# The Three Founder Channel Biases

These biases systematically narrow the brainstorm set. Detect them during Step 1 of the Bullseye Framework and force an idea for the affected channel anyway.

## 1. Invisible Bias

**Symptom:** The founder doesn't even think of the channel. It's not on their mental map of "marketing."
**Example:** Engineers often have no mental slot for "Speaking Engagements" — they've never given a talk and don't imagine it as a customer acquisition channel.
**Detection question:** "Have you considered [channel]?" If the answer is a blank stare or a puzzled "... no?", this is invisible bias.
**Counter:** Walk through every single channel name during the brainstorm. Force one idea for each, even if it's bad.

## 2. Negative Bias

**Symptom:** The founder has a personal negative reaction to a channel — they hate it or tried it once and it failed.
**Example:** "I hate talking on the phone, so cold calling is out." "We tried Facebook ads and lost money, so social ads are dead for us."
**Detection question:** "What's your reaction to [channel]?" If the answer is visceral ("ugh", "I hate that"), this is negative bias.
**Counter:** Decouple channel from the founder's preferences. The founder isn't the customer. "Just because you hate talking on the phone doesn't mean your customers do." Past failure in a channel doesn't mean the channel is broken — the test design might have been wrong, the product might have been wrong, or the channel might be right *now* even if it was wrong then.

## 3. Schlep Bias

**Symptom:** The founder avoids channels that are manual, unsexy, or high-effort — especially when they feel "beneath" the company's self-image.
**Example:** "We're a modern SaaS, we don't do trade shows." "BD is too slow, we want scalable." "Community building is for consumer products, not enterprise."
**Detection question:** "Why not [channel]?" If the answer is about effort, image, or sexiness, this is schlep bias.
**Counter:** Jason Cohen's framing: "If your competition refuses to try these channels, that's even more reason to go try them — it's almost a competitive advantage." The schleppy channels are often uncrowded exactly because of this bias.

## The Meta-Bias

All three biases converge on the same failure: **the founder reaches for familiar, comfortable, or exciting channels first, ignoring the channels that might actually work best.** The Bullseye brainstorm is explicitly designed to counter this by forcing every channel into consideration before ranking.

## Source

Chapter 1 ("Traction Channels") and Chapter 2 ("The Bullseye Framework") of *Traction* by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares.