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How crappy businesses become so successful
Ben Collinge
October 02, 2025
Hack people’s perception
Welcome to DreamMail, a newsletter where you can keep up to date with the dreamers you see in my content, as well as actionable advice to help you build your own dream.
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The Quiet Café
Once, there were two cafés that opened side by side.
One baked average coffee and stale pastries.
The other served rich blends and warm bread that melted in your mouth.
Yet every morning, people lined up outside the first café, the “worse” one.
The owner of the “better” café couldn’t figure out why.
“Our prices are the same, my coffee smells, looks and tastes better… why theirs?”
As more people walked by, more people entered the busy café, not knowing they were missing out on the best coffee they would ever taste.
“Must be good if everyone’s there,” people said.
So they joined the queue.
Meanwhile, inside the quiet café, the baker stood alone.
“They’ll come when they taste it,” he told himself.
But no one came.
He did EVERYTHING right.
But how would people know how good the coffee was…
If they didn’t know it exists..
To the world outside, empty simply looked unwanted. They’d pre-judged.
One morning, he watched the crowd next door cheering over burnt beans and dry croissants.
And only then did he understand:
The community + marketing is what made the product great.
A weed will outgrow a tree if you water it.
The louder café wasn’t better.
It was just seen.
Lesson:
Quality matters, but perception decides who gets the chance to prove it.
If you stay silent, the world will assume you have nothing to say.
Below, we dissect how to fix this problem.
How to Beat Better Competitors With Visibility
Phase 1 - Create Perception of Demand Before Real Demand
Tactic | How To Do It | Psychology Behind It |
|---|---|---|
Strategic Crowding | Only open access to limited slots, closed communities, invite-only early access. | Scarcity = Value |
Seed Social Proof | Don’t post alone. Ask 10 friends/customers to comment first. Screenshot DMs & reactions and share. | Herd Mentality / Copying Behaviour |
Visible Queueing | Public waitlist counters, “Only 3 spots left”, “Join 172 people already inside”. | Fear of Missing Out |
Phase 2 - Become Unignorably Visible (Even on a Tiny Budget)
Channel | Visibility Hack |
|---|---|
Physical World | Stickers, posters in toilets, QR codes at bus stops, branded props people WANT to photograph (Dream Machine, Duolingo owl, Stormtroopers). |
Digital World | Comment hijacking - drop high-value comments under bigger pages DAILY. Be seen where your traffic already exists. |
Owned Channels | Instead of one message posted 10 times, post one message rewritten 10 ways across TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit. |
Phase 3 - Build Community Gravity
So people don’t just buy, they bring others.
Strategy | Mechanics | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
Make Joining a Status Move | Founding member badges, special role names, leader board, “1 of the First 100” | People join for recognition, not just value |
Activate Public Participation | Community challenges, exclusive events, engage with your community | Build “super fans” - a group of lifetime customers who will support through thick and thin. |
Highlight Customers Like Celebrities | Post their stories, their faces, their progress | Provides proof and trust when others are saying it. |
Since then, I Am Denim has achieved a hell of a lot…
You can follow I Am Denim here if you’d like - https://www.instagram.com/iamdenimlondon
See you next week!
- Simon Squibb