Naval's Secret Formula: One Tip for Building, One for Selling

Last week, I highlighted Naval Ravikant's powerful formula for success:

This isn't just motivational fluff - it's the new playbook for getting ahead.

For decades, these skills lived in separate worlds. Builders created products but struggled to market them. Sellers could grow audiences but remained dependent on others to build their vision.

AI is collapsing this divide.

Now non-technical founders can ship complete products without a developer. Builders can understand marketing principles previously locked behind years of experience.

This newsletter is dedicated to helping you master both sides of Naval's equation:

• Selling: Marketing strategies that work in today's attention economy

• Building: Practical techniques for creating real software products with AI tools

Each week, I'll share one actionable tip for each skill. No theory - just practical approaches I'm using right now.

Let's dive into this week's tips.

🔥 SELLING TIP: The One-Person Audience Method

Most marketing fails because it tries to speak to everyone at once. The result? You end up speaking to no one.

Here's what works instead: Picture one specific person who perfectly represents your ideal customer. Give them a name. Imagine their specific frustrations, desires, and objections.

Then, write every single piece of marketing as if you're speaking directly to them.

I have a founder friend who is non-technical, but articulate, straightforward and smart as a whip. I write every headline, feature description and email as if he is my only reader.

Magic happens when you get specific: other people with the same pain points will feel like you're reading their minds. They'll think, "This person gets me."

This isn't a new technique, but it works even better in the age of AI because:

1. You can use AI to help create detailed customer personas based on your observations

2. You can generate variations of your copy tailored to that specific persona

3. You can A/B test these variations quickly to see what resonates

Try this: Before you write your next piece of marketing copy, spend 10 minutes writing out a detailed description of exactly one person you're trying to reach. Then write as if they're the only one reading.

🛠️ BUILDING TIP: Create Responsive UIs in Minutes with Shadcn and Claude

One of the biggest challenges for non-developers is creating professional-looking UIs that don't scream "amateur hour."

This week, I discovered a game-changing combo: using Claude to generate Shadcn/UI components.

Shadcn is a collection of beautifully designed, accessible UI components that you can copy and paste into your projects. Unlike most component libraries, you own the code – it's not a dependency.

Here's my workflow:

1. Ask Claude to create a component (like a pricing table or feature comparison) using Shadcn/UI

2. Copy the generated code directly into your project

3. Customize colors and content to match your brand

When I needed a dashboard for my latest app, I wrote:

Create a responsive dashboard layout using Shadcn/UI components with a sidebar navigation, header with user dropdown, and main content area that displays analytics cards in a grid.

Here’s what Claude gave me on its first attempt:

The best part? These components are already responsive, accessible, and follow best practices – things that would take a non-techie hours to get right on their own.

Pro tip: Be specific about the exact functionality you need. Tell Claude what user interactions should happen and what data needs to be displayed. The more detailed your prompt, the less tweaking you'll need to do afterward.

This weekly formula – one selling tip and one building tip – is my commitment to helping you become that unstoppable founder Naval talked about.

What's your biggest challenge right now? Building or selling? Hit reply and let me know – I'll tailor future editions to what you're struggling with most.

Until next Tuesday, Nelson