That Painful Messaging Process...Again

Working on your messaging is a painful process, and it sometimes feels like therapy for everyone in the room.

People will try to avoid it, settle for below-par results, and move on to other things. But messaging is too important to skip.

No matter your experience, your knowledge, or how much time and energy you're willing to put in, you still have to go through the full motion: the same questions, the disagreements, the brainstorm sessions, the analogies, the numerous attempts, and sometimes going all the way back to square one. Which, in the moment, feels like nothing is moving and you're no closer than when you started.

I'm going through this with a startup right now. And I can tell you it's just as painful for me as it is for the founders involved.

But it's also gripping. You're pulling a current message apart, keeping what works, adding what's needed, and trying to combine it all into something concise and clear for the people who will eventually land on that page.

And you know the thing you settle on might be brilliant. Or it might prove wrong, and you'll need to revisit. That uncertainty sits with you throughout the process, and only lifts when you start seeing results: feedback, traffic, traction, conversions, and the founders using the new message naturally in day-to-day conversation.

No pain, no gain. Real progress means going through uncomfortable stretches, dismantling previous assumptions, and arriving somewhere genuinely better.