1. Freebies test demand.
Promotional add-ons can be used as real market tests dressed up as marketing.
If customers thank you for the freebie or ask for more of it without prompting, that's a buying signal you can charge for.
Look
at what your prospects are screenshotting, forwarding, or asking to keep after the demo. The most popular giveaway in your funnel is probably a product candidate hiding in plain sight.
2. Move with the data.
If the data shows you that something is working — like gum sales
outpacing the main product — quickly validate it, then act.
Most founders take too long to spring to action because they're emotionally attached to the original plan. Check the ego, then proceed with haste.
3. Distribution > invention.
Wrigley didn't invent or manufacture chewing gum. He bought it from Zeno, a Chicago maker, branded it as his own, and sold it through grocers he had been calling on since the soap days.
The durable asset
he built was the channel: thousands of merchants who trusted his terms and gave shelf space to whatever he brought.
A working channel can carry a commodity product to category dominance. Wrigley's territory was the moat that everything else compounded
on. | 
