I Built What I Wanted For Years. Until I Learned What People Needed

But wants are also surface-level and often be self-serving. When you build on wants alone, you can burn a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of energy without ever creating something that genuinely matters to people.

Needs are quieter. They are the things people don’t always have the language for, but they’re what keep people engaged, grounded and connected.

Most of the time, what people need is not the thing itself, it’s the feeling underneath.

Let me show you and how I’ve figured this out.

People may not want another event on their calendar, another Christmas invite to attend, another newsletter to subscribe to, or another idea that promises to change the way they work. 

Under the surface, they’re really asking for something far more human. It could be reassurance that they are not falling behind or the warmth of being around people who get it.

We confuse the thing with the feeling. The event with the belonging or the meetup with the sense of shared momentum.

Wants are transactional, needs are personal.

When you build for needs, not wants, the path forward becomes clear. Participation happens naturally and where trust forms and stays.

I’ve made this mistake more than once.

When I started YATM, I leaned heavily into founder wants and what feels exciting. They made sense in my own own head but didn’t connect with others.

I wanted to start the YATM podcast (this ran from 2018 to 2020) and the format was two short interviews per show. It gave me the illusion that it felt like progress. The truth? Nobody needed it, not at that time. 

It took hours, hours I could have spent building work that delivered real value, not just feeding my want to create more.

When we launched Lunch Clubs, what I wanted was to meet YATM subscribers. What people needed was a way to meet each other.

My want was turning an email address into real life, their need was belonging.

When I imagined running a bigger YATM event, the want was to gather everyone in one room. People didn’t need a spectacle, they needed to look around and feel like they were part of something bigger, something they could contribute to, and grow within, together.

This is the trap creators, me included, fall into, we build what feels right to us, not what helps the people we’re trying to serve.

It’s not a mistake you avoid, it’s a mistake you grow through.

Let’s look at the things people see on the outside of YATM and the needs underneath them.

From a distance, it’s ‘another event,’ a conference with speakers and a schedule.

That’s not why people return or tell their friends.

People come because Creator Day answers a deeper need, the need to feel part of a collective effort, not isolated work. This is why from 3pm we create space for people to work together, a moment to feel that none of this is meant to be done alone.

Many people spend their creative lives building in the dark. This means they don’t know if their work resonates, or know if their ideas are landing, so it means their work can drift.

Creator Day says, “You’re not doing this on your own.” That’s the need and the event is just the vehicle.

On paper, it’s a meetup, you could even call it networking. There is lunch, a panel and a conversation. We also put the spotlight on other people doing good work. 

But beneath that, is the need to feel less alone in the work. It’s about themes that are relatable for small business builders and about participation rather than performance. You don’t need polished presentations, you need a room where people can say something half-formed and not feel silly.

The people in the room make it what it is.

The YATM newsletter, on the surface, is another email. One of thousands landing in inboxes each week.

What it really provides is continuity. A sense that the space people belong to is active, alive, and present every single week.They don’t have to open it, but it’s there for them if they need it.

People need rhythm and they need a companion. They need a reminder that they’re still in the game and a part of something, should they choose.

That’s the thread running through all of it:

YATM creates the places people need, disguised as the things people think they want.

It is all about building for meaning, not what you create. 

Here’s what a lot hinges on and this idea of wants and needs.

People will tell you what they want, they will rarely tell you what they need. It’s not because they’re hiding it, but because most of us don’t have the language for our deeper needs.

But when people participate and join in, you see what matters.

Participation reveals:

🙂 what people care about

🙂 what energises them

🙂 what they want more of

🙂 what they want less of

🙂 what they naturally want to contribute

🙂 what they are proud to be part of

🙂 where the community wants to evolve

Participation is how you read the room. It turns the work into something you build with people, not for them.

When participation is present, the direction becomes obvious. When it disappears, everything becomes guesswork. When I started, I discovered that guesswork is exhausting and no one joins in.

You don’t predict the way forward. People show you, through what they choose to do.

Wants are fleeting and people will want your work for a moment, then they may move on. They stay because it meets a need they didn’t always have the words for.

These needs are universal:

🙂 the need to feel part of something real (and have status)

🙂 the need to be believed in

🙂 the need to contribute (and feel affiliated)

🙂 the need for connection that isn’t performative or algorithmic

🙂 the need to grow through participation

🙂 the need for a place where belief is strengthened, not drained

If I was starting again, I’d tell myself this, build for needs before you build for wants.
Wants can be selfish. Needs are where the real work is.

That’s why YATM isn’t really an event series, or a newsletter, or a membership, it’s a place where people find something they didn’t realise they were missing.

If you build for wants, your work becomes a product. If you build for needs, your work becomes a community.

When you serve needs, not wants, you don’t just create something people attend, you create something people belong to.