Building a value proposition usually starts with research. Find the needs, turn them into benefits, match the features, add proof points, and package it inside a familiar category. It works when you are making something faster, cheaper, or better. But what happens when you are building something people don’t yet know they need?

In those cases, there isn’t a market to listen to. Surveys and even on-chain data will only circle back what people already know. The harder work is introducing value where no demand yet exists, shaping the space so that a market can be formed around it.

Market research and on-chain data only captures what people already know. When products or services move ahead of existing demand, the task is not to discover needs but to shape them. That requires a different way of creating propositions, one that makes the unfamiliar visible enough for a market to take shape.

Value propositions sometimes need to shape demand rather than respond to it.

There's something curious in how organisations talk about value. The assumption is that value exists and is waiting to be discovered through surveys, focus groups, and analytics dashboards. Yet breakthrough propositions often emerge where traditional research can't reach.

Consider how ENS positioned blockchain naming not as better domain registration but as owned digital identity. Or how Safe framed multi-signature wallets not as improved security but as programmable ownership. Or how Lens positioned social platforms not as better features but as creator sovereignty. These weren't insights extracted from user interviews. They were value propositions that created their own gravity, pulling markets toward possibilities that hadn't yet been articulated.

What's apparent is that there is a gap between what research reveals and what reality requires. There's a tension between value as something to be found and value as something to be formed.

In new businesses, what's considered valuable is often assumed, inherited, or misunderstood.

When you're creating new markets, there's no established framework for what valuable means in that context. Teams either assume their technical capabilities are valuable, borrow value definitions from adjacent markets that don't quite fit, or misread what users actually care about.

They're not just competing for market share. They're competing to define what value means in their new category.

Traditional research tools reflect more than they reveal. Surveys capture stated preferences, not revealed behaviour. User interviews often produce retrofitted narratives that sound logical but miss the emotional and contextual drivers that actually influence decisions. On-chain data is no different. It looks like truth but still describes the past. A single whale can make activity look bigger than it is. A cluster of sybil wallets can make one person look like thousands. Spikes can come from incentives rather than genuine interest. You can see what happened, but not why it mattered. This pattern repeats constantly.

People ask for improvements to things they know, not replacements they can't imagine.

Traditional finance wanted better trading interfaces, not automated market makers like Uniswap. Social media platforms wanted better creator monetisation tools, not ownership models like Mirror. Gaming companies wanted better in-game economies, not player-owned assets.

The research captures what people can articulate within current systems, but misses what becomes possible when those systems change entirely.

This is especially evident in emerging technology sectors. Early adopters of new platforms couldn't articulate desires for capabilities that didn't yet exist. The value proposition had to be constructed through experimentation, not extracted through research. It's not that research is wrong. It's that it operates within existing frameworks of understanding, while transformative value propositions often require new frameworks entirely.

The value proposition didn't respond to stated needs. It created new ones.

The most compelling value propositions often emerge when customers aren't ready to articulate what they want. They cannot yet imagine what is possible.

This creates a strategic challenge. How do you position something that has no existing frame of reference?

Uniswap's approach to trading highlights this dynamic. Market research would have suggested people wanted better exchange interfaces, lower trading fees, and faster execution. What they built instead was automated market making that eliminated order books entirely. The value proposition didn't respond to stated needs. It created new ones.

OpenSea followed a similar pattern when digital ownership emerged. Traditional research would have focused on collectible marketplaces, auction features, and payment processing. Instead, they positioned around verifiable digital ownership, creating value propositions that physical collectibles couldn't match.

Early blockchain builders faced the same challenge. Users couldn't describe their desire for capabilities that traditional platforms couldn't provide because centralised infrastructure was the only available reference point. The value had to be offered, not extracted.

What's forming is a recognition that value propositions sometimes need to shape demand rather than respond to it. This requires conviction about possibilities that don't yet exist in the market's imagination.

Many projects still follow conventional methods when shaping their value. They survey early users, compare themselves to other tools, list their capabilities, and try to map these to user needs. That works when you're offering improvements to something familiar, like a faster exchange, a more efficient wallet, or a cleaner interface. But it breaks down when you're introducing something entirely new. When the technology changes what's possible, the usual ways of explaining value start to fail.

Incentives add to the confusion. Tokens and points can make it look like demand is there when it is really only activity chasing rewards. That doesn’t mean incentives are wrong, but they can distort the picture. If the usage holds when rewards pause or shift, you’ve found something people genuinely value.

Another gap comes from who the first audience really is. In many projects, adoption begins with builders, not end users. If developers can integrate you easily, their users often come with them. Positioning that only speaks to end customers misses this dynamic. In these cases, standards, guarantees, and limits matter as much as features or benefits.ENS couldn't position itself as "a better domain registrar" because personal digital identity didn't exist in most people's minds.

