What Marketing Really Is (And Why Most Founders Get It Wrong)
Every founder thinks they understand marketing… until they try to sell something that actually matters. This essay isn’t about tactics or trends; it’s a meditation on the invisible forces that make markets move, and why most of us get them wrong.
I’ve been trying to understand marketing from first principles. Not tactics or trends but the underlying mechanics of what actually moves a market.
So lets think this through…
What is marketing?
At its core, marketing is an act of influencing the market.
Two words matter here: market and influence.
1. What is a market?
A market is simply a place where value gets exchanged. Value exists when someone desires something... a product, a service, or even money. The stronger the desire, the higher the value feels.
A transaction happens when both sides agree on the quantification of that value. That’s what we call an exchange.
2. What is influence?
Influence is the power to move that value-exchange in your favor. And you can only do it in three ways:
- Create desire — make someone want something they didn’t before.
- Increase desire — make an existing want feel more urgent or vivid.
- Shape value — convince them your version of the exchange is fair.
Everything else in marketing... content, ads, landing pages... is just a tool for one of these three levers.
The shift
Most founders, including me in my earlier attempts, think marketing is about awareness or education. We tell ourselves: “If people just knew how good my product is, they’d buy.” But awareness doesn’t create exchange. Desire does.
Your competitor isn’t winning because they have better features... they’re winning because they’ve mastered desire manipulation. They crank up the emotional intensity around a problem you both solve. They make prospects feel the need before explaining the fix.
When you start seeing marketing as the engineering of desire, everything changes. You stop obsessing over reach and start designing tension. You stop explaining your product and start amplifying the feeling that life without it hurts.
The takeaway
So next time you think about “marketing,” don’t start with tools or traffic. Ask instead:
- What desire am I creating?
- How can I turn up its intensity?
- How do I make my value the obvious resolution of that tension?
Because markets move only when desires do.
In the end, marketing isn’t a department or a skillset... it’s a lens through which you see human behavior. The moment you realize you’re not selling features but shaping desire, your entire approach changes. You stop chasing attention and start cultivating emotion. You stop broadcasting and start resonating. Because markets don’t respond to logic... they respond to longing. And the founder who understands that, wins.
