April Dunford
24 statements across 5 episodes · 7 bullish · 5 bearish · 4 people on the record · first statement Sep 11, 2022 by Emily Kramer · said 30 times in 10 episodes since 2022 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: April Dunford's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Lenny Rachitsky (19), Georgiana Laudi (Gia) (4), Krithika Shankarraman (3), Camille Ricketts (2), Jen Abel (1), Emily Kramer (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2025 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2024 16 mentions in 3 episodes 5 per episode
2023 2 mentions in 1 episode
Everything said about April Dunford, oldest first
Sep 11, 2022 positive
Kramer: April Dunford's 'Obviously Awesome' is essential reading on positioning
“I think April Dunford's obviously awesome is sort of becoming one of those books that every marketer should have read on positioning.
It's really helpful.
Even if you're not like a product marketer or doing positioning, I think it's really helpful.”
Sep 29, 2022 positive
Jan 22, 2023
Jan 22, 2023 positive
Dunford: Early startups should keep positioning loose to find unexpected demand
“And so in these cases, I actually think it's better in the early days of a product to keep the positioning a little bit loose and allow the market to pull you maybe in a direction that you didn't think it was going to.”
Jan 22, 2023 positive
Jan 22, 2023
Dunford: Positioning must be a cross-functional exercise across executives, sales, and product
“If we're going to fix this thing, we can't just have the marketing department or just the product managers sit down and cook up new positioning and then heave it over the wall to everybody else. It actually needs to be a group effort. It's a team sport. So if …”
Jan 22, 2023 neutral
Dunford: Product positioning is not static and degrades over time
“Positioning is, is, you know, somewhat like messaging in some ways in that it's not a static thing. Like it changes over time. Like your product itself, it doesn't stay the same. The market doesn't stay the same. And so things will shift over time. And so you …”
Jan 22, 2023 negative
Jan 22, 2023 positive
Jan 22, 2023
Dunford: Pre-launch positioning theses are partially incorrect 100% of the time
“And in my experience, 100% of the time, the thesis is partially incorrect. It's based on a bunch of assumptions and our best guess at it based on what we did in customer discovery or all our research we did before we built the thing, but we're never a hundred …”
Jan 22, 2023 positive
Dunford: Most companies can execute product positioning internally without consultants
“I think most companies can do positioning on their own. Like that's kind of my belief. Some companies I think lack the, you know, lack of methodology to follow to go do it. And so I wrote a book called Obviously Awesome, and that was the purpose of that book. …”
Oct 22, 2023
Oct 22, 2023
Dunford: B2B companies need roughly 10 closed deals before codifying pitches
“I don't think we need a ton of resources to do it, but I do think we need to have enough traction in the market that we understand how a deal typically goes. So if we haven't sold anything yet, then we don't know yet. It's hard for us to help you buy something…”
Oct 22, 2023 negative
Dunford: Trend-based sales pitches fail because competitors also offer new solutions
“In that pitch, it assumes that new is inherently valuable, and old is inherently bad. And sometimes that's true... But most of the time we don't have that. Like most of the time, there's multiple new ways of doing something, and you just can't say, well, I'm t…”
Oct 22, 2023 bearish
Oct 22, 2023 positive
Dunford: Product, marketing, and sales must co-develop differentiated positioning
“The first step in, in fixing this, I think is to have a cross-functional team work on positioning. So if I've got product marketing and sales together in the room, working on defining what our differentiated value is, then I'm going to get all the good juice o…”
Oct 22, 2023
Dunford: Sales teams should disqualify prospects who reject their core worldview
“And so if you've got a point of view on the world, And you're talking to a customer that just fundamentally doesn't agree with that. So like in the case of a help scout, they come in and they say, no, actually it's a cost center for us. Like we're just trying …”
Oct 22, 2023 negative
Oct 22, 2023
Oct 22, 2023
Dunford: A pitch is won when buyers agree on ideal criteria
“And so if they're right with you on this definition of the perfect world, they're not, then I've got you. Like I've already won the deal and I haven't even talked about us yet because the way I've set it up, I'm the only one that can deliver that.”
Oct 22, 2023
Oct 22, 2023
Oct 22, 2023 negative
Dunford: Most legendary businesses did not create their categories
“Obviously creating a category is not the only way to create a legendary business because the vast majority of legendary businesses did not create the categories that they're in. So Google did not create search. Facebook did not create social network. Like, I m…”
Jan 25, 2024
Moore: Pragmatist enterprise buyers only adopt new tech when under duress
“So if you're a pragmatist, the first thing is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, which makes you totally different than a visionary. A visionary is like, yeah, no, come on, break it. Come on, let's move on. It ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, who has …”