Beyond the algorithm sit people
Last week I posted something honest: LinkedIn does not work, at least not for what I expect from it. More than 14,000 impressions. 9,000 members reached. More than 200 reactions. And not once did it lead to a conversation.
Is it me? The algorithm? The dog in my photo? I admit, he is cute. Or is it the idea itself, that you can turn views into conversations?
My best conversations last month did not come from the feed. They came from ten postcards with a handwritten letter. No algorithm needed. Reach ≠ business. Closeness does. That is what this piece is about.
The paradox: plenty of reach, little movement
You post. The numbers climb. Likes, great post, so recognizable. Then you open your calendar. Not one extra conversation.
The more visible you become online, the more invisible you sometimes look to the people who really matter. Your ideal clients live around the corner, sit in your ecosystem, know your current clients. And at that exact moment they scroll past your post, among hundreds of others, while all they really want is to talk to someone.
This is not about playing the algorithm better. It is about two other questions. Why should LinkedIn be the heart of your client development at all? And why does being visible in the feed feel safer than reaching out to someone directly?
The fear underneath all that content
You do not post only because it is efficient. You also post because it feels safer than approaching someone directly.
Direct contact is vulnerable. You can get a clear no. You show that you need new clients. You are afraid of being pushy. LinkedIn feels more comfortable: you throw something into the world, and if nobody responds, it is the algorithm. No no, no yes, no conversation. Just noise.
I did it that way myself for years. Busy, little movement. Until I had to admit it honestly: my best clients never came through the feed. They came because someone dropped my name in a real conversation.
LinkedIn is good for my ego. Postcards are better for my conversations.
The inversion: from feed to people
Most companies play the same game. Open LinkedIn, collect connections, publish posts, wait for someone to react, hope something comes out of it.
I turn it around. As I wrote in Clients are not targets, everything starts with the question of who you really want to work with. Decide that first: fit, ecosystem, stage. Then find who you are already indirectly connected through. Reach out directly, outside the algorithm. And use LinkedIn only after that, as verification and follow-up.
That matches what I set out in Closeness over LinkedIn. New opportunities rarely run through mass reach. They run through people one or two steps away, and through the trust that grows when you see and hear each other more often.
The 1-2-3 method: from offline signal to real conversation
To make that structural I work with a simple rhythm. One: a postcard with a short, handwritten letter. Two: a few days later a personal connection request that refers to that card, no pitch, no pressure. Three: the conversation, by phone, over Teams or over coffee.
That is all it is. But you do it consistently. Three to five cards a week, across some 25 to 30 active weeks, are 75 to 100 very deliberately chosen contact moments a year. Not to the market. To people you know in advance: if a few of these turn into conversations, my year changes.
The card is your first tangible signal that you take the initiative, not the algorithm. A physical, personal message is almost always opened and stays with people longer than yet another email. LinkedIn becomes no lead engine, but a verification screen: whoever types your name sees that your card matches who you are online.
In practice: In practice: pick five people this week who truly matter to you. Send each one a handwritten card, no pitch. Connect on LinkedIn a few days later with a reference to that card. And call. Do not reach the market, bring one person closer. That is the difference between being visible and being spoken to.
Series · Beyond Visibility · Add Business
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The paradox of entrepreneurial selling
In part 1 you saw why you orchestrate an ecosystem instead of chasing customers. But there is a catch that many founders discover too late. The way you win your very first customer fastest is often precisely the way that stands most in the way of your later growth. I call it the paradox of entrepreneurial selling. Founders who miss the paradox celebrate a quick first deal and then get stuck. Those who see it choose differently, from day one.
The temptation of the quick first customer
The first sale is a milestone. It brings your first revenue, it validates your offer, it builds confidence, and, often most valuable of all, it gives you the first reference that makes the second and third customer reachable. No wonder you reach for what works fastest: your warm network. A friend, a former colleague, someone who already trusts you. That works, and it is sensible to start that way. But it is also exactly where the trap lies.
Strong ties are fast, but narrow
Granovetter (1973) showed that strong and weak ties do something different. A strong tie, your warm network, opens a door quickly. But it is a narrow corridor: those contacts largely know the same people you do, so you keep circling within your own circle. Weak, more distant ties are slower to convince, but they are precisely the ones that lead to new networks, new markets and real growth. The customer you win most easily is therefore often the customer who takes you the least far.
