The dangerous "Valley of Yes"
How incentives can stunt political innovation
In my experience there are four outcomes that political organizations and campaigns care about enough to pay for:1
Donations and volunteers
Logged voter contacts
Data / contact info, to get items 1 and 2 above
Targeted impressions via TV and digital ads (this consumes the bulk of campaign budgets)
This creates a problem; in politics, THESE ARE NOT THE ONLY THINGS THAT MATTER.2
Because many other things matter, there are lots of important innovations that don’t produce items 1-4 above. Entrepreneurs creating these innovations can end up in what I’ve named the Valley of Yes.3 (I’ve been there too.)
The Valley of Yes is when you’re making something good, that might be making important impact, but without real product-market fit. Your product is good enough to get some sales, but not at a high price point, and not to enough customers to make big impact. The Valley of Yes exists because organizations will pay some modest amount for a good tool, even if it doesn’t advance their core KPIs.4
The Valley of Yes is dangerous. Once an organization buys a non-core tool, they don’t have much incentive to focus on it because it’s not producing their core KPIs. Because they don’t have incentive to focus on it, they’re unlikely to produce amazing case studies. And without amazing case studies, your sales will remain challenging.
If you think you might be in the Valley of Yes, be brutally honest with yourself about the impact your product drives and how important it is. If you’re in the Valley but don’t acknowledge it, you’re less likely to escape. In the Valley, you can have just enough success that major changes seem unnecessary, which heightens its danger.
How to escape the Valley of Yes? A few thoughts come to mind:
Figure out how your product can drive one or more outcomes 1-4, then demonstrate that and market it that way.
Make some existing activity obviously and wildly better or cheaper, like Mobilize did.
Produce amazing case study results of outcomes besides 1-4, either with clients or on your own. Emphasis on “amazing;” the bar is clients saying “I can’t imagine ever going without this.” I can’t think of examples of this working, but it seems possible.
Go directly to donors and argue that your product makes such important impact that they should fund it, despite limited market success. This is a very high bar, but it’s an option (more discussion here).
Explore whether your product has utility outside of politics, where the TAM (total addressable market) is almost infinitely larger. You can still offer your product to political users, but they don’t need to be your main audience.
These options mostly echo common startup wisdom, such as finding a core of users who badly need your product (Paul Graham’s analogy of a well) or focusing on users who would be very disappointed if they lost the product (Rahul Vohra).
Closing Questions
Do you agree that the Valley of Yes exists?
How have you seen entrepreneurs get out of it?
Thank you to Raub Dakwale and Hamza Salem for their suggestions.
There are always exceptions! If I missed anything big enough, let me know and I’ll update the post. For more on campaign staffers’ common KPIs, see this essay.
Some things not in the list:
Getting people to amplify messaging to their friends on social media
Demonetizing online disinformation
Think tanks creating better policy
Politicians connecting better with their constituents
Supporting up-and-coming future candidates
I’d love a better name if you have one.
Tools in the Valley of Yes often cost roughly $250 - $750 per month, but it can be higher. Larger campaigns can spend more on non-core tools, but post-sale require even greater organizational buy-in for those tools to get serious use.