A founder tried to get health care companies to subsidize tracking bands for high school students. But the customer was too risk averse and would only consider it once lots of other companies have been successful with it. She then went to tech companies that let their employees work from home on their own hours already. This aligned with their ethos, right? It was pretty close to people on their way getting a nice coffee. The trust equation was lopsided. Companies were interested peripherally, but not ready to work deeply together just yet.
Today, we're going to talk about one of the fundamental laws of startups - The Wedge. It's the best way to build trust when you have a product that's got a longer feedback loop or requires a lot from your early customers. We'll show a few examples and build out a framework to help guide you when you're looking for, and implementing, a wedge.