The first customer shapes your future
Here it gets sharp. Your first customers quietly determine which market you ultimately serve, which problems you solve, how your offer evolves. Researchers call this imprinting: the conditions at your start leave a lasting mark (Marquis and Tilcsik 2013). Choose your first customer only because they are willing, and you let chance rather than strategy determine your market. That is the paradox in full glory: the same deal that saves you today can lock you tomorrow into a niche you never consciously chose.
Winning is effectual, surviving is causal
There is a second layer, over time. Sarasvathy (2001) described how founders work effectually: they improvise with what they have, their network, their skills, whatever happens to come along. That is exactly right for launching. But surviving demands the opposite movement, causal: systematic, repeatable, qualified. The paradox over time, then, is that the effectual reflex that launches you is precisely the reflex you must let go of as you grow, without losing the human touch that closes the deal.
The customer you win most easily often takes you the least far.
The way out: think beyond your first customer
There is one discipline that dismantles the paradox: from day one, think beyond your first customer. In practice that means three things. Use your strong ties to lift off, but invest immediately in weak, more distant ties to climb. Choose your first customer not only on willingness, but on where they take you: are they well connected, do they open a network? And treat every early sale as a learning process, not as an endpoint: what does this customer teach you about the market you really want to serve?
In practice: look at your current or planned first customers in a new market. For each, note two things: how fast do I win them, and how far do they take me, which network do they open? Then deliberately choose at least one customer who is slower but takes you further. That one harder yes is your real runway.
References
- Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–1380.
- Marquis, Christopher, and András Tilcsik. 2013. “Imprinting: Toward a Multilevel Theory.” Academy of Management Annals 7 (1): 195–245.
- Sarasvathy, Saras D. 2001. “Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency.” Academy of Management Review 26 (2): 243–263.
- Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1965. “Social Structure and Organizations.” In Handbook of Organizations, edited by James G. March, 142–193. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Series · From first customer to ecosystem · Add Business
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What is value in a conversation?
Throughout this series I kept repeating it: value now emerges only in the conversation. But that raises a harder question, one I have kept dancing around. What actually is value in a conversation? When is it really created for the client, and when is it not? This piece digs deep into that, because if you cannot answer the question, ‘value’ is just a word. Here is the short version, which the rest unpacks: value in a conversation is not what you say. It is what changes in the other.
Value is not in what you say, but in what changes in the other
The fundamental shift comes from Vargo and Lusch (2004). Value is not baked into a product or a presentation, ready to hand over. Value emerges in use, and is always judged by the recipient (Vargo and Lusch 2008). Translate that to a conversation: the words you speak carry no value in themselves. Value only exists once something changes in the other, once, afterwards, they understand, see, decide or can do something that was out of reach before. A conversation in which nothing changes for the client has created no value, however eloquent it was.
The three spheres, and why the conversation is the only shared place
Grönroos and Voima (2013) sharpen this with three spheres. There is the provider sphere: everything you make and do on your side, your product, your preparation. There you produce only potential value; you are a facilitator there, not a creator of value. There is the customer sphere: the client’s own world, where they use things and create value-in-use, and where you have no access. And between them lies the joint sphere: the direct interactions where provider and client meet, and where you can actively co-create value by influencing the client’s own value creation.
The conversation is that joint sphere. It is the only place where you can move from potential value to real, shared value. But only if you engage with the client’s value creation, and do not stand there broadcasting from your own sphere. The moment you launch into a monologue about yourself, you fall back into the provider sphere, and by definition no shared value emerges there.
When is value created?
Value is created in a conversation when at least one of these things happens, and they all share a single trait: the client leaves changed.
They see their situation more clearly. You have helped them frame or reframe their own problem. That is sensemaking (Adamson 2022; Weick 1995): giving meaning to what was confused.
Knowledge emerges that neither of you had alone. Real dialogue, not question-and-answer, brings something new into being between you, relationship-specific knowledge (Ballantyne and Varey 2006). That is value created literally in the interaction.
Uncertainty drops. They can decide with more confidence. Removing risk is valuable in itself, because it is the biggest brake on any decision.
It touches their context and use. It connects with what they are really trying to achieve, their job-to-be-done (Christensen et al. 2016), and gains meaning in their situation, not in yours (Edvardsson, Tronvoll and Gruber 2011).
