🧠 That’s not a startup. It's a feature with a pitch deck
Startups scale. Features get Sherlocked. Here's how to tell the difference.
Hey friends 👋
We hate to be the ones to say it — but someone has to.
Just because you’ve built something cool doesn’t mean you’ve built a startup.
We’ve seen it too many times: smart, passionate founders burn months building beautifully functional tools that turn out to be features in someone else’s platform.
But when it comes time to raise or scale?
Crickets 🦗
Because it was never a business. It was just a feature with a pitch deck.
Today, I’m teaming up with my friend and frequent co-conspirator
to talk about one of the most common mistakes early-stage founders make — and how to avoid it before it tanks your runway.Let’s dive deep 👇
Let’s start with a big misconception:
Just because it works doesn’t mean it’s a business.
We’re always telling you that you don’t have a business if you’re not solving a severe and urgent problem.
But it’s not enough.
Here’s a hard truth: just because you’re solving a real problem doesn’t automatically mean you’re building a real business.
We’ve seen too many early-stage teams validate something — a real pain, a working prototype, happy users — and assume they’re on the road to venture-scale greatness.
But the market becomes the bearer of bad news:
All they built was a feature.
A clever, maybe even delightful feature… but not a business.
Solving a pain ≠ building a startup.
That’s because a startup isn’t just a paid solution to a problem.
It’s a system with a clear and scalable way to create, deliver, and capture value — and not just once.
A startup needs to be able do it over and over again, at scale.
And that’s the problem: a feature can’t stand on its own — no matter how useful it is.
You need a credible theory of hugeness — a believable path to scale, with a repeatable business model, and market demand that grows over time.
You have to prove not only that you have a set of customers with an urgent and important pain, a solution that solves this pain, but also that you can consistently and repeatedly get in front of them.
Don’t get caught pitching like you’re building a unicorn, when you’re building a one-trick pony.
But how can you tell the difference?
The “Feature in Disguise” test
It’s not always easy in the early days to tell if your idea is the start of a company — or just the start of a clever tool.
And it’s easy to get caught up in momentum:
You’ve built something that works. People use it. They say nice things about it.
But don’t mistake activity for validation, or utility for viability. The question isn’t does it work? The question is: can it stand on its own?
This is where we deploy the Feature in Disguise Test — a hard-nosed gut check we use at Traction Lab to help founders separate signal from theater.
If you’re not sure whether you’re building a company or just an add-on with a pitch deck, run your idea through these six filters:
1. Does it depend entirely on someone else’s platform?
If your product can’t function without a third-party ecosystem — think Shopify, Zoom, or Salesforce — you’re not building a standalone business.
You’re building a feature extension, and it’s just not defensible.
The moment that platform changes direction or shuts down access, you’re done.
2. Does it solve a hyper-specific use case (not a niche)?
A niche is a defined customer segment with real market potential.
But a use case is a single task or moment in a workflow. If your product only applies to one narrow behavior or interaction, it’s not a wedge into a larger opportunity — it’s a wall that stops you from scaling.
Don’t bang your head against the wall when all you have is a toy hammer.
3. Do customers like it… but not enough to pay?
This one’s brutal…
Praise is cheap, and free users cost you.
If applause could fund payroll, Clippy would’ve raised a Series C.
If your users aren’t reaching for their wallets, you haven’t solved a big enough problem for them, and could be on a slow path to irrelevance.
You’ve maybe entertained them. But there’s no business model in applause… unless your goal is to bleed cash.
4. Is it delightful, but not essential?
Being “delightful” pads those vanity metrics and likely gives you a solid dopamine hit.
But when the dopamine wears off, you are left with a sole feature and a nice to have.
Ask yourself the key question: is this a vitamin or a pain killer for your customer?
If your product is a vitamin — something users enjoy but don’t need now — it’ll be the first thing they cut when budgets tighten or habits change.
Startups that stick are the ones solve a severe and urgent pain.
5. Can a larger company ship this in one sprint?
If your product could be built by a BigCo’s engineering team in a two-week sprint, you don’t have a company.
You’re just writing copy for someone else’s quarterly update.
No moat. No leverage. No chance.
6. Would anyone notice if it vanished?
There’s always the existential test: If you turned it off tomorrow, would your users panic?
Would workflows break? Would money stop flowing?
If not, you’re not mission-critical — which is code for “optional”.
Congrats, you’re in the customer demand friend zone — liked, but never loved.
Tragic.
These aren’t just red flags. They’re reality checks.
We’re not saying your product isn’t useful. It might be.
But that’s the wrong question.
The real question is whether it’s scalable, defensible, and investable.
Because:
A product ≠ a business.
