1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,560 Hey, Rob, it's it's good to see you. 2 00:00:02,560 --> 00:00:06,000 You look a little bit like death warmed over at at the moment 3 00:00:07,160 --> 00:00:11,720 we're back with with girl dad Rob, who's got a one year old 4 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:15,760 who is bringing home illnesses of all from all over the world. 5 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:17,520 We're going. We're going to see how long my 6 00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:20,440 voice holds out and do my best. Yeah. 7 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:24,160 Well, first of all, Congrats early. 8 00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:28,520 Congrats You've you've got your book coming out here in a week 9 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:32,080 and last chance if anybody wants to pre-order it. 10 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:34,920 Anything you'd add on on the book coming out? 11 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:39,560 No, I think many lessons learned about writing and publishing a 12 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:43,840 book that I hopefully will never be dumb enough to have to use 13 00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:47,120 again because writing a book is not worth doing. 14 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:51,800 But whatever. Well, I'm, I'm super excited 15 00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:54,560 about it and anybody that's interested can find the link in 16 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:57,520 in the show notes. It also, it's been kind of nice 17 00:00:57,520 --> 00:00:59,960 for me, as somebody who's never written a book, to get to learn 18 00:00:59,960 --> 00:01:03,120 all these lessons vicariously through watching your suffering 19 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:05,600 over the last couple of months, unfortunately. 20 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:10,640 The only thing better than is a writing a book is not good. 21 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:14,200 Having written a book is good. The only thing better than 22 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:16,960 having written a book is not having written a book is. 23 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:20,160 Not having written a book is. Not having the enterprise 24 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:26,040 entirely so. Amazing well, despite the pain 25 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:28,720 that's behind the writing and the publishing and everything 26 00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:31,680 like that, excited for the book to be available for the rest of 27 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:33,880 us to enjoy without having to experience that pain. 28 00:01:34,720 --> 00:01:38,120 Today we've got a reflective post. 29 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:42,920 So 5 lessons from 50 zero to 1,000,000 journeys. 30 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:46,680 So Robbie, you took a step back, thought about it. 31 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:49,080 You know, at this point we've talked about the thousands of 32 00:01:50,600 --> 00:01:53,000 sales calls from startups that you've watched. 33 00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:55,840 You've worked probably with hundreds of of startups at this 34 00:01:55,840 --> 00:02:02,360 point and more than 50 have gone zero to zero to 1,000,000, which 35 00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:06,680 is kind of a crazy statistic like being part of the maybe. 36 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:12,040 What does it mean to have been part of 50 zero to 1,000,000 AR 37 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,600 journeys? So I've, I've done 3 as a 38 00:02:15,640 --> 00:02:23,920 founder and then I have been a kind of like advisor consultant 39 00:02:23,920 --> 00:02:29,120 thing some, some way, like directly involved almost always 40 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:34,320 shaping the sales pitch in the sales process for, you know, 41 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:38,320 these, these other companies for, you know, a variety too. 42 00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:40,040 And it's like been interesting too. 43 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:41,600 I was thinking through the different kinds. 44 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:44,480 There's, you know, what's what's in my wheelhouse, which is the 45 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:50,280 mid market B to BAI start it up. You know, those are, those are 46 00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:51,440 great. They make a ton of sense. 47 00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:54,560 But then I was like, oh, wait, no, there's there's been a 48 00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:57,880 consumer company or two, there's been deep tech companies, you 49 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:04,800 know, out of like out of Harvard grid thing for professors who 50 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,040 are building startups, which have been kind of interesting. 51 00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:12,560 And, and so, yeah, it's been a variety of different things. 