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 🧠

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

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.

I’m not good at lots of things.
Like, embarrassingly not good...

→ I’m hopeless at small talk

→ I can’t parallel park to save my life

→ I’ve never figured out how to fold a fitted sheet properly

→ I’m terrible at remembering people’s names (I try so hard at this one too)

→ I procrastinate on admin stuff until the last possible second

→ I can’t keep plants alive (RIP succulents)

→ I’m bad at saying no to opportunities (classic people pleaser)

→ I’m always behind on my email inbox

→ I’m the worst at creating systems that I actually follow (I build the system but forget to use it)

Yup. I’m bad at lots of stuff.  

But ya know what?

I’m really fucking great at packaging ideas so people: get it, want it, and buy it.

That *one* skill built my entire business.

—
Stop trying to fix all your weaknesses. 

Find your mega skill and double down on it. That’s where the magic happens. That’s how you win. 

—
So what’s your mega skill?

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?

Katelyn Bourgoin

How to build a “successful” biz in 2026.

4 easy steps:

—
1) Wake up early

The early bird gets the worm. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish before 8am while the rest of the world is still sleeping.

—
2) Create something valuable

Solve a real problem for real people. If you help others win, you’ll win too.

—
3) Have a massive chip on your shoulder

Get bullied as a kid. Mercilessly.

Grow up poor with a single mom who’s constantly stressed about money and on the edge of a breakdown. Pack a bag in the middle of the night and escape to a women’s shelter to hide from her psycho ex-husband.

Have your heart shattered by your first love in a way that takes years to process.

Trust no one.

Develop a nervous system that’s constantly in fight or flight.

Drown it in alcohol and drugs for a while.

Then discover a more socially acceptable addiction: work.

Build a branding agency...

Then a restaurant consulting business.

Land clients like Target and Holiday Inn. Sell the restaurant consulting business. Decide that’s not enough.

Bootstrap a tech startup. Funnel every dollar you make in your agency back into your startup. Stop taking a paycheck. Lie awake at 3am running numbers that never work. Keep going anyway.

Get featured in Forbes and Inc Magazine for building “The next LinkedIn for women.”

Run out of money.
Watch it all collapse.
Go bankrupt.

And somehow... the chip gets bigger.

Build another business. Cross $1M in revenue. Hit 100k followers. Then 200k.

People start clapping. Magazine features. Podcast invitations.

Think you’ll finally feel different.

You don’t.

The goalposts keep moving when you’re running away from something instead of toward it.

Then you become a mom. You hold your baby for the first time and feel something shift inside you.

All those numbers, all those milestones, all that proving—none of it mattered the way you thought it would.

Start therapy. Unpack why you’ve been running so hard for so long. Begin to heal.

Now you build differently. Not to prove anything to the world. But because you’re on a mission to help others make a bigger impact. 

You stop chasing what you think you’re supposed to want... and do the work to figure out what you actually want.

—
4) Build an audience
(It really is worth it)

—
Do you have a chip on your shoulder too? Use it as fuel. But don’t let it run you ragged. Remember, you get to decide what a “successful” business looks like for *you*

No alternative text description for this image

Don’t pick a niche. 
Pick a fight. 

What problem are you committed to solving?

What rebel POV differentiates you from the masses in your space? 

Share your thinking. 
Convert believers into buyers. 

Win.

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

Personal branding is really just product marketing…


Except that the product is *you*

(And usually comes along with a hefty dose of imposter syndrome and decades of emotional baggage from past relationships and childhood trauma. That’s why it’s so much harder to figure this shit out—especially on your own)

criticizing is easy
creating is hard

cheers to the creators 🥂

You can be world-class and still invisible. Just ask Joshua Bell, one of the world’s top violinists...

In 2007, Joshua Bell played his $3.5M Stradivarius violin for 45 minutes in a Washington, D.C. subway station as part of an experiment.

Only 7 people stopped to listen.

The same musician who sells out concert halls at $500+ per ticket made just $32 from subway commuters.

Thousands of people walked by without even noticing him.

The brutal truth? Your expertise is worthless if people can’t recognize it.

How you *package* your expertise matters. Like a lot.