Afterwards they can do something they could not do before. The ultimate test: their capacity to act is greater than before the conversation. The thread running through all of this: value is a change in the client’s understanding, confidence or capacity to act, one they themselves would recognise as worthwhile.
Value is not what you say. It is what changes in the other.
When is it not?
Just as important is the other side, because that is usually where it goes wrong. No value is created in the following cases.
You stay in your own sphere. You talk about yourself: your features, your dashboard that looks nice but says nothing. That is potential value at best, nothing shared.
It is a transfer of information. You tell them what they already know or can get from an AI themselves. Passing on information is not creating value; it is exactly what lost its value.
It is a monologue. A pitch has no joint sphere. Without real two-way interaction, no co-creation is possible.
You fill in for the other. With IVEA you impose your own meaning. The client does not co-create, they are managed. No shared knowledge, no value.
It stays at price and features. Exchange value invites comparison and leads to commoditisation. It creates no contextual value. And if nothing changes for the client, it was a pleasant conversation with no consequence, precisely the hollow ending from the previous part.
The test at a glance
Value created, the client leaves changed: they see more clearly, doubt less, know something new, or can decide and act better.
No value, nothing changes: you talk about yourself, transfer known information, deliver a monologue, fill in for the other, or stay at price and features.
The deepest nuance: you do not deliver value, you make it possible
And then the deepest point. You cannot ‘give’ a client value in a conversation. Value is created by the client, in their context, in use (Grönroos and Voima 2013; Vargo and Lusch 2008). What a conversation can do is co-create in the joint sphere and facilitate the client’s own value creation. So ‘creating value in a conversation’ actually means: creating the conditions in which the client creates value for themselves, clarity they build themselves, a decision they own themselves, knowledge that becomes theirs. That is why every technique in this series points the same way: you do not add value by saying more, but by letting the other think, see and decide better. And only the client can judge whether it worked, because value-in-use is client-determined. The sobering and at the same time liberating conclusion: your job is not to be valuable, but to make the other more valuable.
The test
There is a simple test for any conversation. Would the client, in their own words, say they are better off for it? Not ‘was it pleasant’, but ‘did something change for me, do I now see, know or can do something that was out of reach before?’. If the answer is yes, you have created value. If it is no, you have filled time.
In practice: after your next conversation, write one sentence from the client’s point of view: ‘After this conversation, I …’. If you can honestly finish it with something that changed for them, I understand something, I decided something, I can now do something, then value was created. If the only honest ending is ‘I heard something about their product’, then it was not.
References
Adamson, Brent. 2022. “Sensemaking for Sales.” Harvard Business Review 100 (1): 48–57.
Anderson, James C., and James A. Narus. 1998. “Business Marketing: Understand What Customers Value.” Harvard Business Review 76 (6): 53–65.
Ballantyne, David, and Richard J. Varey. 2006. “Creating Value-in-Use Through Marketing Interaction: The Exchange Logic of Relating, Communicating and Knowing.” Marketing Theory 6 (3): 335–348.
Christensen, Clayton M., Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan. 2016. “Know Your Customers’ Jobs to Be Done.” Harvard Business Review 94 (9): 54–62.
Edvardsson, Bo, Bård Tronvoll, and Thorsten Gruber. 2011. “Expanding Understanding of Service Exchange and Value Co-Creation: A Social Construction Approach.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 39 (2): 327–339.
Grönroos, Christian, and Päivi Voima. 2013. “Critical Service Logic: Making Sense of Value Creation and Co-Creation.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 41 (2): 133–150.
Terho, Harri, Alexander Haas, Andreas Eggert, and Wolfgang Ulaga. 2012. “‘It’s Almost Like Taking the Sales Out of Selling’: Towards a Conceptualization of Value-Based Selling.” Industrial Marketing Management 41 (1): 174–185.
Vargo, Stephen L., and Robert F. Lusch. 2004. “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing.” Journal of Marketing 68 (1): 1–17.
Vargo, Stephen L., and Robert F. Lusch. 2008. “Service-Dominant Logic: Continuing the Evolution.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 36 (1): 1–10.
Series · Value in the conversation · Add Business
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Stop chasing customers
The most uncertain moment in the life of a company is the run-up to the first customer. Stinchcombe (1965) called the underlying condition the liability of newness: a young firm has no references, no legitimacy, no track record. The usual advice is then to chase harder. Call more, email more, network more. But there is a better way. You do not find your customers one by one. You build and orchestrate the ecosystem that produces them. Stop chasing, start orchestrating.