52 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:14,640 And so I like went back through my list and I was like, Oh, 53 00:03:14,640 --> 00:03:17,320 well, it is. And it's, and it's, there's even 54 00:03:17,320 --> 00:03:20,880 been a product like growth one, there's been some enterprise 55 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:23,560 one, there's been, there's been some like ones that sell into 56 00:03:23,640 --> 00:03:26,560 public sector. Even have even, I used to kind 57 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:29,600 of like tap out and say, if you sell a contract that's over 58 00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:31,400 100,000, I'd have no idea how to help you. 59 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:32,920 Well, cool. There's been a couple that have 60 00:03:32,920 --> 00:03:34,680 sold multi $1,000,000 contracts as well. 61 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:38,240 And so it's like, all right, so it's been, it's been interesting 62 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:43,320 to see what's similar and different across all of these 63 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:45,640 different contexts across all the different industries. 64 00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:49,400 And the, the, I guess we'll get to the similarities, but there 65 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:51,840 are very, there are some very striking similarities in in all 66 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:54,720 these cases. Yeah, let's let's jump into that 67 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:56,920 and we're going to hit 5 lessons. 68 00:03:56,920 --> 00:03:59,400 I really enjoyed reading through these. 69 00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:02,760 I think some of the themes will jump out to folks as familiar, 70 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:07,840 but also a really helpful reminder of like the core 71 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:13,400 principles of applying the pull framework of finding demand of, 72 00:04:14,280 --> 00:04:16,560 you know, again, that lesson that's just like burned into my 73 00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:19,640 brain. It's it's easier to build a fast 74 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:23,200 growing startup and a slow growing startup and in many ways 75 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,560 and for anybody that's you know, it, I think founders that are 76 00:04:27,560 --> 00:04:29,320 focused on that. Is there anybody else that this 77 00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:31,920 is particularly relevant for that you'd flag? 78 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:34,320 No. I think founders, generally, 79 00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:36,960 anybody who's interested in entrepreneurship, why startups 80 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:39,120 take off, why people buy things, this will be helpful. 81 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:41,520 Cool. And before we jump into the five 82 00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:44,600 lessons, do you have, all right, you've had, you've had 50 that 83 00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:46,880 you've worked with. Do you have favorites that jump 84 00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:49,480 out? I do, I do. 85 00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:54,600 So the the two favorites I have were the first ones where it 86 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:58,800 worked that weren't my startup. So it was startup called MOOC 87 00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:02,240 test which did AIQA automation services. 88 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:06,480 So like services as software before that was a thing and on 89 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:09,680 rant who do customer onboarding software? 90 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:13,760 And both of those were friends, startups who reached out and I 91 00:05:13,760 --> 00:05:15,960 was like, I don't know if I can help you, but sure, let me let 92 00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:19,040 me give it a try. And both of those cases it like 93 00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:22,040 started to work and and it was very cool to see it go from not 94 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:24,040 working to working. And then I guess the other one 95 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:27,320 that's been super cool, there's been quite a few who have done 96 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:29,920 like this, but the one that I've kept closest in touch with is 97 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:35,080 Jump where they basically, you know, we do, we spin them up a 98 00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:40,120 sales deck and they go zero to raise $100 million within two 99 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:42,120 years. And it's just like insane how 100 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:44,240 fast they've grown. I think they've, I think they 101 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:47,400 put this publicly like 30,000 customers or something like that 102 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:50,800 in, in two years and just, you know, it's just amazing. 103 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:54,080 And they still use the same sales deck, the and the the 104 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:56,960 exact same sales deck, maybe with a couple of, you know, 105 00:05:57,320 --> 00:06:00,040 aesthetic improvements, which I am incapable of, but it, but 106 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:05,760 it's just cool to see when it's, it's been cool to see just that 107 00:06:05,760 --> 00:06:08,160 it works. Like it's just kind of the first 108 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:10,920 couple times I was like, I don't know, I don't, I, I can't even 109 00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:13,680 articulate what I think I learned doing this myself a 110 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:16,000 couple times. So let's see if it works. 111 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:17,480 And then. And so it was cool to see. 112 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:22,040 Oh, it actually kind of does does work and then oh wow, it 113 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:25,040 real life it. This isn't just for companies 114 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:29,240 that are desperate to get anything to work and get to 00 115 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:30,920 million after they've suffered forever. 