An 86-minute guide to finding PMF | Rob Snyder (Author, The Power of Pull)
In a Nutshell
The Pull framework identifies buyers who already have an urgent project on their to-do list they cannot complete with current options, creating natural demand that pulls the product from you rather than requiring persuasion. To find product-market fit, founders must personally immerse themselves with target users to discover these "acquired secrets" instead of brainstorming ideas, then test hypotheses through direct sales conversations that reveal whether prospects try to buy immediately. After finding initial pull, the process becomes a repeatable "case study factory" of sales, delivery, and retention that scales the same successful outcome rather than chasing different opportunities.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
The idea behind a sales call is that if you have influence, you can snatch the product from me immediately. Therefore, there is a specific structure for the sales call, starting from the exploration phase and ending with the transition from it. One common mistake is believing that influence is an advantage that the company possesses, when in fact it is an advantage that the individual possesses. You are not selling to SpaceX, you are selling to its chief legal officer, who has a project on his to-do list that he cannot execute on his own.
There is the "last try" approach, where you talk to people and they say, "Oh my God, this is exactly what I need!" Often, that will not happen. This is also an opportunity for what is called a "last try," which is: Is there anything on your to-do list that you would like me to pay you for right now? If they do try to buy, that is excellent. If they don't, that is fine. Something has been learned and improvement can continue from this point. If it works, that is excellent. Now it may have come up with something. Let's see if it happens again.
Customer retention is extremely important, and it's not always obvious. Rob is the author of the book "The Power of Attraction." The book is here. There is a newsletter titled "The Physics of Startups."
The way the host got to know Rob is unusual. There is a community on Slack for paid subscribers. On Slack, just in the last month, two different people started a discussion saying, "Lenny, you should host Rob on the podcast. I've been reading his book, and it's very helpful for what I've been doing." These are some of the founders and some of the product staff.
What has been written in this book and what is published in the newsletter is a very practical guide to finding product-market fit, going from zero to one, and then beyond. Rob has helped around 50 startups make profits exceeding one million in the field of augmented reality.
Rob never expected to write a book or do something like this. Rob took a big hit as a founder while trying to go from zero to one, and then discovered it by chance. After that, many of Rob's friends started using him to help their startups achieve this goal, and Rob became obsessed with this stage. It is both interesting and strange. Rob feels like there isn't a lot of good content written about it, so Rob has become strangely obsessed with repeating this phase as much as possible, and Rob enjoys it.
People in the community have said: Firstly, reading the first chapter of the book felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted from their shoulders. They realized that they are not an ignorant eccentric, and that this is a normal part of the process. Secondly, aside from all the tactical considerations, they personally found that they understood the pain, loneliness, and strangeness that accompany the battle to make a product fit for the market. Finally, they fell into the same zero-to-one traps that Rob describes, which are based on what potential customers said they wanted rather than what actually motivated them to agree.
The pull framework describes the person who will attract your product from your hands. It is strange that no one would buy your product. The question is: What would make someone abandon your product? Many traditional descriptions of things include looking for urgent and big problems, and offering distinctive solutions of real value. There were design partners who used the product daily. So it seemed like the product would be a huge success. Then when trying to sell it, there were enormous difficulties for two years, going around in circles with no purpose, without understanding why. Then there was a sudden change of course. The product was launched, and it was realized then that what makes people reject your product is not the reason. It's not about weaknesses, added value, or anything like that. Simply because people might say, "Okay, that's great. It's great that your product solves our problems and offers great value, but I'm not going to compromise my priorities to buy it."
It is all about priorities. A particular type of priority where someone is trying to accomplish something; they have a project on their to-do list, and they are trying to complete it now, but they cannot do so using their current tools, methods, or options. In this case, it's more like a compressed spring. When they are having difficulty completing a task, and then a solution appears that helps them overcome it and accomplish that priority task, then they will rush to give the opportunity. The "Pull" framework is an abbreviation for this concept.
The abbreviation "PL" stands for Project. They have a project on their to-do list. The project can be thought of as a task that needs to be completed. The project is not like "I want to buy a recruitment program." It's like saying "I want to hire more employees." In the second case, it is unavoidable. This is something that must be done now. Why now? Why not later? There is a reason why this should be done now. First, there is a list of options being considered to complete the project. It could be about rehiring someone, or assigning tasks to the existing team, or using the tools available or the tools available in the market. Secondly, there are the restrictions. Why are these options not enough to complete the project?