If you’re posting consistently but not landing clients, here’s how to fix this:

1. Create content for buyers (not peers):

Maybe other musicians would have recognized Joshua’s subway genius, but his potential customers walked right by.

Stop bending over backwards to impress your peers and start speaking to your buyers. That means ditching the jargon (yes, even the smart-sounding stuff).

I do this in my own business. Technically, I write a newsletter about “behavioral economics”—but you’ll rarely hear me use those words.

Instead, I talk about “buyer psychology”. Why? Because my audience understands it. The PhD experts might cringe, but my 63,000 readers get it immediately.

—
2. Position yourself strategically:

Joshua commands $500+ tickets at Symphony Hall but earned $32 in a subway. Same talent, completely different context.

Are you making it crystal clear what problem you solve, who you help, and when they need you? If your audience has to guess, you’re easy to ignore.

—
3. Look the part:

In concert halls, Joshua wears formal attire on an elevated stage. In the subway, he looked like a random street performer.

Don’t make the same mistake. Your LinkedIn photos, banner image, and videos should amplify your positioning.

Fun fact: Todd Herman, one of the world’s top business coaches, doesn’t need glasses but wears them anyway as part of his personal brand ‘uniform’. Why? Because people automatically perceive glasses-wearers as smarter and Todd wants to be seen as an expert.

(Before you ask, yes. I actually need my glasses.)

—
4. Showcase your credibility:

Concert-goers know Joshua’s reputation before hearing a note. In the subway, he was anonymous.

Even brilliant experts make this same mistake. Don’t assume people know you’re an expert. Share your wins. Brag about client results. Display those hard-won credentials.

Yes, humble-bragging can feel cringe. (Trust me, I know). And yes, it works. (Again, I know).

—

The most talented violinist in the world went from earning tens of thousands per performance to street performer wages. All because he ignored the fundamentals of perception.

Don’t be the Joshua Bell of your industry—brilliant but ignorable.

How much is poor packaging costing YOU?

The rules of business have changed for consultants, freelancers and agency owners…

AI can now deliver “good enough” work at a fraction of your price—which means good work alone no longer wins clients.

What does? Your personal brand.

People want to buy from people, not faceless companies. They need to buy into you—how you think, what you believe—before they’ll hire you.

→ Your POV is your pitch.

But here’s the problem: even brilliant people often can’t articulate what makes their thinking distinctive. 

You suffer from The Expert's Paradox—your best insights feel basic to you, so you dismiss them as “too obvious” to share.

You can’t see what makes your thinking distinctive because you’re too close to it.

So you do what the gurus taught you: post helpful tips, create mass appeal content, spend hours commenting each day. 

This approach might have worked a few years ago if you wanted to sell courses or become an influencer. But it won’t get you clients.

And AI tools have made creating content so easy that social feeds are noisier than ever.

You’re brilliant, but invisible.

Most solutions can’t fix this.

❌ The same AI tools the gurus sell produce templated, forgettable content.

❌ Ghostwriters can mimic your voice but not your thinking.

❌ DIY courses expect you to do it alone—but you can’t see yourself clearly.

That’s why I’m building Unignorable—the ownable ideas studio.

I help you solve the hardest problem:

It’s not creating content—it’s knowing what to say to become the authority clients seek out.

I extract your distinctive positioning through strategic conversation—pulling out what you cannot see alone—then shape it into a personal brand strategy and content system built around one ownable idea.

Because you don’t need a bigger audience.
You need a sharper idea you can own. 

Get it right, and you’ll stop chasing clients. They’ll be pre-sold and start chasing you.

—
P.S. We’ll be accepting 10 new clients in the coming months. Jump on the waitlist to get first dibs when we open applications: beunignorable.com

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?

Bad news: People don't become known for their expertise…

They become known for how they *think differently* about their area of expertise

Recognition follows a distinct ownable idea (not volume, not credentials, not even quality of work)

👉 You can post more
👉 You can spend hours commenting
👉 You use the hookiest hooks in the land

But if your thinking sounds like everyone else's in your space…

No amount of visibility tactics will make you memorable

Your message will be ignored

Thems the breaks

—
P.S. when you hear the idea “think different” who immediately comes to mind? Steve, of course. 

But how did one man’s philosophy built the world’s most iconic company?

I’ll break it down today in first issue of my new UNIGNORABLE newsletter. 

There’s still time to signup here before it goes live: beunignorable.com

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?

My client Joe Daniels launched his new ownable idea 2 weeks ago… and already generated $100k in pipeline.

This is the power of nailing your ownable idea. 

People confuse ownable ideas for a few clever words strung together. 

How hard can that be to pull off, right?

But the truth is that an ownable idea is so much more than what you see on the surface. 

To help my clients get to their ownable idea, we do deep, heady work. 

An ownable idea is the distillation of:

↳ Strategy

↳ Positioning 

↳ Messaging

↳ Personal brand

All that work comes together for the full ownable idea to emerge. 

It’s actually a sh#tload of work to figure it out. 

But when you do?

Magic ✨

It positions you as an authority, spreads while you sleep, and sticks in your buyer’s brain like superglue.

Yup. One ownable idea changes everything. 

Don’t just share ideas. Own one. 

—

P.S. I’m working with Joe on packaging my new Unignorable 2.0 offer. 

Then I’ll be accepting another round of beta clients this month. Let me know if you want to hop on the waitlist so you get first dibs to apply.

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.

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.

I don't believe in marketing "hacks"... 

But I do believe this:


If people think of *you* when they're looking to solve the problem your service or product solves, you can get rich.

That means getting very specific about what you want to be known for and very consistently talking about your thing—so you become unignorable and people remember you.

It's simple. But it's certainly not easy.

It all starts with answering this all-important question: 

"What do you want to be known for?"

__
P.S. If you're not sure yet, you'll love my new Unignorable newsletter (launching next week). Let me know if you wanna signup.

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

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?

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.

Building a peer community for product leaders (VP and Director-level). Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

12 product leaders. One day. Zero BS about AI. The AI Product Leaders Summit is back on March 24! Register for free: https://lnkd.in/gH4nUBvB

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 (Adobe) on how Photoshop got thousands 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 Vettes (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. 😊

I didn't want sponsors for Product Leaders Lab (the media and community brand I'm building). I wanted partners—those who will help build with me, not just write checks.

I posted a couple of months ago to announce the Product Leaders Lab. Several brands reached out.

I'm excited to announce the three Founding Partners for Product Leaders Lab in the first half of 2026: Userflow, Lyssna, and Foldspace AI. 🎉

Here's how each partnership started:

𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁.

They sponsored the AI Product Leaders Summit back in November, when I met Lauren Smith. Then, Christine Itwaru, VP of Product at Userflow, joined as one of my earliest founding members. They believed in what we were building before there was anything to show. That trust turned into a partnership.

Userflow helps product teams build flows, checklists, and in-app experiences in minutes (no code required). 

𝗟𝘆𝘀𝘀𝗻𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁.

Ruben and the team helped me run research on which podcast artwork resonated most with product leaders (the one you're seeing now). They didn't pitch me. They helped me solve a real problem. That's when I knew they got it. Now I'm working with Claire Brown and Meagan Philpot.

Lyssna helps you create research studies, recruit participants, and gather feedback. 

𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗱𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 AI 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝗲𝘀𝘁.

I've known Mickey since my days working with Wes Bush, back when Mickey was still at Gainsight. We've stayed in touch for years. Now his team is building something I'm genuinely excited about. Of course, thanks to .Arik Marmorstein for cold messaging me!

Foldspace is an agentic product experience platform that enables product teams to embed an AI operator directly into SaaS applications.

Three partners. Three real relationships. That's how I want to build this.

Thank you to these folks for betting on Product Leaders Lab early.

What's a partnership that started as a relationship first for you?

PS. If you're a VP, Director, or Head of Product, I'm still looking for more guests for the Product Leaders Lab podcast show (coming Feb 24). DM me or tag folks in the comments!

Building a community for product leaders (VP and Director-level). Founder @ Delight Path. 2x best-selling author. New book “Eureka” now available. Author of “Product-Led Onboarding” (+40K copies sold).

The Product Leaders Lab podcast show drops 2/24. 🎉 I can't wait to share real stories from product leaders. Here's a sneak peek at what's coming in Season 1:

→ Greg Leach (Sr. Director of Expansion Revenue @ 7shifts) - How creating an AI adoption committee with 15% of his company reduced automation tasks from hours to minutes—without hiring a single AI expert.

→ Michelle Green (Director of Product @ Cohley) - Why showing designs to customer success before they're "completely baked" saved her team from building the wrong AI feedback flow.

→ Christine Itwaru (VP of Product @ Userflow) - What happened when her "hands-off approach" to build trust led to the biggest launch failure of her career—and how she recovered.

→ Matt LeMay - How he recovered from a feature launch failure and how his team showed him grace.

→ Joseph King (Sr. Director of Product @ Crucial Learning) - How this product leader cut through the AI noise—turning curiosity into capability and education into strategic advantage.

→ David Pereira - Why stepping back from product decisions as a new leader felt like giving up control—until he realized his team was his product now.

→ Shannon Vettes (CPO @ Usersnap) - How she made the biggest bet of her career only 6 months into her leadership role with an AI feature that changed the trajectory of the company.

→ Netali Jakubovitz - How she created an entirely new role called "Prompt Ops" to scale AI across her platform without drowning her team.

And many more. I'm still recording episodes for Season 1.

The Product Leaders Lab by Delight Path is not another interview show. Here's how it works:

One tough scenario. Two veteran product leaders who've lived it. Completely different approaches. Documentary-style editing (20-25 min, not 60+ min rambling).

If you're a VP, Director, or Head of Product with a defining leadership moment you want to share, DM me or tag them below. I'm looking for more guests!

Launching Tuesday, February 24, 2026. Stay tuned!

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?

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.

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.

PMs have been waiting on devs to build prototypes for decades. That's changing with Claude Code. So, I'm hosting a free workshop about it.

Jerome Valdez (Head of Product Design at Plotly, 20+ years experience) will share his process for building AI prototypes with Claude Code and Cursor—the tools he uses daily to ship working prototypes in hours, not weeks.

In this session, product managers will learn how to:

→ Validate ideas before committing engineering resources
→ Test concepts with users and stakeholders faster
→ Stop waiting for dev capacity to explore new directions

Jerome's tested Replit, Bolt, Lovable, Gemini, Windsurf, and more. He'll show you which tools actually work (and which don't).

This isn't theory. It's a live demo of his real workflow.

📅 Thu, Feb 26, 2026
🕛 12:00 PM EST (1 hour)
💻 Virtual (Zoom)
💰 Free

239+ product folks have already signed up.

Sign up for free here: https://lnkd.in/g5dGd3qB

Can't make it live? Register anyway, and I'll send the recording. 

But, you'll miss the live demo and Q&A.

See ya there!

A product leader recently told me their team spent 6 hours a week just looking at dashboards. Not fixing things. Not improving onboarding. Just checking metrics to see if something broke.

"We have all this data," she said. "But we're always reacting, never ahead of it."

This tracks with what I'm seeing across product teams.
You've got analytics. You've got dashboards. You've got behavior data.

But you're still playing detective, manually hunting for what changed, why it matters, and where to fix it.

So, when I saw FlowAI Insights by Userflow, it caught my attention.

It flips the monitoring model. Instead of you watching dashboards, it watches your flows and flags what needs attention.

Drops in completion rates. The exact step causing friction. Only the high-impact stuff.

Then it links directly to where you fix it.

The part I keep thinking about: teams are catching issues before users complain. Spikes in errors, step drop-offs—the silent killers that usually take weeks to surface.

Less time analyzing. More time improving.

Honestly, this feels like where product ops is headed. Proactive instead of reactive.

Are you spending more time monitoring than actually fixing things?

If you want to check it out: https://lnkd.in/g7msgNFg

🚀 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

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

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."

Meet Ramli John, the host shaping Product Leaders Lab and bringing product leadership to life! 🚀 Watch, engage, and leave a comment with your questions!

#ProductLeadersLab #MeetTheHost #DelightPath #LeadershipStories #ProductInsights

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