The Lean Positioning Sprint
Framework by
Osama Romoh
Founder, Inflekt. 20+ years in marketing, builds AI systems. This framework comes from real work with real startups, not a whiteboard session.
Here's what happens to almost every startup between seed and Series A. The founder has a product that could serve multiple markets. The investor deck says "our TAM is $4 billion." And the marketing message tries to speak to every possible buyer at once. The result? A homepage that reads like a thesaurus threw up on a value proposition generator.
You're not being strategic. You're being scared. Scared to pick a lane because picking a lane means saying no to potential revenue. But here's what nobody tells you: vague positioning doesn't keep your options open. It makes you invisible. When you try to appeal to everyone, you resonate with no one.
The standard positioning advice doesn't help either. April Dunford's framework is brilliant but assumes you have validated customers to pattern-match against. First Round's exercises are thorough but take 6-8 weeks. You're burning $50K-$80K a month in runway. You need a way to figure out your message, test it with real humans, and lock it in, fast.
Three Mistakes Founders Make
Positioning by committee
The founding team has a two-hour offsite where everyone shares what they think the positioning should be. They compromise on all three ideas and end up with: "An AI-powered, developer-first, enterprise-ready platform." That's not positioning. That's a word salad.
Copying the market leader
Your biggest competitor says "The #1 Platform for Growth Teams." So you write "The Better Platform for Growth Teams." You just told the market two things: you're a follower, and you can't articulate why you exist except in relation to someone else.
Skipping validation entirely
The founder writes the positioning on a whiteboard, everyone nods, it goes on the website, and nobody ever tests whether actual humans respond to it. Six months later, the conversion rate is 0.4% and nobody connects it to the messaging.
The Positioning Clarity Matrix
X-axis: Message Differentiation
Can someone read your positioning and know it's you, not your competitor? High differentiation means a stranger could identify your company from your tagline alone.
Y-axis: Market Understanding
How well do you actually know your target buyer? High understanding means you can describe their daily frustrations, their budget process, the words they use when they Google for solutions.
BLENDING IN
High Market Understanding + Low Message Differentiation
LOCKED IN
High Market Understanding + High Message Differentiation
GUESSING
Low Market Understanding + Low Message Differentiation
SHOUTING INTO THE VOID
Low Market Understanding + High Message Differentiation
Most founders think they're top-right when they're actually top-left. They know their market (or think they do) but their messaging sounds identical to every other startup in the space.
Quadrant Deep Dives
GUESSING
Low Market Understanding + Low Message Differentiation
What it means
This is where most pre-product-market-fit startups actually live. The product does several things. The founding team can't agree on the ICP. The website says something like "We help businesses grow with AI" which means absolutely nothing. There's no conviction behind the positioning because there's no evidence underneath it.
How to tell you're here
- You can't name your top 3 buyer personas without hesitating
- Your homepage could describe at least 5 different companies
- When someone asks "who is this for?" the answer starts with "well, it depends..."
- Your ad campaigns target broad audiences because you genuinely don't know who converts
What to do about it
You need the full sprint. All three phases, no shortcuts. Start with Day 1 research and be honest about what you don't know. Talk to actual humans who might buy your thing. Don't skip the customer interviews.
Risk of staying here
If you try to market from this quadrant, every dollar is wasted. You're running ads with generic copy to broad audiences, and wondering why the CPL is $200. The answer isn't better ads. It's better positioning.
BLENDING IN
High Market Understanding + Low Message Differentiation
What it means
This is the most frustrating quadrant. You've done the work. You've talked to customers. You know the pain points, the buying process, the objections. But when you sit down to write your positioning, it comes out as "We help [target] achieve [benefit] with [technology]." Congratulations, so does every other startup in your vertical.
