Software features get copied in weeks. A defensible UVP rests on network effects, switching costs, data, scale, or trust. Here's what that looks like.

Every few years I re-read The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (Ries & Trout). Old book. Still holds up.

A few laws worth remembering:

→ It's better to be first than to be better.

→ If you can't be first in a category, create one you can be first in.

→ It's better to be first in the mind than first in the marketplace.

→ Marketing isn't a battle of products. It's a battle of perceptions.

"Perception is reality."

You've heard it a thousand times. Most marketers nod and move on.

Here's what it actually means for B2B:

Your buyer isn't scoring you against objective reality.
They're scoring you against what they already believe.

The Sequencing of Marketing

There's a sequence that determines whether a single cell becomes a heart, a lung, or a hand — the same raw material, arranged in a specific order, producing wildly different outcomes depending on what comes first. Scientists spent decades and billions of dollars mapping it.

This isn't a blog about gene sequencing. But the idea translates further into marketing than most people give it credit for.