Fundamentals First. Tech Later. What the Lindy Effect Can Teach Us About Modern GTM Strategies

The Lindy Effect tells us that the longer something has survived, the longer it's likely to continue surviving. Technologies die. Trends fade. But human psychology? That's been battle-tested for millions of years.

Yet here we are, watching companies tear down their sales foundations to chase the latest AI automation promise. They're trying to fit circles into boxes, forgetting that systems matter more than technology. Systems are the roots of what works. Deviate too much, and you're starting from scratch.

The Current Madness

The AI hype has everyone losing their minds. I keep hearing the same story from established companies: they try something new, it doesn't work. They try something else, still doesn't work. Each attempt pulls them further from what was actually working.

Take AI SDRs. Yes, they promise efficiency. But what's the foundation of sales? Trust. Timing. Visibility. An AI might send a thousand emails, but if those emails erode trust, destroy timing, and make you invisible to the people who matter—what exactly are you optimizing for?

It's like replacing your heart with a more efficient pump without understanding what makes blood flow in the first place.

The Three Pillars That Never Change

Strip away the noise, and sales fundamentals are startlingly simple:

1) Trust at scale.

This means being intelligible, insightful, human. Companies using AI to write 100% of their content completely overlook that content should be humanized and full of personal insights. AI can help, but only if it has access to your actual thoughts and experiences. Your content creation should be like participating in a conference—the only difference is people read it on a screen instead of hearing it live. Would you give up 90% of that workflow to technology? I don't think so.

2) The right conversation with the right person at the right moment.

People in outreach fall into the volume trap—low reply rates but high send counts. They think it's better to run these campaigns, it's not. It's hurting your brand, your credibility, and the sustainability of your funnel. What works are micro-campaigns focusing on high-intent signals. You don't burn your market; you only reach out to the right people at the right moment.

3) Visibility by your potential clients.

The medium changes, but the fundamental remains: can you explicitly explain who you want to be visible to? If you can't answer this clearly, you have a fundamental problem.

The rest is fluff.

Why Innovation Kills

Innovation isn't inherently bad. The problem is the zero-sum thinking as if you must choose between innovation and fundamentals. Most tech startup promises become less sexy when you protect your fundamentals first, but that's exactly the point.

Companies struggle to apply technology to fundamentals because they outsource implementation to tech-savvy people instead of champions who deeply understand the business. The result? Technology that optimizes for the wrong metrics.

I see too many GTM strategies relying on quick hacks and temporary solutions while ignoring that their fundamentals are broken: product isn't good, narrative isn't clear, closing process is flawed, nurturing is inadequate. They think they have a lead generation challenge, but they're letting closeable opportunities slip through their fingers.

The Human Constant

Despite all our digital transformation talk, humans haven't changed at all. We're still processing the same four questions before making any business decision:

1. What's in it for me?

2. Can I get a positive outcome from this?

3. If things go wrong, what am I risking?

4. Is my situation suited to this?

Information distribution has changed. The rest is identical. We're just projecting these ancient patterns onto a digital world.

The Course Correction

If you've already fallen into the tech-first trap, here's how to recover without losing momentum:

Step 1: Pause everything. Check what good conversations you've had. Understand deeply why people stick with your message, why they close, what questions they ask. This is the foundation of your acquisition. The roots of product-market fit live in your narrative—your ICP, pain points, benefits, positioning.

Step 2: Reestablish your fundamentals. Social banners, website hero sections, LinkedIn headlines. Build your content strategy around genuine insights.

Step 3: Implement the modern B2B funnel properly. Organic content for nurturing. Ads to amplify and attract new attention. Outreach targeting the right people at the right moments.

The decision framework is simple: test, analyze against real KPIs, fire fast if it's not working, iterate. Nothing beats this flow.

The Lindy Test for Technology

Before adopting any new technology, ask: Does this strengthen or weaken my fundamentals?

Track the ratio between time gained and results change. If you save $10,000 but get half the leads you were generating (valued at $20,000), you've actually lost $10,000 in opportunities.

Watch for warning signs: declining client satisfaction, qualitative insights being overruled by dashboards that measure the wrong things.

The Future Belongs to the Cautious-Curious

Here's my prediction for the next decade: We'll see two camps emerge and fail. The fundamentals purists who block all technology will vanish. The all-in tech adopters will vanish too.

The winners will be the cautious yet curious. Ambitious yet careful. They won't chase first-mover advantage in every shiny tool. Instead, they'll let others fail first, learning from those failures to implement technology that actually strengthens their fundamentals.

This creates a counterintuitive opportunity. By the time cautious adopters implement new technology, providers will have seen what works, what doesn't, and why. They'll be able to help late movers more effectively because they've witnessed the full cycle of hype and reality.

The Lindy Lesson

The Lindy Effect isn't just about what survives it's about what deserves to survive. Human psychology, trust-building, genuine connection these have been stress-tested across millennia. Your latest marketing automation tool has been stress-tested for maybe eighteen months.

Build on what's proven. Use technology to amplify, not replace, your fundamentals. The companies that remember this will still be here when the current AI hype cycle joins the graveyard of forgotten silver bullets.

After all, in business as in evolution, it's not the strongest or the smartest that survive it's those most adaptable to change while maintaining their core essence.

The fundamentals are your essence. Everything else is just tools.

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