You're sitting on a goldmine. At least, that’s what you tell yourself every morning while staring at your product dashboard or your latest draft. You've poured months into this. The features are sleek. The pricing is competitive. Yet, the silence from the market is deafening. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but the reality is that nobody wants your shit right now.
Harsh? Maybe. Accurate? Almost certainly.
The digital economy has reached a saturation point that most founders and creators refuse to acknowledge. We are living in an era of "infinite supply." Whether you are selling a SaaS tool, a newsletter, or a handcrafted ceramic mug, you aren't just competing with your direct rivals. You’re competing with Netflix, sleep, family dinner, and the crushing weight of a thousand other notifications. When people say they don't want what you're selling, they usually mean they don't have the cognitive bandwidth to care.
The "Build It and They Will Come" Fallacy
We can blame Kevin Costner for this one. In the 1989 film Field of Dreams, the mantra was "If you build it, he will come." In 2026, if you build it, it will likely sit in a digital warehouse gathering metaphorical dust.
Modern markets don't reward effort. They reward the relief of friction.
Think about the last thing you bought on a whim. Was it because the "features" were revolutionary? Or was it because it solved a specific, nagging annoyance in that exact moment? Most entrepreneurs fall in love with their solution before they've truly understood the depth of the problem. This leads to "feature creep," where you add more bells and whistles to a product that nobody asked for in the first place.
Marketing legend Seth Godin has often talked about the concept of the "Purple Cow." But even a purple cow is just a cow if nobody is looking at the field. The disconnect happens when we mistake our own passion for market demand. Just because you spent 100 hours on a blog post doesn't mean anyone owes you five minutes of their life to read it.
Why the "Value" Conversation is Broken
We talk about "providing value" so much that the phrase has become hollow. It's corporate white noise.
What is value? To a person stranded in a desert, a gallon of water is worth more than a gold bar. To a person sitting in a boardroom, that same gallon of water is a utility—a baseline expectation. If your marketing is screaming about how "high-quality" your water is while your audience is already drowning, you're irrelevant.
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The Psychology of the "No"
Psychologically, humans are wired for loss aversion. We hate losing things more than we like gaining things. When you ask someone to try your product, you aren't just asking for their money. You’re asking for their time. You’re asking them to change their habits. You're asking them to risk the frustration of a new learning curve.
For many, the "cost" of switching—even to a "better" product—is too high.
Look at the history of the Dvorak keyboard layout. It is scientifically proven to be faster and more ergonomic than the standard QWERTY layout we use today. It’s better. It’s "higher quality." Yet, almost nobody uses it. Why? Because nobody wants your shit if it requires them to unlearn twenty years of muscle memory. The friction of the "better" solution outweighs the benefit of the improvement.
The Curation Crisis
We are currently navigating what many experts call "The Great Curation." Because there is too much of everything, the value has shifted from creation to selection.
- We don't want more songs; we want the right playlist.
- We don't want more news; we want the right summary.
- We don't want more software; we want the one tool that replaces five others.
If your product adds to the noise rather than filtering it, you are part of the problem.
How to Stop Making Shit Nobody Wants
So, how do you pivot? How do you move from being a background noise generator to a signal? It starts with radical empathy, which is a fancy way of saying "shut up and listen."
Most "market research" is just a search for confirmation bias. Founders ask leading questions like, "Would you use an app that does X?" People are polite. They say "Sure!" Then they never download it. Instead, you need to look at what people are already doing. What are they complaining about on Reddit? What are the "hacks" they’ve built using Excel because no software fits their needs?
The "Job to Be Done" Framework
Clayton Christensen, the late Harvard Business School professor, popularized the "Jobs to Be Done" theory. The core idea is that we don't buy products; we "hire" them to do a job.
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He famously used the example of milkshakes. A fast-food chain wanted to sell more shakes, so they improved the flavor and the price. Nothing happened. When they actually watched customers, they realized people were "hiring" milkshakes to keep them occupied during long, boring morning commutes. The shake needed to be thick so it lasted a long time, and it needed to fit in a cupholder.