The first two options are extremely important, and interestingly, the last two options seem to be less important. The first two options are similar to having a problem. There is a need to solve a task, and this is an urgent problem. In other words, this is a very pressing problem. This problem looks like: There is a task that the manager is waiting to be completed, and it needs to be done now. It's not just a general issue that needs to be resolved.
The idea of other options, and why they are not useful: Imagine, for example, a production team that has a critical task, a key feature that needs to be developed, or an unavoidable project on their to-do list, but they will execute it themselves. Therefore, they do not need anything, and they will not buy anything unless their current options are insufficient. It is very important that it is not just about trying to implement something, or using a tool from a leading company in this field, or any tool that is available. Rather, it must be a solution that their current options do not meet, leaving them feeling helpless.
An example is the company called "Jump," which develops smart note-taking software for financial advisors. They spent 18 months trying in vain, then finally found a solution, tried to sell it, and succeeded. What they discovered was that financial advisors had a project on their to-do list: reducing the time they spent taking notes on client meetings and entering them into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. It's a project on their to-do list. The inevitable thing is that if they do not take notes and enter them into the customer relationship management system, they may expose themselves to legal liability. So, they are forced to write down these notes, but they don't like doing it. Therefore, they want to reduce the time spent because they do not enjoy it. It's simply not fun. So, the list of options they considered to reduce time included AI-powered note-taking programs. There is a long list of such programs, but they were not good enough because they did not integrate with the financial advisors' customer relationship management system, and it was unclear whether they were compliant with the US Securities and Exchange Commission's regulations in this regard. Therefore, there was a list of options that they were unable to use. When Jump came forward and saw this survey, people strongly rejected the product. Someone literally said, "That must be how Alexander Graham Bell must have felt when he invented the telephone."
An interesting conversation took place with the Jump team about this, and they said, "Okay, cool. Financial advisors have this project. Do you know who else meets with clients regularly? Insurance agents. So maybe we should go and talk to them." It turned out that they also had a project on their to-do list to reduce the time they spent taking meeting notes. But the element "U" is not present because they are not obligated to do so. They are not required to enter meeting notes into the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Therefore, their current options, the first "L" item, are not to take meeting notes, which they were already doing. As can be seen, the framework is not working for them, or rather, there is no driving force. They are fine.
All four elements must be present to achieve a real impact. In the first example, this task does not seem like a real task. It's more like a general task to save time. It wasn't listed on their to-do list; it was something they did constantly. It was part of their workflow, and while they were doing it, they were trying to avoid it. There is the "action I am doing now" in the calendar, and then the "project" is the intention while doing it. So, while doing it, the project on the mental to-do list was to spend as little time as possible on this annoying thing. If a founder or product team is having trouble with their product, it's likely that one of these four elements is missing. All four elements need to be together. If "P" is found without "U" and "L", if there is something someone is trying to do, but is not actually pursuing it at the moment, and their current options are insufficient, they will simply complain and refrain from buying. But if there are two options, one P and the other U, but option L is good enough, they'll say, "Yes, that's exactly what we're doing now, developing it using cloud computing. We'll find the right solution."
Something that already exists, and it's simply like a hunter searching for it and discovering it. It was very liberating when it was realized because it was always thought to be incompetent. It wasn't good at convincing the market that they wanted the product. And from that perspective, it was thought: Okay, something really valuable is being built, but people aren't buying it. How do I convince them to buy it? And it turns out that this survey, this project on their to-do list, existed before and independently, which means it just has to be searched for. There is no need to convince people that this drive exists. It's like it hasn't been figured out how to do it yet, but it's very difficult, if not impossible. This feeling is very familiar, just trying to convince people. Look, this is so cool. It's going to solve so many problems. Many of your problems.
There is another thing, which is that they should feel strange in order not to buy the product. This is a sign that the idea is correct, that it does seem strange. Why don't you buy it? Most people, most of the time, say: Okay. It would be strange for them to buy our product given their to-do list, what they have, and their options, so it would be strange for them to buy it. But it's strange that someone who has market appeal wouldn't buy. Rather, the product should be pulled out of your hands because it is like a coiled spring. So, if you're talking to someone who has market appeal, the conversation should go something like this: "Wait a minute, what can you do? Okay, how do we start? Does the product already exist? How do we join this field?" While any other conversation you have with someone who has no influence may not go that way. They may be enthusiastic and nice and say, "Wow, that's amazing. This is very interesting. This is exactly the future of our industry. Great, I can see how this will save us a lot of money," but they don't say, "I need this now." And that's how you know they already have leverage.
