How do you understand the difference between interest and intent?
Two conversations. Same week.
First founder said,
“Really interesting product. Love what you’re building.”
Great energy. Smart questions. Strong validation.
We never heard back.
The second founder said,
“How early can we implement?”
That was it.
The entire tone changes when intent shows up.
Interest asks about features. Intent asks about timelines.
And here’s the real shift I had to learn:
You don’t act on compliments. You act on pressure.
When someone says “interesting,” you nurture.
When someone says “how early can we implement,” you accelerate.
You bring pricing into the conversation.
You involve technical stakeholders.
You lock a follow-up before the call ends.
Because intent decays if you don’t convert it fast.
GTM isn’t about collecting praise. It’s about detecting urgency.
Are you celebrating interest, or building around intent?
Replies
I believe the interest vs intent differentiation applies to user interviews as well.
I learned this the hard way on my first product. Users showed massive interest in roadmap features during interviews. After implementation? Those same "excited" users never touched them.
I'd say that for user interviews, the interest sounds like "that would be cool," while intent sounds like "when can I use this?"
Now I know that I have to listen for urgency, not enthusiasm. This way, I can filter nice-to-haves from actual priorities before they clutter the roadmap.