Why chasing does not scale
Chasing one customer at a time feels like work, and it sometimes lands a deal. But for a young firm, or an established firm in a new market, it hits a wall: you have no proof. The prospect’s real question is not ‘what does it cost?’, but ‘can I trust you?’. Without a reference, every conversation is a cold start, and every customer you win who opens no doors is a dead end. Chasing does not scale, because it fragments your energy at exactly the moment you have the least of it.
A customer is never an island
The way out begins with a simple insight: a customer never stands alone. Buyers sit in webs of partners, advisors, references, communities and institutions. Modern strategy has a name for that: the ecosystem. Adner (2017) defines it as the alignment structure of the parties who have to work together for a value proposition to come true. The liberating insight: you do not have to own the chain, you have to align it. Map what has to happen for your customer to get value, who does it, and where you fit.
Three ideas that make it practical
Align around a value proposition, not around yourself. The ecosystem is not about your offering, but about the value the customer is ultimately left with. Everything aligns to that.
Aim for a keystone position. Moore (1993) and Iansiti and Levien (2004) showed that the healthiest players are keystones: firms that make the whole ecosystem more productive and thereby become indispensable. You do not win as the biggest predator, but as the node others cannot easily bypass.
Orchestrate, do not command. Dhanaraj and Parkhe (2006) describe how a hub steers a network it does not own: letting knowledge flow, making sure everyone wins a fair share, and keeping the network stable. That is exactly the copilot stance: not the loudest in the room, but the one who keeps everyone aligned and moving.
The eco-network flight plan
In practice that translates into one repeatable flight plan, whether you are looking for your first customer or your fiftieth, at home or across the border. Six moves.
The eco-network flight plan
1. Sharpen your value proposition. Not what you sell, but the value your customer is left with.
2. Map the ecosystem. Who has to act for that value to land? Actors, positions, links, the gaps and the gatekeepers.
3. Find your anchor node. The one relationship, a reference customer, partner, community or institution, that unlocks the most of the map.
4. Enter through credibility, not through price. Lead with proof and a warm introduction. Turn your first win into a visible reference.
5. Orchestrate the flywheel. Keep knowledge moving, let partners win when you win, and reward whoever sends you business.
6. From effectual to causal, deliberately. Systematise what works, but keep the founder as the credible human.
Stop chasing customers. Start orchestrating the ecosystem that produces them.
For the startup and the established player
For a startup this rewrites the first-customer problem: you are not looking for a buyer, you are looking for the gateway into a network full of buyers. So choose a first customer who is well connected, not merely willing, and turn them into a reference (Granovetter 1973). For an established firm the same holds in a new market, and even within an existing customer: treat the account as an ecosystem, map the internal network, and let every satisfied stakeholder be a weak tie to the next project. Cross-border changes nothing about the plan, only the map: find a local anchor node and let bridging ties carry you in, not brute market entry. Flanders, by the way, has a strong knowledge ecosystem but a thin business ecosystem (Clarysse et al. 2014): where the ecosystem hands you no customers, you build the connective tissue yourself, and that is precisely the opportunity.
In practice: for your next growth step, do not open a prospect list. Draw your ecosystem. Write down who has to act for your value to land with the customer, and circle the one relationship that unlocks the most of that map. Start there. Not with the customer, but with the node that brings you to the customer.
References
- Adner, Ron. 2017. “Ecosystem as Structure: An Actionable Construct for Strategy.” Journal of Management 43 (1): 39–58.
- Clarysse, Bart, Mike Wright, Johan Bruneel, and Aarti Mahajan. 2014. “Creating Value in Ecosystems: Crossing the Chasm between Knowledge and Business Ecosystems.” Research Policy 43 (7): 1164–1176.
- Dhanaraj, Charles, and Arvind Parkhe. 2006. “Orchestrating Innovation Networks.” Academy of Management Review 31 (3): 659–669.
- Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–1380.
- Iansiti, Marco, and Roy Levien. 2004. The Keystone Advantage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
- Moore, James F. 1993. “Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition.” Harvard Business Review 71 (3): 75–86.
- Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1965. “Social Structure and Organizations.” In Handbook of Organizations, edited by James G. March, 142–193. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Series · From first customer to ecosystem · Add Business
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This insight does not stand alone. Explore the other parts of this series and take the next step in your own course.