One common misconception is thinking that leverage is a company-specific trait, when it's actually an individual-specific trait. Even if you're selling enterprise software, you're not selling to the company, or even to SpaceX, but to an adult, like SpaceX's chief legal officer who has a project on their to-do list that they can't do on their own. It's not as if SpaceX needs this, it's as if Jane needs it. And that's a common mistake; they don't think about the specific person who has this need. It's very common to say we're selling to mid-sized private equity firms. It's like selling your stake to a partner or an operational partner who is specifically pursuing certain goals.
Using this framework, let's look at the key moments in an early-stage startup journey, starting with finding product-market alignment. There is a desire to talk about coming up with an idea, receiving that first sales call, and close the first deal, then expand from there. Let's start by generating an idea. How can individuals use this framework to help them come up with more viable ideas? As a founder, there is a notebook full of ideas, all along the lines of: "What if we created an API for APIs?" Or something like that. There are so many product ideas, and they all seem illogical. So, it can't really be told which product ideas are good and which are bad. Fortunately, the Pull Framework is a tool that's applied before the product idea. It indicates that someone is currently trying to do X, which is somewhat strange given that they haven't bought yet. What has been found helpful is using the Pull Framework to identify a specific idea, like, "I think this particular person is stuck on this idea, so I'm going to talk to them to see if they want to buy from me even before we have a product." For me, the point of the Pull Framework is to make a hypothesis about who has the Pull, and then test it. After that, the question becomes: How do we find this Pull? This Pull Hypothesis? What do we do with it? There are strong opinions on this. It is not thought that this stage is taken seriously enough. Imagine if your life depended on it, how would you act? Ten 30-minute Zoom meetings with clients? No, you'd do your best. Your effort. You'll go in person. There are stories of friends who did unconventional things to go and engage with potential customers directly, to feel needed and discover their appeal firsthand. Either they built a product they would buy themselves, or they immersed themselves in the people to find that moment when someone is trying to do something and falters.
The advice here is: don't just sit around brainstorming. Don't just look for huge markets and expect a massive opportunity. What is being said here is more like a perspective: if your life depended on something, how would you find a problem that's likely to have a real impact? What is understood here is: get involved, work hard, and be part of the process. This reminds of something Nan, the head of product. He's now at Linear (he just moved to AAI), and he described what he looks for when searching for opportunities: "I want to feel the person's pain the way they feel it."
An example is a friend from school who had no idea what he wanted to build. He had no idea about the product. He didn't have a notebook. He had nothing of the sort. He simply said, "I love serving small businesses. I love small businesses. I just want to find someone I love serving, and I'll figure out the idea through that." He wrote a list of industries that he thought might be interesting. Then he went and watched them and worked with them for several days straight. He started with the solar panel installation technicians, and he hated them and they hated him. Then move on to the next area. Eventually, he made his way to independent physical therapists, and went and spent days with them. He loved them and they loved him. It was like: Okay, great. What is the survey about here? What do I do? And so he continued to watch them closely for days on end. He even tried to buy a franchise for a physical therapy center so he could see the profit and loss statement, and he was seriously considering it. In the midst of all this, an idea occurred to him: Wait a minute, it seems you're trying to do this and that, but you're stuck there. Therefore, firsthand experience is what you should do. To live the experience yourself and apply it. The reason you do this is that people would have figured it out if it were easy, meaning someone else would have found the idea. Why do you think following this approach is so important? Two reasons: First, these things don't usually come to fruition by writing on a board. It would be strange if his idea came to him after a brainstorming session. Think about the number of different ideas he could have come up with. It wasn't that simple; it was something he only saw through observation. It is unclear whether that will also appear in an interview. But the second thing is more of a philosophical question, which is that you are building a company to serve this type of person. The primary goal of building a company is to serve someone and help them achieve a goal. So, if you don't have firsthand experience, how will you make the thousands of decisions necessary to build something that actually serves them?
