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When Most Founders Chase Ghosts: Why You Should Reach Users Already in Motion

Oct 12

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Two people stand outside with an "open" sign.

“Don’t throw darts in the dark. Throw darts where the target is already bleeding.”

It’s common advice for early-stage founders: get more leads, widen your funnel, cold email everyone you can. But what if that’s the wrong move — or at best, a slow one?

What if the real leverage is not more volume, but precision: targeting those already feeling the pain your product solves — people who are in motion — versus those you hope might be in pain someday.

In this article, we’ll explore:

Why many startups fail by chasing “nice problems” or users who don’t feel urgency
The psychological science of urgency, scarcity, and decision-making
How to spot “users in motion” even before you have traction
Sneak-peak of a 4-step method (F.A.S.T.) you can apply
Real-world examples, pitfalls, and recommendations

Then, if you want a ready-to-share, structured version, you can download the full micro eBook at the end.

Why So Many Startups Fail to Find Traction

Let’s begin by acknowledging a brutal truth: most startups fail. The key failure modes often relate to not having paying users, or not solving a problem people feel deeply.

According to multiple reports, one of the top reasons is no market need: ~ 42% of startups fail for this reason. Embroker+3Founders Forum Group+3accountingdepartment.com+3
A dataset from CB Insights found that a lack of customer adoption, or inability to scale demand, is a recurring theme in founder post-mortems. accountingdepartment.com
Another statistic: 34% of startups say failure was due to inadequate demand. DemandSage
Further, ineffective marketing is cited in ~12% of failure causes — founders might have built something good, but couldn’t connect it to someone who cared. GrowthList

These numbers reinforce a pattern: building features is not enough. You must build value-communication to people who already feel the need.

If your outreach is scattershot — sending messages to leads who don’t feel urgency yet — your conversion rates will suffer, and your runway will bleed.

The Psychology: Urgency, Scarcity & Decision-Making

To target people already in motion, you need to understand the mental triggers that push someone from curiosity → action. Two of the most powerful are urgency and scarcity.

The Scarcity Effect & Urgency

The scarcity effect is well-documented: when people perceive something is limited (in time or supply), they assign it higher value. winsomemarketing.com+5Pioneer Publisher+5ScienceDirect+5
A meta-analysis across 131 studies (416 effect sizes) showed that demand-based scarcity (i.e., “X people want this”) and time-based scarcity often produce the strongest lift in purchase intent — especially for utilitarian products. ScienceDirect
But it’s not just about telling people “limited supply” or “offer ends tonight.” The scarcity or urgency has to map to real pain they already feel, else it becomes a gimmick — and trust erodes. PMC+1
Other research diving into psychological mechanisms suggests that perceived scarcity triggers loss aversion, anchoring, and urgency bias — people act not just to gain, but to avoid regret. Pioneer Publisher+2ResearchGate+2
In practice: in e-commerce experiments, countdown timers or “3 left in stock” tags have shown uplift in conversion rates (though results depend heavily on context, credibility, and product fit). neklo.com+1

In short, urgency and scarcity are powerful levers — but only when used ethically and aligned with genuine pain. Overuse or false scarcity will backfire.

Temporal Motivation and Action Bias

Beyond scarcity, theories like Temporal Motivation Theory say that perceived value of an action is inversely proportional to delay — the longer you delay, the less likely someone will act. In startup outreach, if your messaging doesn’t accelerate the perceived benefit (and raise the perceived cost of delay), your leads will procrastinate or forget.

Also, humans have a bias toward inaction when choices are ambiguous. Clear, urgent, and contextualized prompts overcome that inertia. That’s what your outreach should aim to do.

The Concept of “Users in Motion”

What does it mean to “be in motion”? These are people actively feeling frustration, losing something — and primed to talk to someone who understands.

Key Indicators of Users in Motion

Language of loss / failure: people talk about what’s going wrong (“we’re bleeding customers,” “test churn is killing us”)
Public signals of distress: forum posts, tweets, complaints, or questions in industry Slack groups
Recent changes or stressors: launches, growth plateaus, funding crunch, regulatory changes, new competition
Visible metrics slipping: retention down, onboarding drop-off rising, revenue flat or falling
Urgent constraints: deadlines, compliance, customer pressure, investor timelines

When you reach someone who is already in motion, two things happen:

You don’t have to create urgency — you simply mirror their internal state.
Your relevance is high from the start. They see you as an answer, not another distraction.

Here’s one example:

A SaaS founder saw multiple comments on a public forum: “half of my trial users leave by day 7.” She reached out to two companies posting this complaint, saying: “We’re working on a solution to recover users between day 3–7. Want to test it with you for free?”
One of them responded, agreed to a pilot — and converted to paid afterward.

That kind of story is not anecdotal — it’s the core of influencing motion.

Introducing F.A.S.T. (A Sneak Peek)

I won’t reveal the full eBook here — but here’s a taste of how the framework works in context, and what you’d get if you download it.

F is about Finding the Flooded Basement — not chasing everyone, but those already hurting.
A is about Aligning with Urgency — matching tone, timing, language.
S is about Specifying Outcomes — giving a measurable “what gets fixed.”
T is about Turning Proof into Trust — using even early signals or mini-pilots to reduce risk and build credibility.

To help you see it in action, imagine this applied:

You build a micro-pilot to reduce demo follow-up delay. You find two startups publicly complaining about lost deals. You message them:

“I read your post about lost deals from slow follow-up. We built a micro-pilot that gets replies < 48 hours. Want to try for 7 days?”

One replies. You run the pilot, show a 20% uplift, get a testimonial. Then you use that as proof to reach the next one. That’s F → A → S → T in motion — but the full version has scripts, worksheets, escalation paths, and email/DM templates.

Caveats & Pitfalls

False alignment: If your message claims urgency they don’t feel, it feels manipulative.
Overpromising outcomes: If you promise big numbers without proof, you’ll get skepticism.
Proof vacuum: Without any proof, the “T” step becomes weak. Start small tests.
Neglecting empathy: If you sound robotic or generic, your message will be ignored despite urgency.

How You Can Try This This Week (Mini-Playbook)

Below is a short roadmap you can apply right now — even if you don’t have paying users yet.

Download the Full F.A.S.T. eBook

If you want the full, structured version — with templates, workflows, best practices, and scaling paths — you can download the micro eBook here:

👉 [Download the F.A.S.T. Outreach Method PDF]

Use it as:

A leave-behind after sales or discovery calls
A tool to build onboarding for founder cohorts
A template to co-brand with your partner organizations

No fluff. Just actionable steps you can follow.

Final Thoughts

You don’t need traction. You need traction from the right people. Volume is meaningless if conversion is near zero.

When you target those already in motion — with empathy, clarity, and proof — you turn your outreach into a scalable engine. That’s how you get from zero users → first paying users → momentum.