The customers didn't want a "better-tasting" shake. They wanted a "longer-lasting" commute companion.
If you don't know the "job" your product is being hired for, you’re just guessing. And guessing is expensive.
The Narcissism of Small Differences
In the tech world, we see this constantly. A new project management tool launches with "a slightly better UI" or "one extra integration."
Nobody cares.
Incremental improvement is for established monopolies protecting their turf. For a newcomer, incrementalism is death. To get someone to notice you, you generally have to be 10x better, or significantly cheaper, or—and this is the most underrated path—wildly different.
Being different is safer than being "better." Better is subjective. Different is a fact.
Real Talk: Your Branding is Probably Generic
If I took your logo off your website and replaced it with your competitor's logo, would anyone notice? If the answer is no, then you don't have a brand. You have a commodity.
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Commodities are sold on price. Brands are sold on emotion and identity.
When people say nobody wants your shit, they might mean they don't see themselves in your story. We buy things that signal who we are to the rest of the world. I don't buy a Patagonia jacket just because it's warm; I buy it because I want to be the kind of person who cares about the environment and goes on hikes (even if I’m just walking to a coffee shop).
Breaking the Cycle of Irrelevance
To fix this, you have to be willing to kill your darlings.
- Audit your friction. Go through your user signup process. Is it "easy"? If it takes more than three clicks, it’s not. Every click is a chance for someone to remember they have something better to do.
- Stop talking about yourself. Look at your homepage. If the word "We" appears more than the word "You," you’re talking to the mirror. Your customer is the hero of the story; you are just the guide with the map.
- Find the "Micro-Pain." Don't try to solve "productivity." Solve the fact that it takes four hours for a manager to approve a vacation request. Big problems are intimidating. Small, specific pains are lucrative.
- Validate with money, not compliments. If someone says your idea is great, ask them to prepay or sign a letter of intent. If they won't reach for their wallet, they don't actually want your shit. They’re just being nice.
The Hard Truth About Quality
"Quality" is a baseline, not a feature. In 2026, stuff is supposed to work. Your software is supposed to be bug-free. Your clothes are supposed to not fall apart in the wash. Using "quality" as your primary marketing angle is like a restaurant advertising that their food won't give you botulism.
It's expected. It doesn't move the needle.
The Way Forward
The market is crowded, cynical, and exhausted. If you want to break through, you have to stop thinking like a creator and start thinking like a problem-solver. You have to be okay with the fact that, for 99% of people, your product is irrelevant.
The goal isn't to make everyone want your shit. The goal is to make it indispensable for a very specific group of people who are currently suffering without it.
Practical Next Steps
- Interview five "lost" leads. Don't ask why they didn't buy. Ask what they ended up using instead and what that solution does for their daily routine.
- Strip one feature. Look at your product and find the one thing that 80% of people don't use. Remove it. See if anyone notices. Usually, they won't. This reduces cognitive load.
- Rewrite your "About" page. Turn it into a "Why We Care About You" page. Shift the focus entirely to the user's struggle.
- Test a "Small" version. If you're selling a massive course, sell a one-page cheat sheet. If you're selling a huge software suite, sell a single-purpose plugin. Lower the barrier to entry until it’s non-existent.
The world doesn't need more "stuff." It needs better solutions to the mess we already have. Stop building for yourself and start building for the person who is currently staring at their screen, frustrated, wishing there was a better way. That's how you make something people actually want.
Actionable Insights:
- Validate via Friction: If a user has to "learn" your product, you've already lost. Design for the "lazy" brain.
- Niche Down Until It Hurts: If you’re selling to "small businesses," you’re selling to no one. Sell to "Left-handed dental hygienists in Oregon" and you might actually get a response.
- The 10x Rule: If your product isn't ten times faster, cheaper, or easier than the current alternative, stay in the lab.
- Listen to the "No": Every rejection is a data point. If someone says "it's too expensive," they usually mean "I don't see the value yet." Those are two very different problems.
Don't let your hard work go to waste by building in a vacuum. The market is talking—you just have to be willing to hear the "no" before you can get to the "yes."