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Founders hear what they want to hear
Hey friends đź‘‹
You’ve heard the feedback. You nodded along. You maybe even wrote some of it down. But are you actually listening — or are you running it through a filter that was already biased toward your conclusion?
This week, we got nerdy about the cognitive machinery that causes smart founders to ignore the data right in front of them: confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and cognitive dissonance. Three overlapping traps that compound each other in ways that’ll genuinely make your skin crawl once you see it.
The uncomfortable part is that your brain runs them before you consciously evaluate anything. You’re not choosing to ignore the warning signs — you just don’t see them. And the smarter you are, the more sophisticated your rationalizations get.
Yay…
We put these ideas to the test across three scenarios — a real estate CRM with 11% monthly churn blaming “price-sensitive agents,” a project management tool ignoring a 67% feature request because it might “bloat” the product, and a B2B sales platform insisting it has an “education problem” when the market is already full of incumbents. We rated each on our conviction scale and called out the survivorship bias and say-do gaps hiding in the data.
In frivolous thoughts:
* JDM recommends a definitely-not-political SNL sketch.
* Cam watched Forrest Gump for the first time as an adult. It hits different.
As always, thanks for listening.
—Cameron and JDM
Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction
02:45 - Confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and cognitive dissonance
16:15 - Scenario 1: Real estate CRM, 11% churn, blaming the customer
30:15 - Scenario 2: Agency PM tool ignoring 67% feature requests
41:30 - Scenario 3: B2B sales platform with an “education problem”
51:00 - Frivolous Thoughts
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zerototraction.substack.com
View all episodes
By JDM and Cameron LawHey friends đź‘‹
You’ve heard the feedback. You nodded along. You maybe even wrote some of it down. But are you actually listening — or are you running it through a filter that was already biased toward your conclusion?
This week, we got nerdy about the cognitive machinery that causes smart founders to ignore the data right in front of them: confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and cognitive dissonance. Three overlapping traps that compound each other in ways that’ll genuinely make your skin crawl once you see it.
The uncomfortable part is that your brain runs them before you consciously evaluate anything. You’re not choosing to ignore the warning signs — you just don’t see them. And the smarter you are, the more sophisticated your rationalizations get.
Yay…
We put these ideas to the test across three scenarios — a real estate CRM with 11% monthly churn blaming “price-sensitive agents,” a project management tool ignoring a 67% feature request because it might “bloat” the product, and a B2B sales platform insisting it has an “education problem” when the market is already full of incumbents. We rated each on our conviction scale and called out the survivorship bias and say-do gaps hiding in the data.
In frivolous thoughts:
* JDM recommends a definitely-not-political SNL sketch.
* Cam watched Forrest Gump for the first time as an adult. It hits different.
As always, thanks for listening.
—Cameron and JDM
Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction
02:45 - Confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and cognitive dissonance
16:15 - Scenario 1: Real estate CRM, 11% churn, blaming the customer
30:15 - Scenario 2: Agency PM tool ignoring 67% feature requests
41:30 - Scenario 3: B2B sales platform with an “education problem”
51:00 - Frivolous Thoughts
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zerototraction.substack.com