Hey friends 👋

You know the pattern: you launch a thing, people say they are interested, and when it is time to show up… no one does.

Cool, data, I guess?

This week, Cameron and JDM record from Science and Startups Live, which was supposed to be a small in-person podcast event and instead became a very public lesson in failure.

Fifteen registrations. One attendee. Several empty chairs with excellent listening posture.

So we threw out the planned topic and turned the Traction Lab lens on ourselves: what happened, what can we actually infer from the data, and how do you avoid blaming the customer when your offer doesn’t land?

We chat about inference to the best explanation, the difference between weak marketing and weak value props, and why a free RSVP is not intent. Then we connect it to the TEAM framework — time, effort, access, and money — as ways to close the say-do gap before you bet too much on polite interest.

Founder (and friend of the pod) Da’Shena Payne also joins the conversation with the best customer discovery gift possible: telling us the name “Science and Startups” sucks.

Painful. Useful. Exactly the point.

Plus, in frivolous thoughts: Kings draft optimism, a UC Davis summer camp, and the reminder that you can be direct, even shitty, and still be kind.

As always, thanks for listening.

—Cameron and JDM

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

02:15 The live event that did not go as planned

05:30 Inference, hypotheses, and interpreting failure

12:45 The say/do gap and the TEAM framework

25:00 Naming, value proposition, and customer feedback

40:00 Frivolous Thoughts

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zerototraction.substack.com