(1) Where does “lack of demand” come from and how to diagnose it without deceiving yourself

The “no demand for our product” thesis almost never describes reality fully, most often it hides one of three scenarios: latent demand (need is hidden and unarticulated), unmet demand (people are looking for but not finding a suitable solution), or unformed demand (the need will arise only after a new value is demonstrated or a category language appears), the mistake begins where marketing tries to “warm up” the market without proven value: we jump to channels and creatives, although we have not yet understood what work (“job”) the product does for the person and why it is more important than alternatives.

The objective picture is stubborn: high rates of failure of new offerings are the rule rather than the exception. HBR’s classic article on new product failures reminds us that brand awareness and quality of market research alone do not insure against failure: companies often fall in love with a solution and underestimate the everyday contexts of use, tradeoffs and cost of transition for the consumer. YouTube The popular “95%” of failures is a myth that is useful to dissect critically: NielsenIQ provides a more nuanced picture of the viability of innovation and warns against simplifying cause-and-effect relationships. OptiMonk — Popups, supercharged.

To move from “no demand” to managed knowledge, use three objectifiers: (a) Everett Rogers’s theory of innovation diffusion and its warning that different segments (innovators, early adopters, early/late majority) perceive risks, evidence, and communication channels differently; the main work of persuasion for the “majority” is not novelty, but proven relative gain and habit compatibility, which directly affects the speed of acceptance. Teddykw2 (b) distribution models such as Bass explaining why organic “infectious” growth effects only appear when contacts are sufficiently useful and dense. Of (im)possible interest (c) Gartner Hype Cycle’s hyper-realistic view: any new category passes through the “peak of high expectations”, the “valley of disappointment” and only then enters the “blind enlightenment”; therefore, your task is to keep the trajectory and not exhaust resources in phases where the market does not yet “hear” the signal. Gartner+1

Diagnostics begins with simple but honest steps: Formulate a user’s “job”: a person “hires” a product to make progress in a specific context, says Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD), systematized by Clayton Christensen (“Competing Against Luck”) and developed in the practical guides of HBR. This is not about demographics, but about situation, motivations, constraints and tradeoffs. Harvard Business Review+1 Next up are the “honest” interviews on Rob Fitzpatrick (“The Mom Test”), where you don’t ask for praise, but instead figure out past behaviors, triggers, competing habits, and the cost of inaction. Mom Test Book And then there are the rapid cycles of hypothesis testing in the logic of Lean Startup (build-measure-learn), where MVP is not a pared-down product, but a minimal carrier of the value hypothesis. Lean Startup

And it’s important to embrace Andrew Chan’s «law of lousy clicks»: any «magic» channels degrade over time — CTRs fall, novelty goes, audiences burn out. You can’t build a strategy on a one-off find in media procurement or creativity; you can rely on value economics and the constant opening of new, as-yet-unburnt channels. Andrew Chen

(2) Designing value and message: from JTBD and category design to narrative that sells novelty

When you don’t have a «ready-made» search for your product, you’re not just creating demand, you’re creating a language that understands value, and here are three complementary approaches.

The first one is JTBD from the previous section, which aligns product, price, UX and promise around the user’s «job»: Practice: build a map of work (functional, emotional, social), competing alternatives (including «do nothing»), barriers and triggers, and this map answers the «why now» question, without which demand stimulation becomes budget burning. Harvard Business Review

Category design: if a product doesn’t have a shelf in the head of the market, it needs to be designed. Here, the Blue Ocean Strategy is useful: create an unchallenged value space where comparing apple to apple is not profitable for you. Tools like strategic canvas and value curve allow you to visualize what you’re deliberately abandoning and what you’re radically enhancing. This is not about «creativity for creativity’s sake,» but about structurally redefining boundaries and demand. Blue Ocean Strategy+1

The third is the articulated narrative of problem and benefit: the demand-free market needs education, not banners; stories are more important than slogans: they contextualize new value, reduce uncertainty and perceptual risks. HBR has shown for decades that storytelling is not a “beautiful layer,” but a tool for changing leaders’ and customers’ beliefs and behaviors; use case studies, before-after, specific scenarios, explain tradeoffs. playbigger.com

Now to manageable value metrics. The Superhuman team showed how to digitize the path to product/market fit through «40% very disappointed» using the Sean Ellis method: if >40% of active users will say they will be “very disappointed” if they lose a product — you have an initial PMF. It’s not a magic number, but a benchmark that turns an abstract “whether the market likes” into a system: segment “very disappointed,” understand their “principal benefit,” remove “holding” barriers, measure again. First Round+1