116 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:32,640 Like this can actually create hyper growth. 117 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,640 Was is been neat too. Yeah, that's those are some of 118 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:39,560 the ones that I I really enjoy hearing about and interacting 119 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:45,520 with the founders kind of via you in many cases are the, are 120 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:49,520 the folks that they have a product and it's growing, but 121 00:06:49,520 --> 00:06:52,920 there's just something that's not quite there. 122 00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:56,120 It's like people are buying, but there may be buying slowly. 123 00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:59,280 And then it's it's often something very subtle that 124 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:02,480 you'll come in and be like, oh, the the positioning is off by a 125 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:04,520 little bit or you're targeting this level. 126 00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:05,680 You need to be targeting this level. 127 00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:08,720 Or, or we talked about an example recently, I think on the 128 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:11,240 podcast that it was like they were targeting 1 industry. 129 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:14,520 They took the same supply, moved it to a different industry and 130 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:18,840 it just it hockey stick basically because the demand of 131 00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:22,720 the pool existed there. And so they just showed up into 132 00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:27,120 that space. And like seeing some of those, I 133 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:30,960 find them very inspiring, as you know, to to see how founders 134 00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:33,720 have taken startups that, yeah, I like their viable and turned 135 00:07:33,720 --> 00:07:37,920 it into something that's really special and just a hard but also 136 00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:40,280 fun, you know, fun to do. Yeah. 137 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:42,320 And I think, I think one of the one of the other ones, I, I 138 00:07:42,520 --> 00:07:45,760 can't talk about it publicly, but what what we found was they, 139 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:49,040 they were positioning, it was, it wasn't a big product and 140 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:50,840 still they were positioning it too big. 141 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:56,080 And so they had like a 7080% close rate in sales calls, but 142 00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:59,480 the sales calls just went super long and it, it just wasn't. 143 00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:03,680 And, and so we slimmed it down to 1 slide, one feature, 2, 144 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:08,640 maybe 2 slides, one feature they focused on and, and like, it's 145 00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:12,120 just, it's just a machine now. And it's really, really cool to 146 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:13,760 see that. That's awesome. 147 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:15,600 All right, cool. Let's jump into a couple of 148 00:08:15,600 --> 00:08:18,720 these. The five lessons, Rob, I'll read 149 00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:21,960 through the five and then why don't we pick a couple of them 150 00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:26,320 to to jump into? The first lesson is pull is 151 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:30,360 everything. The second lesson is it almost 152 00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:32,919 always takes at least one unfolding. 153 00:08:32,919 --> 00:08:34,600 We should, we should probably talk about that one because we 154 00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:36,080 haven't talked about unfolding in a little while. 155 00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:40,520 The the third one is the thing that works is almost always 156 00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:44,440 embarrassingly small. The 4th is most founders are 157 00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:48,320 counterproductive at sales, but so are most sales people. 158 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:52,200 And #5 is everything hinges on figuring out how to get 159 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:55,360 potential customers to talk to you, which is harder than you 160 00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:56,840 think. Are there are there ones there 161 00:08:56,840 --> 00:09:00,240 Rob that that jump out that are worth double clicking on? 162 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:04,920 So we have, we can't. So I say everything I every time 163 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:07,440 I think I talk about poll too much, I realize it don't 164 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:09,960 emphasize it enough. We, we therefore have to talk 165 00:09:09,960 --> 00:09:13,040 about poll and then we can move on from there. 166 00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:16,440 And I think we can hit all of them because I think we can give 167 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:20,960 a high level overview. There's there's this thing about 168 00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:25,280 poll where Aristotle has four causes. 