Marketing means different things to different people. To a founder, it's "get us leads." To a designer, it's brand. To a sales leader, it's collateral. To a CFO, it's a line item that's hard to measure. This ambiguity creates problems. Teams talk past each other. Hiring decisions get muddled. Investment gets misallocated. Here's a simplification: marketing is four distinct functions, each with different outputs, skills, and success metrics. The framework applies broadly, but

What Is Framing? Framing is the context you choose to present your message. It's not what you say—it's the lens through which people understand it. The same facts can tell completely different stories depending on the frame: AI as "productivity tool" → optimize workflows, automate tasks AI as "arms race" with China → existential competition, national survival Same technology. Radically different implications, urgency, and decisions. The Big Idea People don't decide based o

Framework at a glance: Company — Do you own the science? Can you execute the science? Context — Why now? Customer — Who's proving it...

THE BIG IDEA Don Valentine said: "Startups screw everything up." Not because they're stupid. Because they've got: No money. No people. No infrastructure. No experience. So startups can't compete on execution alone. Meta has 'limitless' engineers. You have 5. You can't beat them at execution. So the only way you win? You can only beat them if the market wants something different. The market has to PULL the product out of your hands. That's product-market fit. Nothing else real