Lessin: Early Products Benefit From High Friction to Filter for True Believers
Sam Lessin · Is Venture Capital Broken? | Sam Lessin on TBPN · Apr 26, 2025 · at 27:15
VC Sam Lessin argues against broad top-of-funnel viral stunts in favor of cultivating dedicated, desperate early adopters.
“Really successful things. You actually want fairly high barriers to entry so that the people who show up as your early customers are like deeply in need of it and true believers, right? Cause if they're deeply in need of it, they're gonna put up with a lot of crap to get what it is you're offering out of it because they're deep. Cause they really care. Like they showed up first and they like have a real stake in it. And then they become true believers in that cult that advocates.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →