The Urgent Optimists Weekly

Welcome to The Urgent Optimists

The weekly newsletter built to counter doomscrolling with stories of action, hope, and impact.

This newsletter exists because the world doesn’t need more fear - it needs more inspirational impact founders, more ideas, and more reasons to believe we can build better.

In this edition, you’ll:

LET’S GO →

Sick of seeing fruit and veg wrapped in plastic? Yep, me too.

Apeel is reimagining how we keep food fresh without plastic. Their plant-based protection doubles the shelf life of produce, helping the planet and your pantry.

Apeel has developed a natural, edible coating made from plant-derived materials that slows water loss and oxidation — the two main causes of spoilage.

Nearly 800 million people (1 in 10 of the world’s population) go to bed hungry each night, yet one third of food and 45% of fruits and vegetables are lost or thrown away before they have a chance to be eaten. This amounts to 1.3 billion metric tons of food every year (enough to feed 1.26 billion people).

This is easy. Their comms.

They don’t speak science. They speak crystal-clear English that anyone can understand - and this is such an important lesson for all founders, ESPECIALLY when dealing with scientific topics.

Many - even most - of your audience won’t be scientists. Explain what you do so a smart 8-year-old can understand it. And Apeel do this perfectly.

Top marks also for their marketing and branding - from beautifully shot explainer videos on the YouTube channel to a sleek science-meets-sustainability aesthetic that doesn’t scream “eco,” but feels high-trust and scalable.

While they’ve done such a great job with their comms and language, I believe there is space to do even more - with everyday impact narratives for consumers, like showing “1 extra week = 1 less trip to the store” to personalize the benefit and make the mission visible at the shelf.

Your tech or solutions aren’t enough by themselves. Appel is a wonderful example of how scientists have become entrepreneurs and have brought on marketing, comms and branding experts onto their team.

But remember, you don’t need to (nor can you expect to) master these elements yourself. Your goal as an entrepreneur is to bring the experts in.

Website

YouTube

You love your product.

You’ve worked on it until you think it’s perfect.

It’s going to change the world.

You’ve kept it a secret because:

a) you’re planning a grand reveal and,

b) you don’t want anybody stealing your awesome idea before you launch it.

You know you’re onto a winner here.

You finally do the grand reveal…. Ta Da!!!!

And it falls flat on its face. No sales.

What could’ve gone wrong? You’re SURE it’s an awesome idea! You’ve worked on it for months!

Oh. You didn’t put your idea to your customers.

You didn’t ask them what they needed, or checked if your thing fixed their problem.

You assumed you knew.

Here’s a secret.

Business is very simple. To succeed, build your product with your customer.

But nearly all of us don’t adhere to this simple formula.

So, how do we do this?

We need to get talking to - and more importantly - listening to, your people.

Bring up your industry with your potential customers, discuss their lives, ask about specific events in their past (that are related to the solution you’re developing) and see what they say.

DON’T mention your product or idea.

Talk less than you listen.

The best book you can read on this is ‘The Mom Test’ by Rob Fitzpatrick (click that link for a free PDF download).

It’s an awesome little book which gets to the heart of why nearly all businesses are so bad at speaking to their customers, asking the right questions, and learning what we need to.

Fitzpatrick explains we can ask good and bad questions when speaking to customers.

Let’s start with the questions we shouldn’t ask.

Do you think (my product) is a good idea?

Opinions on your product are worthless. People who know you will give a false validation to be kind. The only validation you need is people buying from you.

Would you buy a product which did X?

See above. A vague commitment to a theory is as good as a lie.

What would you pay for X?

See above again. People will happily lie to you to tell you what they think you want to hear.

Would you pay X for a product which did Y?

There’s no truth until somebody parts with their money.

Questions you should ask:

Tell me about the last time (problem you’re solving) happened?

Great question! Let them show you what the problem or inefficiency is, not tell you what they think it is.

What solutions have you tried?

Does this potential customer care enough about this problem to find a solution?

How are you dealing with it now?

While people won’t give you worthwhile information on what they can or would pay, discover how much finding the solution matters to them.

Why do you bother?

Get to their real pain points.

What are the implications?

Some problems you, and they, might think matter, don’t.

Try to speak to 50 of your potential customers.

Ideally, do it on Zoom / Google Meet and record each call with a software like Fireflies so you have transcripts you can use later to get your marketing language.

What you’re looking for is this:

WHAT BENEFITS / FEELINGS ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS LOOKING FOR?

Nobody cares about the features of your product. People only care about how your product will affect their lives.

When speaking to your customers, pay attention to any time your customer references an emotion.

I get so frustrated when…

I get scared because…

I feel <blank> when…

I’d love to feel <blank> but…

You need to know how they feel, because you’re going to need to know how you’ll make them feel, by fixing their problem.