In the same block, the offering architecture is particularly useful for the new category: freemium, reverse trial, trial periods with full value and gradual “collapse” of functionality, all of which reduces learning and risk perception costs. OpenView’s industry benchmarks on PLG confirm that companies that make a product the main channel of attraction and conversion are growing more efficiently at the same marketing costs; the key is a well-designed activation funnel and competent free-level packaging. OpenView+1

The category needs social proof, too. The credibility of “their” recommendations remains significant: Nielsen reports show that they seem to be the most compelling communication formats for most people, so partnerships and expert ambassadors work better than frontal advertising. In B2C and B2B, social channels are critical early on: recent Sprout Social research shows that a significant proportion of audiences rely on brand interactions in social networks when choosing – this works when communication is useful, dialogic and expert. media.sproutsocial.com At the same time, trust in reviews should not be absolute: current BrightLocal surveys show a mixed picture — high involvement in reading reviews and growing demand for their reliability; therefore, the policy of working with reviews, moderation and cases should be systematic. BrightLocal

Another building block is behavioral economics: Deficiency and limited batches can add value to perceived value in a competent application ethic; experimental psychology has studied this effect for decades (the classic cookie jar study on making scarce options more attractive), but it is important to keep a course on trust: manipulations that are not supported by real quality and speed of delivery of value lead to kickbacks and reputational risks. OpenView

3) Toolkit of actual demand creation: from educational marketing and SEO to referral loops, PLGs and partnerships

No-demand promotion is not a single channel, it’s an orchestra of disciplines. Start with educational marketing: explain the problem, the cost of inaction, and the logic of the solution. Here the winning format is the «no-useful content» format — guides, parses, checklists, calculators, tools. Content marketing should be operationalized: the core of the themes — from JTBD maps, structure — from «pain» to «win», distribution — through search (SEO), mailing sites, affiliates and communities. Be honest with your search: people formulate queries for their problem, not your product; optimize for “job queries” (symptoms, triggers, “how to solve / how to count”), not brand phrases.

Next up is building trust channels: webinars with industry experts, guest expertise on professional media, conferences, and niche Slack/Telegram communities, where it’s critical to marry authority and utility: instead of advertising matches, case demonstrations, live examples, and free templates. Why does that matter? Because human recommendations and authority opinions still convert better: Nielsen’s global reports regularly rank word-of-mouth as a top source of trust, and a significant proportion of customers rely on social media signals if they don’t communicate two-way. media.sproutsocial.com

Next, the “risk-free” architecture, and digital products prioritize full-scale testing: instead of “free-cut” testing reverse trial, the higher the self-service share and the shorter the path to value, the more sustainable the growth is on the same budgets. OpenView

And remember referral loops. It’s not «invite a friend, get a discount,» it’s cycle engineering, where the value consumed generates an invitation. Examples are collaborative scenarios: «share a project,» «assign a meeting,» «send a document,» «share a board» — the content itself becomes the host of the invitation. The AARRR (acquisition-activation-retention-referral-revenue) model helps measure what value points trigger invitations and where the energy of the cycle is lost. amplitude.com

The front is PR and category stories. The no-demand categories need a clear angle of view: how your world differs from the old world, what systemic costs you remove, what new opportunities you open up. The Blue Ocean principles will help avoid “distortion in the red ocean” and instead of fighting for features, switch the discussion to new value curves. At the same time, keep in mind the “law of lousy clicks”: once you find a working communication move, automatically start searching for the next one without waiting for degradation. Blue Ocean Strategy+1

In B2C, use social proof and hands-on. Not feedback for feedback, but verifiable cases, detailed implementations, a before-and-after scheme with numbers and screenshots. BrightLocal research reminds us that audiences read reviews actively, but are increasingly critical of their quality and authenticity, especially in complex categories — you need to have a moderation policy and an open feedback process. BrightLocal And as inspiration, the classic “Dollar Shave Club”: the viral video worked not for laughs, but as a manifesto of a new category (subscription instead of “shaven tax”), simplifying the understanding of value and lowering barriers to the test. Medium

Finally, pricing as a tool for generating demand, novelty doesn’t have to be expensive from day one. Value ladders (free → core → pro → enterprise), pay-as-you-go for low-frequency use, first-rate credit (KPI discounts), partner offerings all reduce perception risk and cost of error for early customers. Remember, value is not just about what’s inside, but also about time-to-value and predictability.

