The Power of Transformations

How to build products that actually work

The Power of Transformations
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Today I want to talk about the power of transformation.
Tell me, If you want to learn tennis, will you learn it from Roger Federer?
No, right?
Not even his coach.
You will find someone who's good at coaching beginners and an expert at taking them from 0 -> 1.
This single idea can help you beat impostor syndrome and build products that actually work!
Here's how -
1 of the most important ideas I’ve internalized recently is the idea of delivering a transformation.
When you -
  • Build an info product
  • Build a SaaS product
  • Offer a service
  • Write an article
  • Write a thread
  • Publishing a newsletter
You’re not doing it for everyone in the world.
You're doing it for a specific person at a specific stage in their life.
You're delivering a transformation to them, helping them go from 0 to 1 or 2 to 3 or 3 to 5.
Your goal is to take them from Point A to Point B -
  • Point A - Undesirable state
  • Point B - Desirable state
If your product or service can successfully deliver that transformation then your ideal customer would have found value from your work.
And then you become the perfect person to serve them.
They don't need the best in the world. They need what's best for THEM.
That's your only job really!
"Value" is a vague word and can mean different things to different people, hard to define. But transformation is a specific term that can be clearly spelled out.
If a product doesn't deliver a transformation to a person, then they're not your ideal user, it's okay if they don't like it.
Of course, then your job becomes reaching the people who need that transformation. And if no one needs the transformation you're promising then that means you have a bad product.
Plain and simple. It's best to accept the fact and move on.
Your audience is critical here. Who are they? What transformation do they want? How can you deliver it to them?
That's why I say - your audience is at the heart of your business. This is also why I emphasized on the audience so much in my post - Audience, Offers, Channels.
I am not an "expert" on any topic.
If I tried to build the "best" product or service ever then I would not be able to ship anything. I will be forever stuck chasing perfection.
I'm able to ship stuff and get any users, only because I'm very clear about who I'm trying to serve, and what transformation I'm promising them.
So it's okay if a million dollar creator doesn't follow me or doesn't buy my products, I'm not serving them any way.
I'm only looking to serve someone 2 steps behind me, if I can help them, then my job is done!
Now, there may be hundreds of transformations you can promise, so which ones should you focus on to build products around?
I've created a simple Notion table that helps me do this. You make a list of all your transformations, and score each one based on 3 parameters -
  • Your willingness to dive deep into the topic
  • Your authority on the topic
  • How badly do people need this transformation
You score each parameter out of 10 and add the scores up
You will get a rough estimate of which transformations to focus on.
Here's what it looks like for me. (I've documented only my personal transformations, but you can also list down the ones you can deliver for your clients.)
notion image
The good thing about this framework is that it helps me eliminate the products I do NOT want to build.
Clearly I can talk about having a happy married life. And there are people out there who will find value from it, but I stay away because I'm not interested in talking about it.
Somehow tabulating this idea like this gives me a lot of clarity and tells me what I should focus on -
  • Writing
  • Entrepreneurship
This exercise will take less than 5 minutes of your time but can give you tremendous clarity into how you can serve your customers better.
Do it on a piece of paper, or grab this Notion table from this link.
Do this exercise and tell me how it goes for you.
Your best products and services will come from your favorite transformations.
Cheers!
Ayush
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Ayush

Written by

Ayush

Eternally Curious. Writing, Learning, Building in Public. Writing about Ideas + Inspiration + Insights for creators, solopreneurs and indie hackers | Simple tips and frameworks to help you build a sustainable solo business