• Safe couldn't call itself "a more secure wallet" because programmable custody wasn't yet a concept.

• Lens couldn't pitch "better social media features" when there was no reference point for portable social graphs.

In these cases, the work of defining value wasn't just messaging, it was building a new mental model.

This is the challenge: when technology enables new forms of interaction, people may not have language, or even awareness, for the problem you're solving.

Before ENS, users assumed that long, unreadable blockchain addresses were just part of the deal. The inconvenience was accepted, not questioned.

Before Safe, the idea that multiple people could securely co-manage crypto assets without trusting one another seemed impossible.

And before Lens, creators didn't imagine owning their audience relationships or taking followers with them across platforms.

Value, in these cases, had to be introduced, not extracted from research. The real work became translation: how do you explain a new capability in a way that resonates with someone who's never imagined the need?

Looking at successful projects in this space, you see three common approaches to introducing value that isn’t yet widely understood. They’re not mutually exclusive, but they represent different starting points.

They're not mutually exclusive, but they represent different starting points.

1. Start with What's Technically Possible

   Some teams lead with capability. They show what their system can do and let people experience the benefit firsthand. ENS did this. It didn't try to educate users on the philosophy of digital identity. It simply let you use a name like "alice.eth" instead of a long address. The value was obvious once you used it. This approach works best when the benefit is immediate and easy to grasp. But it's less effective when the connection between technology and value is abstract or unfamiliar.

2. Start with Recognised Frustrations

   Other teams start with pain points users already feel — things they've come to accept as inevitable. Safe positioned itself around the idea that managing shared funds shouldn't be awkward or risky. Its early messaging focused on the messiness of current workflows, and then showed how programmable access made things simpler and safer. Mirror did something similar by targeting creators who were frustrated with platform dependency and revenue sharing. It solved clear problems that creators had normalized about monetizing their work. This method works when you can point to a real-world friction and show that it doesn't have to be that way.

3. Start with the Future You're Making Possible

   Some teams lead with vision. They paint a picture of what could exist — if we build in a different way. Lens took this route. Instead of listing technical features, it spoke about creator freedom. You could own your content. Your followers could move with you. The proposition was about autonomy, not tools. This style of positioning works best when you can make the future feel tangible, not theoretical.

Regardless of the starting point, translating new capabilities into clear value involves similar work. Link to familiar pain points, even if the solution is unfamiliar.

• ENS anchored to the problem of confusing addresses, even though its real innovation was around identity.

• Safe connected to real concerns about asset access, even though programmable security was new. Show the value in use. Describing features won't land if people can't imagine the outcome.

Demonstrating functionality, even in a basic form, creates clarity and introduce new concepts gradually.

Lens didn't lead with "composable social graphs." It showed familiar use cases, then introduced the bigger ideas once people had context.

What resonates with developers might not land with creators or institutions. But the underlying story still needs to hold together. Let experience lead the message.

In many cases, value only becomes obvious after people start using the product.

• ENS took off once people experienced sharing readable wallet names instead of long addresses.

• Safe grew as teams experienced collaborative control without complexity.

• Lens is still developing its story as more creators experiment with audience portability.

The most effective approach is often to start by shipping something useful, then refine your message based on what people actually latch onto. The loop becomes - build a working version, watch how people use it, refine the language, then feed that back into growth and strategy.

One of the unique challenges for many founders and core teams is that strategy decisions often require community approval. That can make it hard to test or evolve positioning quickly.

Those who vote on a proposal or shape direction may not be the same people the project is trying to attract. This can create tension when the messaging that makes sense internally might not resonate externally.

Projects that manage this well tend to treat messaging like product, its something to be tested, refined, and proven before it's locked in.

The strongest projects don't just describe their features, they help people see the world differently.

• ENS shifted the idea of identity from platform-assigned usernames to self-owned digital names.

• Safe made collaborative security feel normal, not risky. Lens reframed social platforms as something creators could control.

In each case, the project helped create a market, not just serve one.

These teams didn't wait for language to emerge. They built it, iterated it, and used it to make unfamiliar ideas easier to grasp.

In established markets, value propositions explain and differentiate. They connect needs to benefits, features to outcomes, products to categories.

In new markets, that logic breaks down. There is no demand to mirror back, no category to slot into, no familiar benefit story to tell.

Here the role of the proposition shifts. Its job is not to echo what people already know, but to make what is unfamiliar recognisable. To frame possibilities in a way people can actually notice and begin to value. That is how the space for a market begins to open.

Not to define. Just to notice.

This perspective is part of an ongoing series observing how trust, identity and brand shift in systems undergoing change. Written from a background in brand and business growth within traditional environments, these reflections explore how familiar dynamics re-emerge in decentralised contexts.
For the traditional business angle, see the Substack version Questionable Value