💊 Painkillers vs Vitamins

👋 Hey — Egemen here.

If you’re building a startup, every now and then, you must ask yourself: are you solving a real problem or just adding something nice-to-have? That, is the ultimate truth.

In today’s edition, we’re diving into the classic product metaphor: vitamins vs painkillers.

I’m also sharing a Product Strategy Framework, along with a couple of tools to help you get more leads.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the menu today:

💡 Spotlight: Leadpages

Leadpages helps you build high-converting landing pages and websites without code.

It offers drag-and-drop tools, templates, and lead capture features like pop-ups and alert bars.

Everything integrates with your marketing stack to boost conversions fast.

All with one simple solution:

• Launch high-converting landing pages faster.

• Generate qualified leads.

• Optimize your marketing efforts.

Try it for free for 14 days.

🧠 Deep-Dive: Painkillers vs Vitamins

When you’re launching a product, one question can clarify everything: are you building a vitamin or a painkiller?

👉 Vitamins are “nice to have”—they promise growth, better habits, or long-term results.
👉 Painkillers? They tackle a painful, immediate problem. And when someone’s in pain, they don’t need convincing—they just want relief.

In Sequoia Capital’s terms – painkillers are the ones that solve “Hair on Fire” problems.

Painkiller products solve high-friction, can’t-ignore-it problems. These are the things people have to fix, not just want to. Here’s how you know you’re building a painkiller:

• The problem is urgent and constant.

• Your users are already trying to solve it (likely in clunky or expensive ways).

• There's low resistance to buying or trying it.

• Removing the product would cause real disruption.

On the flip side, vitamins require more finesse. You need to build desire, educate the user, and often create the habit from scratch.

👉 Regardless of what you’re building, make sure you are solving a real problem, that’s what matters.

Check out what our readers also enjoy reading:

🗺️ Method: Product Strategy Framework

We first talked about and shared this framework in the B2B & B2C Product Strategy edition a while ago.

Since then, this framework helped tens of different founders.

Creating a product strategy requires a thoughtful approach. You must align your product's development with your business goals.

🙌 I hope it comes in handy when you need it – it’s yours!

⚾️ Catch

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☝️ Scaled This Past Week: Sipay

Sipay raised $78M in Series B – it’s the scale of the week!

The round has closed at a valuation of $875M.

Here’s what Sipay does:

• Provides digital payment and financial solutions for businesses and individuals.

• For businesses, it offers tools like virtual POS, payment links, physical POS devices, and corporate digital wallets.

• For individuals, Sipay provides a digital wallet, payment cards, bill payments, and investment options via a single app.

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