The idea, once you have this insight, for example with this physical therapy company, is to document it through the "pull" framework to determine if this is what is called the "pull" hypothesis. Yes. Let's talk about that. Let's assume you have this vision, and it's interesting to know what he has actually come up with in his work in the field of physiotherapy, and how you start to think about it through the "pull" framework. Yes. Then she takes that and says, "Okay, that's the idea I think this type of person has." This physical therapist is trying to cut some specific costs in his budget; they were necessary for certain reasons. His current options, such as hiring a consultant, were not sufficient for a specific reason; It was either too expensive or too slow. He wrote down the pull hypothesis, then did something very important: he showed it to that person and asked him, "Is this you?" He replied, "Oh my God, yes, that's exactly what I mean." He said, "Okay, great. Will you buy something if I help you accomplish this?" He replied: "Certainly. Okay, excellent." Then he said, "I need to speak with five other physical therapists to make sure this is repeated." Then he did that, and they also pulled it, which is really important to make sure that he wasn't building a product for just one person.
What was offered these companies? Are these the four points that include: This is the project, and this is why it is inevitable, or something else? Good. Therefore, it is recommended to use two slides. The first slide is the survey framework. You don't need to present the survey framework in detail because no one will understand it. You can simply say: This is what I understood. You are trying to do X now because of Y, and you have thought about this, but it is not good enough for this reason. She asks: Did I understand that almost correctly? Then the second slide is a conceptual overview of how it helps me. It seems you are looking for a way to reduce this item more quickly than by hiring a consultant. We can offer that for XYZ, does that suit what you are looking for? And you want the first group to
The first group should react with "Oh my God!" and the second slide should explain how exactly the product works and how to proceed. The goal is showing a slide of the form people use to fill out, with wording that describes: "There's a project on your to-do list, and it's urgent right now because of such and such, and the options you've looked at are such and such, and it's lacking such and such."
When showing this slide to prospects, the key question is whether they feel ready to send money and whether their pupils dilate. The most important signal is that they actually try to buy, responding "Okay, great. How do we begin?" rather than showing retreat behaviors like "Tell me more," "We'll think about it," or "Can you send more information so our team can review it?"
Body language and feeling enthusiastic about an idea serve as indicators of its quality. Josh Woodward, head of Google Labs, notes that seeing a sparkle in their eyes is a sign of attraction. The key question is whether they're acting like not buying is weird to them, rather than indicating they'll buy in the future.
Attraction action refers to when prospects say "I need this right now" and try to get the idea out of you, asking "How do we move forward now?" This differs from future-oriented statements like "I can imagine us using this in the last quarter of the year."
Emily from Clearly AI, who worked in security engineering at AWS, found a problem she would pay someone to solve, but no one was addressing it. This demonstrates when "solve it yourself" is appropriate. However, the approach fails when people won't pay someone else to solve it but think it should exist. The key is being honest with yourself about whether you'd actually buy the solution.
While primarily working in B2B, this advice has proven applicable to consumer applications. Spanx followed the same approach of direct selling to customers and observing their reactions to determine product specifications. The famous story involves Sara Blakely needing to remove her underwear to test pantyhose under white pants.
When the optimal path doesn't yield "Oh my God, that's exactly what I need" reactions, a "desperate attempt" becomes valuable: "Is there anything on your to-do list that you'd like me to pay you for right now?" This is an open-ended approach that feels like paying someone to get them off your back.
One startup trying to sell a job applicant tracking system to governments received lukewarm responses until the desperate attempt question revealed a prospect willing to pay for help with job descriptions. This became their first contract and led to phenomenal growth.
For introverted founders, reframing sales helps: instead of feeling pressure to convince someone to buy, view it as "I'm just seeing if they need help with anything they're stuck on. If they don't, that's fine. But if they do, that's great. We can explore whether I can help."
The most significant negative pattern is feeling the need to build the idea yourself first because "I don't think it's ready to go" or "people need to see it to understand it." With AI, these can be addressed in weeks instead of months, but founders should not put off customer conversations.
Design partners are not recommended because they tend to be convinced of your vision and give feedback without ever buying. They play the role of Steve Jobs helping a startup rather than having something they're actually trying to accomplish. People with real problems to solve don't want to be design partners—they just want to get things done.
The crucial moment is an insight built on firsthand, hands-on experience with the people you're going to help. This represents an "acquired secret" - a gateway to venture capital flows. The secret comes either from having lived the experience at a company (like Amazon creating AWS) or by working on the ground alongside people dealing with the problem.
