Looking at the recent flood of AI news, the momentum makes it feel like absolutely nothing is impossible anymore. AI can now take a task that would cost a human 100 hours and finish it in just one. Because of this, the bottleneck in business is no longer in the making. The bottleneck has entirely shifted to the selling.
I actually studied coding at a bootcamp years ago, only to realize it was not the right path for me. I ended up landing a job as a relatively easier network engineer, and for the 10 years since then, I never professionally touched coding again. But starting this year, I taught myself web development entirely through vibe coding, and even deployed something all by myself.
Going through that process, I felt one overwhelming drive. The pure desire to finally build something of my own. In the past, building something required massive amounts of risk and time. Today, just a few hours after work is more than enough to create something real. That does not mean everything magically appears with a single click. You still have to study. But if the effort required used to be a 100, it has dropped to about a 10.
That is exactly why I am completely convinced the real bottleneck from now on happens when you try to sell the thing you just made. Naval Ravikant, the founder of AngelList, puts it perfectly: "Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable." Incredibly simple, right? Business, at its core, is just building well and selling well.
So in my opinion, the absolute best combination is pairing someone who builds well with someone who sells well. But today, for those of you who only know how to build and feel completely lost when it comes to selling, I want to walk through two fundamental ways to actually sell what you make.
Defining the Problem and the Audience
People who struggle to sell usually fail right at the initial planning stage. When they first sketch out their product, they skip over properly defining who this product is actually for and exactly what problem it solves.
The very first move has to be defining the problem, then finding the specific people who actually have that problem. You do not grab random people off the street and beg them to buy something. To avoid that trap, you need to know exactly who your product is for from the moment you start planning it.
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| True business mastery comes from understanding principles, not chasing quick hacks |
Here is my own example. I have always loved listening to business podcasts. But most of them only talk about methodologies, not principles. Almost everything was "how to make money with an online market" or "how to make viral YouTube Shorts using AI." I am not saying those topics are bad, but I craved something more fundamental. I did not want a fast, easy shortcut. I wanted someone to teach me the proper, authentic way, even if it was grueling. From that point on, I started digging deeply into the core principles of business.
And the fascinating thing is, masters like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Charlie Munger only ever talk about principles. They never pitch you on why some online side hustle is great or how to make AI videos. Instead they talk about delivering maximum value to customers, using trust as leverage, and why a long-term perspective is absolutely critical. Hearing them speak, I remember thinking, this is exactly what I have been looking for.
That is when my target audience became completely clear. My target was not people chasing a fast, easy way to succeed, but people hungry for unchanging business principles. If my goal had been quick revenue through teaching fast money hacks, I would have already filled this blog with exactly that. But I wanted everything I write to tackle principles that are more fundamental and timeless than any trend.
I believe that if I keep dealing in these core truths, the readers who stick around will be the kind of people who do not blindly follow what others say, but instead define and solve problems on their own, grounded in solid principles. So whether it is you or me, the takeaway is the same. When you sell something, defining the foundation, exactly what problem you are solving and exactly who has that problem, always has to come first.
Lure With Want, Bind With Need
Giving real value to customers matters. But for a customer to actually take that first step and try your product, you have to give them what they want, not what they need.
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| The most effective hook targets deep human desire, not need |
Think about diet pill commercials. They always feature celebrities who clearly do not even take those pills. Why? Because the customer's deepest desire is simply to look beautiful or handsome. The ad is not selling them what they biologically need. It is selling them exactly what they desire.
Daniel Priestley, a marketing expert, put this perfectly. "Whether you're building a business or starting a social movement, to succeed, you must hit on exactly what people want, not what they need. Ask people what they want, build it the way they want it, and explain it the way they want it explained. Then bundle what they actually need right alongside it. People don't spend big money because they need something. They spend it because they want something."
I personally like to put it this way. Lure them in with what they want, and bind them with what they need.
To make this concrete, apply it to YouTube. A title like "To succeed in business, study Peter Thiel's philosophy" triggers absolutely zero desire. But a title like "Everyone making $100,000 a month studied this one thing" hits a nerve instantly and sparks real human desire. So when you are selling a product, your first move has to be stimulating desire, and only then handing people what they actually need.
Of course, I am not saying you should manipulate desire just to scam people into buying overpriced garbage. The product itself still has to be genuinely valuable and deliver what people actually need. The point is that the initial hook has to target desire first.
In the long run, I firmly believe the product itself is the most important thing. Why? Because once customers actually start seeing real change and real results through your product, trust gets built. And once that trust compounds over time like interest, those same people will buy your second product, and your third, with zero friction. It is exactly how people buy from Apple or Google without thinking twice. But to reach that level of trust, you have to actually sell the product first. And to get someone to try it in the first place, you have to start by sparking what they truly want.
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