Your competitor sounds exactly like you

Your relationship with your own product is what’s keeping you stuck

The other day I did a quick search of the first 10 EdTech websites that came up just to see. What I found wasn’t surprising. It probably doesn’t surprise you either. You can use your own website language and put it to the test.

Most of you are all saying a version of the same thing and trying to defend it as if your life depended on it. And some of you are holding on to it so tightly that you’re missing the obvious.

The market has shifted from pandemic era "should we add this?" to most recently "should we keep this?", but you’re still answering the old question because your past story is louder than the market's feedback. What you thought was the foundation you built your business on might actually be a feature everyone shares.

When you describe your product to a prospect today, are you describing what you set out to build, or what it actually means to the person sitting across from you right now? That question, if answered honestly, exposes whether your positioning is running the show. And, God forbid, the last thing you will want to hear is that you were the cheapest option.

I'll offer up an example outside of EdTech that might sound familiar to every reader who suddenly finds themselves questioning what it is they should be defending in the first place:

Two PhD founders built a tool that ran complex queries in 3 minutes instead of 12 hours. Impressive. They called it a database because that's what they set out to build. And every sales meeting died by slide four. Eventually a prospect sat through the whole pitch out of politeness, 'I love it, but you're not a database. You're more like a data warehouse.' They argued with him and resisted changing for a while after. But then they changed their position — nothing else — and deals started closing, pricing went up, and even the roadmap shifted. The technology hadn't changed, they just stopped describing what they set out to build and started describing what it actually meant to the buyer. The label on their jar said "database" because that's what the founders wrote on it. It took someone outside the jar to read it back to them.

That same pattern is playing out in EdTech right now, just wearing different clothes.

Right now, founders I’m watching are responding to procurement pressure and demand for evidence as a market problem: districts want proof, so go get proof.

But 'what outcome does this actually produce' is really the buyer asking 'how do I know you can actually help me?' That's not a question more case studies and white papers will answer. At least not without a defendable position behind them. You've been describing what you set out to build instead of what it actually does for the buyer. No one is questioning what you do, they’re questioning who you’re for.

The evidence problem is an identity problem.You're on a call with a district administrator. They ask how you're different from [competitor]. You hear yourself talking about your approach, your methodology, your research. You watch their eyes glaze. Your competitor said something nearly identical yesterday. That's not a marketing failure. That's your origin story answering a question the buyer didn't ask.

Here’s a test: Ask your three best customers why they actually stayed. Not why they bought — why they renewed.

The gap between those two answers is where your real position lives.

If this hit close to home, here's where to go deeper:
It's Nearly Impossible To Read The Label On The Jar You're Sitting In — why the patterns keeping you stuck are hardest to see from inside.
True Isn't The Same As Unique — the difference between saying something accurate and saying something only you can say.
If you already know which jar you're sitting in but can't figure out what the label should say — that's what a Clarity Session is for.