From 50 companies analyzed, ideas came from 10% personal experience and 90% firsthand experience, with some having sold the wrong product to find the right one. Working on problems yourself is mandatory advice.
Once arriving at the attraction hypothesis with signs that something good exists, the next step is finding someone to talk to and making the first sales call.
The goal is two or three conversations a day with potential customers. Start with LinkedIn or email using very specific messages rather than "Hey, do you have any particular problems?" or "Would you like to purchase our innovative solution?" Generic templates receive responses like "leave me alone."
Founder magic means creating messages where "you're interesting, and I'm interesting. Let's talk and see." One startup's message was: "Hey, Snoop Dogg invested in us, and I thought you'd find that interesting too. Would you like to talk?"
Messages should be very short—one or two sentences. Examples include: "Hi, I dropped out of my PhD and I'm now working on something for content marketers" or "Hi, I worked at my dad's family plumbing business during high school, and now I'm working on something interesting. I thought you might find it interesting. Would you like to chat?"
AI-based message personalization is not recommended because it usually tells people something they already know about themselves, and recipients can tell "Claude wrote this letter."
Start on LinkedIn because target customers usually have interesting profiles there. Add 100-150 people per week (20 per day), then message them when they accept connection requests. Expected response rates: 30-40% accept connection requests, then 30-50% respond, with some saying "yes" and most saying "Okay, why not?"
If response rates fall below these benchmarks, the message may not be attractive enough, or the profile might signal that you're about to promote products.
A sales call consists of two steps: an initial exploratory step, then demonstrating how the product can help. The basic idea is that if prospects have a strong desire to buy, they'll take the product out of your hands rather than you convincing them to buy.
Start the call by saying: "Thank you very much for your time. I'm curious. I'm sure many people will contact you and ask: Why did you make this call to me today?" This gives them the opportunity to explain their interest. Then get their approval of the agenda before asking exploratory questions.
Calls typically last 30 minutes. For early-stage companies without demos, the focus remains on exploration. Success is measured by prospects showing willingness to participate or clearly stating they have no desire to participate, helping understand why the problem isn't important to them.
After five calls where everyone has relaxed and nothing has been learned, that's a sign something is wrong. One startup made five calls to the banking department without results, but received a suggestion to consider defense companies. The first defense contact responded "My God, are you serious?" leading to a hypothesis change.
The methodology emphasizes being honest with yourself about whether something exists. Think of it as selling to learn, not to force something. The term "pull" serves as both shorthand for what you're looking for and a reminder that you should feel pulled toward the opportunity rather than pressured or persuading.
Successful sales calls elicit customer problems directly. When prospects say things like "I'm trying to create a website, but those ready-made programs that rely on clicking and selecting are overwhelming me," this signals the attraction element. The pitch then becomes simple: describing a solution to create a website without the hassle.
Key questions to ask include: "Is there anything related to the guarantee process? What quality are you trying to implement but haven't been able to achieve with your current tools, methods, and team?" This encompasses all survey elements. Follow-up questions address urgency: "Is there a reason for you to do it now, or is it possible to do it at another time?" and alternatives: "I'm sure you've looked into other options. Is it good enough?"
The barrier people have to overcome to say, 'I want this. I'll buy it now,' is very high. The framework aims to overcome that barrier by finding people who aren't happy with the status quo—people who are already trying to change, requiring no convincing.
There's a prevailing notion that a product has to be ten times better than the current solution for anyone to care. When considering whether something is "better," the key is whether alternatives have been tried and none worked, or some did. The question becomes: how much better does it need to be for them to care, or is slightly better enough?
Jump, an AI-powered note-taking software for financial advisors, serves as an example. The question isn't how much better it is than other AI note-taking software. If those programs didn't work while this one did, then it's solving a problem. The framework considers whether prospects are a "spring that compresses" and how they respond when presented with the solution.
Linear competes with Jira through superior user experience—smooth, beautiful, and well-designed—gaining customers because engineers love using it. When applying the survey framework to this situation, there's a certain type of person trying to track issues who encounters barriers in the Jira experience. The superior Linear experience becomes a better fit for them.