One of the most common traps we see at the Traction Lab is when founders confuse a working product with a working startup. Just because something solves a problem or delights a user doesn’t mean it’s a business.
In fact, plenty of clever features — even entire tools — fail because they never graduate from feature to product.
Features might be part of your value, but your startup needs to be built on a repeatable, scalable system.
That system is your business model — and it’s what separates one-hit wonders from durable, fundable, and scalable startups.
Any business model answers four key questions:
Who is your customer?Not just a general persona — but a real segment you can reach, serve, and grow with.
What is your value proposition?Not just features — but outcomes and benefits. What specific value are you creating for that customer?
How is that value created and delivered?What are the channels, systems, and operations behind it? Can this scale without breaking?
Why does this make money?What’s your path to revenue — and what makes it repeatable, sustainable, and eventually profitable?
We call this the Startup Core.
If you don’t have clear, evidence-backed answers to all four, you don’t have a business — you have an expensive hobby.
And if you’re hoping that enough delight will somehow convert into revenue… go back to bed so you can dream some more.
What you think you’re building vs what you should be:
A feature solves one task. A startup solves a system.
A feature depends on someone else’s platform. A startup builds its own.
A feature is delightful. A startup is essential.
A feature is easy to replicate. A startup is hard to replace.
A feature may be loved but not paid for. A startup captures value repeatedly.
A feature is nice to have. A startup is mission-critical.
A feature gets applause. A startup earns revenue.
A feature gets Sherlocked. A startup gets funded.
In other words? Build a company. Not just a component.
But… features can be wedges (if you do it right).
To be fair: not all feature-based products are doomed.
(Hopefully you read this far)
Some of the most successful startups out there started as what looked like “just a feature.”
Think Calendly, Superhuman, Figma — each began with a sharp, focused solution to a specific pain point.
But they didn’t stop there.
They treated those early features as wedges — narrow entry points into much larger, more valuable ecosystems:
Calendly wasn’t just a scheduling link — it rewired how professionals protect their time, turning friction into flow at the edge of every calendar.
Superhuman didn’t just add features to email — it redefined what “fast” means for high-leverage users, making speed itself the value proposition.
Figma wasn’t just “design in the browser” — it made design multiplayer, solving collaboration pain for whole teams, not just individuals.
And none of those companies are in that position now.
Because a wedge isn’t the whole staircase. It’s step 1 — a deliberate entry into a market that gives you leverage, insight, and a foothold to build from.
The founders behind these companies didn’t confuse their feature-like MVP for a company. They knew it was a probe — a way to gather real-world data, validate demand, and discover the deeper needs of their users.
If your roadmap stops at “we built something useful,” you’ll get stuck. But if you view your first feature as the beginning of a flywheel — a means to expand value creation and grow your customer base — then you’re playing the long game.
It becomes not about what you’re building — but about how you’re learning.
But here’s something early-stage founders don’t realize until it’s too late:
Investors have seen this movie before. A thousand times.
We’ve all sat through decks with slick mockups and confident taglines like:
“We’re Stripe, but for freelancers.”
“It’s a Chrome extension now, but imagine the data play…”
“We’ll monetize later — once we scale.”
And we nod. We smile. Then we pass…
The ones politer than us might say “keep us on your investor updates and let’s chat when you have traction.”
But for us? Cam’s puffer vest deflates, and JDM just shakes his head.
Because no one funds tools.
They’re funding startups that scale — not a clever app.
They’re looking for a scalable machine — a business with a clear engine for creating, delivering, and capturing value repeatedly time and time again.
When you pitch a standalone feature without a credible path to scale, what they see is all risk, no potential.
To them, your “startup” looks like the next Chrome extension to get Sherlocked by a core update.
They know that if you’re not solving a big enough problem, if you can’t retain users without constant hand-holding, or if you vanish the moment a platform changes an API, you’re not a startup — you’re a blip. You’re a nice to have but not a need to have.
So before you charge into another sprint, pause.
Ask yourself the hard question.
Are you building a company — or just a clever feature with a pitch deck?
Stop conflating functionality with viability.
Stop calling a button a business.
Stop building for validation and start building for scale.
It’s easy to get swept up in early traction, excited users, and shiny MVPs — albeit of a single feature.
But real startups don’t just “work” — they grow. They scale. They survive.
Real startups thrive.
So before you burn a pile of cash Joker-style and lose a year of your life you’ll never get back, make sure you’re not just pitching a feature with delusions of grandeur.
Build a wedge that becomes a weapon.
Not a widget with a deck.
Not sure if you’re building a feature or a startup? Hit reply. We’ve got a 15-minute gut check that might save you 12 months.
Until next week,
Cam & JDM
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