169 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:28,160 I don't ask me to name all of them. 170 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:30,480 I have material efficient something or something else, 171 00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:32,560 obviously. And I know that there's like the 172 00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:38,640 this I this idea of causality is really, really interesting and 173 00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:41,600 important and not something that we really talk about a lot, but 174 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:47,160 pull in every sense of the word cause causes a startup to work. 175 00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:52,480 I think it's we're just the philosophy nerds here are going 176 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:55,280 to just just Take Me Out back and beat me senseless for this. 177 00:09:55,280 --> 00:10:00,880 But I think there's this thing called, Oh God, like the 178 00:10:00,880 --> 00:10:03,000 ontological cause. Is that a thing? 179 00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:06,040 It it probably is. You're not talking with a a 180 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:08,960 philosophy or a logic nerd, unfortunately, Rob, so I'm not 181 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:11,360 going to be helpful. Well, there's this idea that 182 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:20,800 the, the, the light emitted on a wall from a WAMP is not possible 183 00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:24,160 without the existence of the WAMP, right? 184 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:28,040 Like that. And, and So what we see it when 185 00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:31,240 we look at business, when we look at a business's website, 186 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:33,960 when we see its metrics, when we see its products, we see the 187 00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:39,440 light reflecting on the wall. We don't see the lamp itself 188 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:44,720 pull is the lamp that is causing that, that's bringing that into 189 00:10:44,720 --> 00:10:50,800 existence. And so it is this, it is the 190 00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:55,080 thing that makes a startup take off that we are not taught 191 00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:56,960 about, we are not taught to look for. 192 00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:02,040 It is way more precise than pain points or problems. 193 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:05,920 It's not about value props, but it's what makes value props work 194 00:11:06,680 --> 00:11:11,080 or not work. And basically every startup that 195 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:12,680 takes off. No, no, not basically every 196 00:11:12,680 --> 00:11:14,520 startup. Every startup that takes off. 197 00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:19,600 Fines pull. You can brute force your way to 198 00:11:19,640 --> 00:11:20,480 a million. They are. 199 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:23,720 I've seen a bunch of startups do it with close rates of 10 to 200 00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:27,000 20%, and it's kind of all founder twisting arm, all 201 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:29,560 begging. But you're convincing people to 202 00:11:29,560 --> 00:11:33,480 buy and then you have to convince them to not churn and 203 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:37,720 it just always stalls out. And so at some point when you're 204 00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:40,880 pushing, a lot of startups push for the first kind of 10 205 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:45,120 customers to find the one who who pulls, but you always have 206 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:48,560 to find who pulls, what is pull and how do we get that 207 00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:50,000 repeatable? Like how do we find the 208 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,800 repeatable portion of that and and sell based on it? 209 00:11:53,280 --> 00:11:59,240 That's it's just, I cannot understate that if you don't 210 00:11:59,240 --> 00:12:03,760 know what pull is in your situation, your startup will 211 00:12:03,760 --> 00:12:08,800 only take off by accident. Yeah. 212 00:12:09,160 --> 00:12:13,440 And you know, when you, when I really like that lamp example, 213 00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:17,920 embarrassingly, I thought, OK, what's the lamp while you were 214 00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:19,920 still talking through that? And I was like, the lamp is like 215 00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:22,520 the product of that. Like I meet like my, my default 216 00:12:22,520 --> 00:12:27,800 was to go to the supply. And you know, rather than like 217 00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:31,200 the lamp is actually much closer to what is going on in a 218 00:12:31,640 --> 00:12:34,880 customer's life and many customers life, whether or not 219 00:12:34,880 --> 00:12:37,680 you exist. And then the startup discovers 220 00:12:37,680 --> 00:12:40,040 that and that is what the thing that explodes. 221 00:12:40,840 --> 00:12:45,040 If you know, if folks are new to the to the pull framework or 222 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:47,640 just a refresher, go back and read. 223 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,840 I go back and re read your some of your original work on pull 224 00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:56,280 every like so often just to refresh on the the elements of 225 00:12:56,280 --> 00:12:59,520 it and such. Anything else you want to hit on 226 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:01,560 that one or should we go into the the second? 