The mistake is thinking that entering a category with a much better user experience guarantees huge success. This approach was tried with HR software, but user experience wasn't relevant to the buyer—they didn't care that their systems looked outdated. Survey theory indicates that in the Jira versus Linear case, there was a specific type of person held back by the Jira experience.
The stronger the pull, the faster things move. Linear took a long time for people to use it, trust it, and switch to it. The pull existed because there wasn't much of a hold—it was simply faster and more satisfying, though it took longer to convert.
The stronger the pull, the faster the company grows. Many startups now go from zero to infinity at breakneck speed because they found pull points where people snatch the product from their hands. With current AI offerings, people see capabilities and buy immediately. Corporate deals that previously took 18 months can now close in two weeks.
After the first sales call, the next step depends on deal size. The goal is to return with an idea and a plan. In the pharmaceutical company example, the founder gave a surprise pitch to an executive who said their current market research was very poor and slow. The founder responded by acknowledging the need for faster market research and offered to return in two days with a prototype.
The survey framework helps establish a pricing range by determining the value of getting the project done and what alternatives would cost. If market research consultants cost $50,000 a year, this provides a rough boundary for pricing. Using the same price as current market research consultants gives a pricing framework that feels intuitive to prospects.
The first step of closing has two parts: making sure the product or service is a good fit, and managing the project to close the deal. For big corporate deals, the person in charge may decide they want it, but then 17 presentations and four committees may be required. With smaller deals, the CEO might simply say "Okay, great" and request a Stripe form and introductory call.
The recommendation for project management in large organizations is to have a conversation with the buyer about when results should be shown. If they say "Definitely in the first quarter of next year," work backward from there to identify the set of steps needed from now until then. This becomes a catalyst for all steps in the professional sales process. The fundamental question is: when do we need to demonstrate success before this product will be launched?
Many people create design partnerships, offering to build with the prospect without charging. However, the advice is to sell the product directly rather than offer it for free or create partnerships. Design partnerships shift the focus from "I need to solve this problem now" to "Okay, now I'm helping you build your product," which is a negative signal for people who already have a platform and a positive signal for those who don't.
If there's demand, capitalize on it. You can sell something closer to a service to begin with—many startups sell an AI product manager that delivers results while the product works in the background. Frame it so prospects don't expect a full-fledged enterprise platform ready next week, but rather something closer to a service. This allows checking for real demand while figuring out what needs to be built, delivering with a mix of manual and automated work.
The historical concern with starting with services is getting stuck running a consulting firm with tiny profit margins and never reaching automation. However, AI is increasingly capable of handling more tasks. Part of this approach is learning more about problems and opportunities as people do the work.
Founders are usually afraid to ask for big numbers and offer high prices. Initially, focus on testing whether clients are willing to complete the deal versus willing to pay—don't pay too much attention to pricing with early clients. For maximizing revenue from a first large enterprise deal with a demo day approaching, present a number in a way that does not expose the company to criticism.
The recommended approach uses a case study as a kind of interaction. When talking to others, each has their own way of pricing—some price small projects at $80,000, sometimes up to a million. Rather than giving a price proposal, watch an example together of what others have heard about how they think about pricing, and let prospects express their opinions.
After the first set of sales calls, paths may diverge. If the people contacted have an impact, there are now customers, and the work shifts to delivering, iterating, and figuring out how to automate and organize. However, often strange responses occur—people thought strange for not buying may actually be strange for buying, not behaving in a way that suggests they have an impact.
When results aren't as expected, go back and review the calls to determine if anyone had an impact and what was learned. Then formulate a new hypothesis and reapply it. Most of the time the result isn't there from the beginning. Sometimes founders get it right on the first try and feel like heroes, but often they're completely wrong and don't know what to do. They try several times, which guides them to the right path, or they do something unexpected.
This is called "the goblin situation"—doing one's best and doing unhealthy things to find out who will buy now, then drawing conclusions. "Genie Mode" refers to founders who operate this way all the time, such as jumping on a plane to attend a conference in Europe with potential clients they can't reach otherwise. Some founders can do this all the time; others do it occasionally during rough patches.
An example is a founder whose parents went door-to-door at dental clinics asking people to talk about becoming clients for Tero, a company providing medical staff to dental hygienists—and it worked.
The process involves making a hypothesis for engagement, filling out a form, and scheduling direct marketing messages with a surprise message that grabs attention. Make about five calls to get a general idea of whether there's an impact. If not, ask some random questions, maybe try researching something, formulate another hypothesis for the effect, make five more calls, and repeat until completely convinced of success.