How to tell you're here
- You could write a detailed customer persona in your sleep
- But your homepage tagline could be swapped with your competitor's and nobody would notice
- You win deals through relationships and demos, not marketing
- Your sales team has strong narratives in calls, but none of that shows up in marketing
What to do about it
Skip to Day 4 of the sprint. Your research is done. What you need is differentiation testing. Write three radically different positioning statements and test them. Stop writing what sounds "safe" and start writing what sounds like you.
Risk of staying here
You'll keep winning deals on product quality and sales skills, but your marketing will never generate inbound at scale. You'll stay dependent on outbound and referrals, which is fine until it isn't.
SHOUTING INTO THE VOID
Low Market Understanding + High Message Differentiation
What it means
This is the "creative founder" trap. Your positioning is clever, distinctive, maybe even provocative. People remember it. But ask "who specifically does this appeal to?" and you get a vague answer. The message has personality but no precision. It's a billboard on a highway with no exits.
How to tell you're here
- People compliment your branding but don't convert
- You have strong brand awareness metrics but weak pipeline
- Your positioning makes your team feel good but hasn't been validated with actual buyers
- Content gets engagement (likes, shares) but doesn't generate leads
What to do about it
Go back to Days 1-3. Your differentiation is an asset. Don't lose it. But you need to point it at someone specific. Do the customer research. Find the buyer who hears your unique message and thinks "finally, someone who gets it."
Risk of staying here
You build a brand that people admire from a distance but never buy from. Cool logo, clever tagline, zero revenue. The startup graveyard is full of companies that were "really well-positioned" but couldn't convert.
LOCKED IN
High Market Understanding + High Message Differentiation
What it means
This is the target quadrant. You can describe your ideal buyer in their own words. Your positioning makes them lean forward. And no competitor could steal your tagline because it's rooted in your specific story, product, and point of view. This is where inbound starts working, where content resonates, where ads convert efficiently.
How to tell you're here
- New prospects say things like "your website felt like it was written for us"
- You can clearly articulate what you're NOT and who you're NOT for
- Your positioning survived contact with real buyers and they validated it
- Marketing and sales are aligned because the message is clear and tested
What to do about it
Ship it everywhere. Lock the positioning across every channel: website, LinkedIn, ads, email, pitch deck, onboarding. Consistency compounds. Don't keep tweaking. Re-assess in 90 days, not 90 minutes.
Risk of staying here
Complacency. Markets move. Competitors reposition. Your locked-in position today might need refreshing in two quarters. Schedule the re-assessment.
The 14-Day Sprint
Phase 1: RESEARCH
Who are you for? What do they actually need? Why you?
What you do
- Day 1: Pull your last 10-20 customers (or prospects). Document who they are, what they said when they signed up, what problem they were solving.
- Day 2: Audit 5-7 competitor websites. Screenshot their hero sections. Document what everyone says and where the white space is.
- Day 3: Write three distinct positioning statements. Not variations. Three genuinely different angles. Each must answer: Who is this for? What do they get? Why us?
AI tools to use
- Paste CRM notes and email threads into Claude. Ask: "What patterns do you see in why these people bought?"
- Paste competitor screenshots/copy into Claude. Ask: "What positioning claims are universal? Where is the white space?"
- Use Claude to pressure-test each statement. Ask: "Could a competitor make the exact same claim?"
Output
Three positioning candidates ready for testing.
The insight that makes this work: most founders spend all their time in RESEARCH and never get to TEST. The sprint forces testing by design.
The Sprint: Day by Day
Customer Mining
Pull your last 10-20 customers (or prospects, if pre-revenue). Document: Who are they? What did they say when they signed up? What problem were they solving?
Output
A raw list of buyer patterns and pain language
Competitive Landscape
Audit 5-7 competitor websites. Screenshot their hero sections. Document: What does everyone say? What words and claims are universal?
Output
A competitive messaging map and identified white space
Positioning Hypotheses
Write three distinct positioning statements. Not variations of the same idea. Three genuinely different angles. Each must answer: Who is this for? What do they get? Why us specifically?