(4) Scaling without illusions: control metrics, experimental plan, ethics and operational maturity

Markets where demand is created require discipline to measure. Start with a map of AARRR metrics and a few safety metrics so that growth doesn’t destroy the economy: LTV/CAC, payback, gross margins, cohort retention (day-7/30/90), activation rate to enroll, time to aha moment, percentage of users who have reached the «goal moment.» Next, systematic A/B testing: not decoration, but a way to separate opinion from knowledge. Classical work/Google and industry surveys show the culture of the «size,» not «the culture of the company.» Summary of experiments in leading companies and specialized conferences; for an introductory context, extensive literature on controlled experiments.

To PMF measurability, come back regularly: the “40% very disappointed” metric serves as a “signal threshold.” While you’re below, the priority is not to speed up traffic, but to make the value fit the needs of “high-expectant customers” (HXC) through segmentation and targeted improvements. Superhuman’s practice shows how this cycle turns chaotic “what to do” searches into a checklist: segmenting those who are “very hurt” without a product; articulating “primary benefit”; systematically eliminating “pull-downs” (which prevents you from loving a product); measuring and repeating again. This is not a discipline. First Round+1

Plan your experiments in quarterly waves, and this is a 90-day cycle example for demand creation.

Weeks 1–3: JTBD field interviews on Rob Fitzpatrick (at least 20 conversations), analysis of existing behavior, map of competing alternatives; wording of «job statement» and «moment of truth.» Mom Test Book
Weeks 2-6: MVP/MLP to demonstrate value in one key scenario; Reverse trial to deliver full value as early as possible; and customization of analytics on the path to aha. Lean Startup+1
Weeks 4-8: educational assets (longgrid guides, calculator, webinar), a partner webinar with an industry leader, the launch of a community pilot; PR package of the “new category” (thesis, visual “strategic canvas” on Blue Ocean). Blue Ocean Strategy
Weeks 6-10: Referral loop engineering (built-in “invite” scripts), early client program, public “before-after” cases; first measurement of PMF-survey. amplitude.com+1
Weeks 9-12: Scaling up the working channels; in parallel, searching for the “next” channel, remembering the law of degradation of CTR. Andrew Chen

Communications and ethics: Transparent data policies (GDPR and local regulations), verified cases, avoiding cheating, careful handling of scarcity/limits, understandable pricing logic are not paper-based issues, but the foundation of trust. In an era where social media amplifies reputational effects (both positive and negative), process documentation and openness are your insurance. Sprout Social’s current reports show that users expect dialogue and utility, not just promo, it requires a team that can talk, not broadcast. media.sproutsocial.com

Finally, embrace strategic realism. No Demand is a challenge to design value, language and route to that value. You create a path: from a JTBD map to categories and narrative; from a minimal “carrier of value” to a provable PMF; from educational marketing to referral loops and self-service PLG; from the first cases to operational predictability. And yes, sometimes the most powerful leverage lies in the product, not in the channels: the speed of achieving the result, eliminating friction and saving time create the “carrier” of the provable PMF; from educational marketing to the self-service PLG, which is better than any radio planner.

Sources and materials for deepening

Christensen C. et al., Know Your Customers’ Jobs to Be Done, Harvard Business Review (2016); and Competing Against Luck (HBR Press). Harvard Business Review+1
Kim W. Chan, Mauborgne R. Blue Ocean Strategy. Blue Ocean Strategy+1
Rogers E. Diffusion of Innovations (explanation of the S-curve and acceptance factors). Teddykw2
Bass F. A New Product Growth Model for Consumer Durables. Of (im)possible interest
Gartner Hype Cycle (Glossary and Methodology) Gartner+1
Rahul Vohra / Superhuman: «How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit» + 40% PMF metric First Round+1
— OpenView Partners: Product-Led Growth (Product Benchmarks 2022–2023). OpenView+1
— Andrew Chen: «The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs». Andrew Chen
Nielsen: Trust in Advertising (Global Trust in Advertising)
Sprout Social Index: Consumer behavior in social networks (the role of interaction for buying). media.sproutsocial.com
BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey (Current Trends in Review Trust) BrightLocal
The classic on scarcity effect and value perception: the 1970s work on the attractiveness of scarce goods. OpenView
Case analysis of the Dollar Shave Club and the role of the viral narrative in the creation of the category. Medium