After finding something that attracts people who say they need it now, the next question is the process of building a user experience and maintaining their satisfaction. Customer retention is extremely important and not obvious. The way to think about after-sales service is that everyone who buys is guaranteed to stop buying until they reach a certain point, at which it would be strange for them to stop. The whole point of the service is knowing what that point is and designing a fast track that every customer reaches it.
The point isn't about them using the product or having a high customer satisfaction rating. Mark Roper has a proactive customer retention metric—on Slack it meant sending 10,000 messages or 1,000 messages within a certain timeframe. If that number is reached, it would be odd to stop using the service.
At one startup offering customer retention programs to restaurants, if a restaurant received a notification that someone was about to stop using the service and could prevent it within the first two weeks after purchase, the customer would be thrilled, tell all their friends, and it would be odd for them to stop using the service. The onboarding process was designed around that.
Once some people agree, don't just send them the product and login details. Try it yourself and learn from it. Keep asking questions like "Would you change now?" Try to find the moment when they say "Okay, great, now I can live without this."
If everyone is stopping using it, it's unacceptable not to find out why. In many cases with horizontally used products, there's a significant drop in users. One startup offering a horizontal AI workflow product discovered that one or two types of customers kept using it while everyone else stopped. Over 90% of customers stopped using it, which is frustrating, but often the reason can be found—whether it's something being done or something customers are doing.
In the horizontal AI workflow product example, freight forwarders used it for a specific workflow. The company shifted its entire focus to that, moving from a horizontal product with huge turnover and low price to a very premium product for freight forwarders.
There's never a moment where founders say they've figured it out and will be a smash hit. Every moment in a startup's journey is shrouded in uncertainty. The founder of DataBricks, now a trillion-dollar company, said that even with $100 million in revenue, they weren't entirely sure if the product would last.
The most important thing is how to think about the startup project—what the conceptual model is. The model needs to enable knowing how to grow it as quickly as possible. What ultimately happens is finding someone with influence and offering them a product or service they take because they were trying to do X, but their current options weren't good enough for Y, and the offering Z helps them overcome the obstacles.
This is very similar to a case study displayed on a website. The job as a founder is not to produce a hundred completely different case studies because that isn't scalable or reproducible. The goal is to build a single case study where the customer says "definitely" before and after the purchase, and repeat that a million times.
This model shifts thinking from startups being a collection of different things requiring knowledge of all of them, to startups being entities that repeat one case study to infinity. All that needs to be done is build a mechanism to repeat that case study.
The steps are:
- The production line building step: how to get people to talk
- The sales step: how to convert potential customers into actual customers
- The delivery step: how to retain existing customers and keep them doing business
Everything done falls under this case study. Using the theory of constraints, determine where the growth obstacle lies—is it a shortage in the production line? If that's the bottleneck, that's the only thing that matters now. Work it out and move to the next point. This allows following the case study factory model, providing a way to think about the startup and know exactly where to focus at any given time.
Instead of just trying to get more customers and close more deals, build case studies by working backward—determining what the case study for a particular company would be. For SpaceX, determine how it was obtained, how persuasion happened, how it was presented, and how to create consistent, replicable case studies. Then it becomes showing the case study to people who say "Yes, that's what I want too." The tool can be used for qualification and elimination, helping people understand what's being done.
There's a whole thread now about building software factories, where they build the products themselves, but there's another version of the factory you're building, and that's the broader version of the sales, user, and case study factory. We're not building software here, we're building case studies. Think of it that way, we're building case studies here. You don't actually have to share a case study and write it. It's just a mental model of how to think about what you're trying to build as a sales strategy or a marketing strategy or a business. The good news is, if you have the survey framework, you describe how we helped them and what they accomplished, and you get a case study.
When you're looking for someone who will buy and use the product, you want them to be very enthusiastic. They're people who snatch the product from your hands before buying it, and then use it afterward like they're addicted. So, they might literally say 'yes.' But the key is that they're not eager to buy and they're not eager to let go. This process is mostly about them snatching the product from your hand. That's your ideal customer. Your job is to find more of them.
Don't recommend trial runs, or proof of concept. Concepts, no design partners. Go straight to 'We're going to sell you this product and launch it and it's going to be amazing.' Sometimes, when you do that, they say, 'Okay, but the way we buy here requires trying the product first.' Don't rush to offer the product.