Output
Three positioning candidates ready for testing
Landing Page Variants
Create three simple landing pages (or LinkedIn post variants, or email variants). One per positioning statement. Don't overthink design. This is a message test, not a design test.
Output
Three test-ready message variants
Run Traffic
Send real traffic to each variant. LinkedIn ads, Google ads, email blasts, or direct outreach to your network. Minimum 200 impressions per variant.
Output
Performance data across all three variants
Analyze
Which variant had the highest conversion rate? Pull qualitative data: replies, comments, questions people asked.
Output
A clear winner (or a clear direction)
Refine the Winner
Take the winning positioning and sharpen it. Incorporate what you learned from the test. Remove anything that confused people. Amplify what resonated.
Output
A refined, sharpened positioning statement
Pressure Test
Share the final positioning with 3-5 people in your target market who weren't in the test. Ask: "If you saw this, would you click? Would you remember it?"
Output
Final validation from real buyers
Ship Everywhere
Update: Website hero, meta descriptions, LinkedIn headline, LinkedIn banner, email signatures, pitch deck opening slide, ad copy templates, onboarding emails.
Output
Consistent positioning across every touchpoint
Common Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
The Eternal Researcher
Pattern
Still "gathering insights" on Day 30. Has interviewed 47 people, read 12 books on positioning, and attended three workshops. Hasn't written a single positioning statement to test.
Reality Check
You will never have perfect information. The point of research is to form hypotheses fast enough to test them, not to achieve enlightenment. Three days of focused research beats three months of open-ended exploration.
Fix
Set a hard deadline. If you haven't moved to testing by Day 4, your research phase has failed. Write whatever you have and test it.
The Consensus Seeker
Pattern
Everyone needs to agree before it ships. The CEO likes option A, the VP Sales likes option B, the designer likes option C. So they create option D, which nobody loves and no buyer responds to.
Reality Check
Great positioning is opinionated. It takes a stand. That level of conviction rarely survives a committee.
Fix
One person owns the final decision. Period. Get input during research. But the final call belongs to one brain, ideally whoever spends the most time talking to customers.
The Perfectionist Launcher
Pattern
The positioning is "almost done" for six weeks. There's always one more tweak, one more word to debate, one more person to run it by. Meanwhile, the website still has the old generic messaging.
Reality Check
Positioning is a living document, not a tattoo. You will update it. Launch with 80% confidence and let the market tell you what needs adjusting.
Fix
Ship on Day 14. Not Day 15. Not "next week." The positioning doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be tested, differentiated, and out the door.
The "We Already Know" Blocker
Pattern
"We don't need a sprint, we know our positioning." Then you ask them to articulate it and get three different answers from three team members. Or the website says something completely different from what the sales team pitches.
Reality Check
If your whole team can't recite your positioning in the same words, you don't have positioning. You have vibes.
Fix
Take the matrix diagnostic above. Score yourself honestly. If you're not in LOCKED IN with evidence, you need the sprint regardless of how confident you feel.
Research who you're for and what makes you different in 3 days. Test 3 positioning statements with real humans over 7 days. Lock the winner and ship it everywhere in 4 days.
No agency needed. No six-figure rebrand. Just clarity, tested by real humans, deployed fast.
Where This Framework Fits
Lean Positioning Sprint You are here
Figure out who you're for and what to say. Lock your positioning in 14 days.
AI Marketing Readiness Matrix
Diagnose if you're ready for AI marketing, or if you need to fix your fundamentals first.
Build x Buy x Prompt
Decide what to build custom, what to buy, and what to handle with prompts for every marketing task.
AI Marketing Stack Blueprint
Design your actual marketing stack, layer by layer. The right tools, in the right order, for your stage.
AI Content Quality Framework
Match AI involvement to content stakes and audience sophistication.
GCC Acquisition Channel Map
Pick the right acquisition channels for the GCC market with real regional benchmarks.
The system flow: Positioning → Diagnosis → Strategy → Execution → Quality → Distribution