pain markets will feel natural.

• If you prefer talking about growth, vision, and what’s possible next, gain markets will feel lighter.

How to Decide Whether You Should Solve Pain or Create Gain - The Pain Vs Gain Model

Assume both markets exist.
Assume both can make money.

This decision is about fit, not opportunity.

Step 1: Notice What Your Mind Automatically Looks For

When someone explains their situation, what do you focus on first?

• What’s broken, leaking, or failing → pain
• What’s next, possible, or expandable → gain

You don’t choose this.
It’s your default lens.

Step 2: Check Your Energy After A Conversation

If the conversation was pain-heavy, do you feel energized by holding space or drained?

If the conversation was about helping someone tap into more aspiration or motivation, does it feel fulfilling or neutral?

Step 3: Observe What People Already Ask You For

Not what you sell.
What people naturally come to you with.

• Venting, fixing, clarity → pain
• Direction, growth, perspective → gain

Most founders formalize what they already do informally.

Step 4: Decide What Level of Responsibility You Want

Pain markets tie you closer to consequences.
If you fail, things break.

Gain markets are more forgiving.
If you fail, progress slows.

Choose the weight you’re willing to carry.

Step 5: Be Honest About Pricing Comfort

Pain feels concrete but emotionally heavy.
Gain feels abstract but is easier to price high.

Ask:
Do I prefer charging to prevent loss or enable growth?

Step 6: Define the State You Want to Live In

Complete this sentence:

“I want to spend my days talking about ______.”

• How to help people fix something → pain
• Unlocking the next level, possibilities, dreams, aspirations→ gain

That’s your market.

Reflection Prompts 

• Do I want urgency-driven customers or identity-driven customers?
• If my customer’s pain disappeared, would my business still matter?
• Am I building something that needs constant fires to sell?
• What emotional state am I repeatedly stepping into as the founder?
• Five years from now, will this work energize or deplete me?

Your Action Steps

1. Audit your last 10 conversations
   Write down what people came to you with first. Problems or ambitions. Don’t interpret. Just list.
   

2. Track your energy, not your ego
   After each call, note one word: energized or drained. Patterns matter more than outcomes.
   

3. Price-test your instinct
   Ask yourself which feels easier to charge for: removing pain or creating upside. Your answer reveals comfort with responsibility.
   

4. Define failure, not success
   Write what it would feel like if your client didn’t get results. If that weight feels heavy, pain markets may burn you out.
   

5. Choose one lane for 90 days
   Design one offer that solves either pain or gain. Don’t mix. Clarity beats cleverness.

Let’s Build It Together

I built a program called Scale to a Million, which is a step-by-step system to find a market that fits you and turn it into a scalable business.

If you’d like my support as you figure this out and build it right, this is your window to join.

Doors close as soon as we fill 50 seats.

Get more details here ->

How did we do?

If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.

Love. Ajit