This process applies to large companies working on new features or new lines of business. When helping two companies launch their second product, the founders say, 'Great, we'll repeat the experiment.' Founders follow this approach with existing customers because they'll try to sell them additional products and services. They're essentially selling new features before they've even developed them.
At an established company, one of the new product leaders said, 'Yeah, the way we get our ideas, all the successful ones came from sales calls where they said, "Great, yeah, you can do this, but can you also do this other thing for us?"' The products suggested by customers during sales calls, asking for a product that met their needs, all worked; the ones they suggested on a whiteboard never did. The idea here is that you have a product, you listen to customer feedback, and you look for these little ideas that might indicate its success.
You apply the theory of attraction step by step. Simply put, you put this theory into practice, you talk to five of your existing customers, you conduct a survey to see if they would actually buy the product, and then you repeat the process. Founders are the ones who should be doing this, especially in startups. Even in established companies, if the product is new, the founders are supposed to handle this task. Non-founders really focus on trying to sell the product and learning through selling, because there are many ways to get lost in the zero-to-one stage.
If things don't work out, there's the idea of 'goblin mode' where you have to try a lot of things, talk to as many people as possible, fly on planes, attend 20 meetings, and look for something. Putting the genie in place is the last resort. All these things serve as a safety net for you in case of an emergency. Time is truly precious. Being stuck is awful. If you are in this difficult zero-to-one phase, it will be the worst time of your life. She doesn't want to prolong it. So, get on a plane, go to the office, go in person, and do whatever it takes to find something.
I hope what has become clear is how simple it is: take inspiration from a framework, present it to people, and see if they will adopt it. There are many ways to complicate things, and there are other ways in which we try to solve every variable in our minds beforehand. Simply drawing inspiration from the framework and seeing if they will adopt it, and thinking less about this process, will lead you to your goal. This is not easy; it's difficult to find a truly successful idea. All of this is here to help you avoid a lot of pain and suffering and to build, and to avoid feeling disappointed, not feeling disappointed, but feeling that there is something, and wasting a lot of your life doing something that will not work.
Think of it as a metal detector on the beach. This is just a metal detector. You may not find metal everywhere. You are searching now, but at least I won't give you a spoon. At least I won't give you a spoon. You mean the beach, right? For example, searching for minerals. You have a metal detector versus searching through the sand with a spoon. Sometimes you might find something, then realize that it has no value.
My favorite book is the four-part 'Nature of Order' series by Christopher Alexander. It is a series of books about architecture. The absolute best thing.
I have two favorite movies that we watch over and over again. One of them is 'Pride of the Sun.' The last film is 'Pride and Prejudice,' and the second is the film 'Penguins of Madagascar.'
I use Muse, and if it works for me, it will work for anyone.
Life is what you make of it.
There's a concept of 'lost ideas.' Ideas that people keep coming up with, but they are bad and don't work, and they keep trying them, and then they discover that they don't work. The common idea is to target a field where there is already a clear winner, without any theory of excellence. I constantly see it as something like: 'Oh my God, Lemless has developed a sales automation tool, and it's self-funded and growing very fast, so let me build the exact same thing or something very similar.' Well, but they have already won in this area, or have already done so. So, unless you have an idea like, 'This type of customer is unrestrained, so we're going to build something different for them,' these ideas often don't work. You feel like you're going crazy because you're wondering, 'Well, it worked for them. What did I do wrong?' And I imagine everyone would answer: 'But it's better.' As we know, the situation can't just get a little better. In short, you are saying, 'Well, this removes obstacles for them.' And it's better than all the alternatives. They'll simply choose that. But I think that opens up a whole other discussion: what if it's twice as good? And I think your advice here is that maybe it's not good enough. There are lots of things, right? You could give me a printer a hundred times better for my house and I wouldn't buy it because I don't need it.
If you like the framework, use it. Tell others about it. Look at the book if it's helpful, and get in touch if you have any ideas or opinions. This is kind of a theoretical framework model that's still being developed. I still feel like I'm scratching the surface of it; it's kind of like, 'This is what I'm going to do for the next 10 or 20 years.' So, if you have any suggestions for improving it, get in touch and let me know. The newsletter is great. The idea of calling it 'Startup Physics' is excellent.
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