When it comes to positioning your startup, there’s a fine line between conviction and stubbornness.
Many founders either rigidly stick to a message no one understands, or react too quickly to feedback, losing the distinctiveness that set them apart.
So, should you hold the line or make the change?
In this post we’ll look at why timing matters when revising your message, what makes founder conviction a strength or a blindspot, and how to test your narrative.
Founder-driven messaging often starts from insight (or obsession)about a problem few articulate as clearly as the founder does.
That’s powerful, and many product breakthroughs begin this way.
However, it can become dangerous when a founder’s vision stays unchanged despite mounting evidence that it doesn’t actually resonate.
“The biggest positioning mistakes are made when teams believe their product speaks for itself. It never does.” - April Dunford, Obviously Awesome
Strong conviction helps you stand out, but without validation from real users, it risks becoming steering your own echo chamber.
Founder-led positioning gives you a voice, but validation gives it volume. The two should evolve together.
Positioning is a strategic bet. Timing that bet poorly can cost you differentiation or slow your growth.
Change too early and you:
Change too late and you:
The answer to these challenges is disciplined testing of your message, and a willingness to listen.
Testing your messaging is as important as testing a new feature.
Here's how founders should approach it:
Targeted patient feedback beats broad surface polling.
Consider whether you can confidently say:
If not, it’s time to reexamine your narrative.
Superhuman initially positioned itself simply as ‘the fastest email experience ever’.
Over time, however, interviews revealed users cared most about control, focus, and trust, not those fast email speeds.
That insight inspired a shift to more emotionally attuned messaging, helping Superhuman resonate beyond speed-seekers.
“Once I started using Superhuman, the idea of using anything else melted away… everything from search to response is blazingly fast.” - Justin Kan, Andreessen Horowitz
Early Airtable messaging focused on building ‘spreadsheets with superpowers.’
As usage matured, they shifted toward framing themselves as a powerful platform for connected apps and collaboration at scale, which opened new enterprise markets and broadened their appeal
These shifts reframed the narrative into stories that fitted with where the market had grown, while maintaining core values.
Founders often face the tension between staying true to their original insight and adapting to what customers say.
The answer is evidence-led evolution.
Positioning is a balance between conviction and calibration.
Your story matters, but belief alone doesn’t make it compelling. Research, feedback, and real-world tests are what turn conviction into clarity.
Before redefining your market narrative, ask:
Once the story fits, everything else, from your tagline to your team briefing, to your pitch deck, will feel sharper, clearer, and more effective.
And if you want your team to champion that message with the same conviction you have, consider aligning them through equity.
Vestd helps founders set up and manage share schemes that give employees a real stake in the company’s vision and the motivation to help your story win in the market.