The Permission Equation

I'm surrounded by 170+ bootstrapped SaaS founders and they all have one thing keeping them from succeeding.

Programmers have a hard time dealing with the unknown. If it can't be worked out as an equation with both sides of the equal sign matching up, it's flawed. Code and engineering provide this structure.

The hard part is that it is the complete opposite in marketing. My co-founder, Corey, calls it "deterministic outputs vs non-deterministic outputs."

Programming is built upon the idea that identical inputs will equal identical outputs. Put in the code properly and it works, full stop.

Not so with marketing. In marketing, you can have two companies with seemingly identical ICPs, budgets, etc. And similar campaigns can have dramatically different results.

So when you are a programmer who built a product that functions properly, then follow a formula for launching it, and... it falls flat, you feel dumbfounded. And you didn't do anything wrong, in fact, you did everything you were supposed to.

Here's the thing:

With non-deterministic fields like marketing, the only source of clarity you have is unbridled action. Ship the feature page, write the email, start the blog, do the podcast, write the help docs, run an A/B test, do something knowing full well that some of your pursuits will fall flat on their face... and you'll learn. And you'll fail again... and again... and... again.

Until you don't.

You don't need the permission of an equation to change the course of your company or your marketing efforts. You need to place so many bets that your chances of success demolish your rate of failure.