227 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:03,800 One, yeah. So just the last thing on pole 228 00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:08,000 is like when pole is present, this the cost, it's a very weird 229 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:11,920 thing, but this makes everything else work, which is they're 230 00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:14,720 already convinced to buy before they know about a startup and 231 00:13:14,720 --> 00:13:18,720 even before the startup exists. Their case study is written, 232 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:24,480 just missing a few details. Yeah, the start up shows up and 233 00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:29,600 and is basically the last couple of auto complete bullet points 234 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:32,800 on an already written case study. 235 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:35,680 And it's just, you know, how exactly did we help them do the 236 00:13:35,680 --> 00:13:40,560 thing they were trying to do? That is, that is and and when 237 00:13:40,560 --> 00:13:43,560 somebody has pulled they, they buy with almost no convincing, 238 00:13:43,560 --> 00:13:48,480 very, very little convincing, which leads to a different 239 00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:50,440 approach to like everything downstream. 240 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:54,240 What? What do you mean by the case 241 00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:57,760 study is already written? So if you think about a customer 242 00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:02,120 case study, right, the, the important part is the, the first 243 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:06,680 part where it's like they were struggling with XYZ and tried 244 00:14:06,680 --> 00:14:09,720 ABC and didn't work. But they're trying to accomplish 245 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:11,960 this. And here's what they what they 246 00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:14,600 wanted their world to look like, what their world needed to look 247 00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:17,120 like, right? Those are all the parts of the 248 00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:21,760 case study except for the bullet point about how you help them 249 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:25,120 overcome the limitations of their existing options. 250 00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:30,760 It's just that it's like that's the bullet point that's missing. 251 00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:33,600 Yeah, interesting. I really like that framing. 252 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:38,560 How about we hit the second one? It almost always takes at least 253 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:42,040 one unfolding. And let me, I'm going to read a 254 00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:44,800 couple lines that you have from this one. 255 00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:48,840 The startups that don't take off cling to their product or vision 256 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:50,840 in the face of market indifference. 257 00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:53,800 And this is the, you know, the concept that you've embedded 258 00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:57,000 into this one, which I really like, Rob, in their minds, 259 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:01,840 supply or you can think about product is fixed, but demand is 260 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:04,640 variable. Embracing pull, on the other 261 00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:09,440 hand, requires realizing that demand is fixed while supply is 262 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:11,560 variable. Can you take that in whatever 263 00:15:11,560 --> 00:15:13,240 direction you want to go? So I think that's really 264 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:18,720 insightful. When I see startups not take 265 00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:23,880 off, it is because they have a fixed view of what their product 266 00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:27,320 is, what their vision is, how they want the world to work. 267 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:34,000 And they are pitching that at people looking for people who 268 00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:37,960 happen to want that. And So what winds up happening 269 00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:40,320 is they have a lot of conversations with a get a lot 270 00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:43,320 of head nods, but no reactions otherwise. 271 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:51,680 A start up came to me recently and and said that they had to go 272 00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:55,640 through the experience of using the pull framework in their 273 00:15:55,640 --> 00:16:01,680 sales calls to finally get to the point where they had to 274 00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:04,840 accept they were pushing supply onto a world that didn't have 275 00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:14,120 demand so that they could for a moment ignore their supply and 276 00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:16,920 ask. Assuming we had no product, 277 00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:19,760 assume it like just our product is totally irrelevant here. 278 00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:24,920 What's actually on the demand side, who is independent of us 279 00:16:24,920 --> 00:16:28,440 trying to do something and blocked their existing options 280 00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:31,360 aren't good enough such that they will RIP something out of 281 00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:35,880 our hands. And, and that requires you to 282 00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:38,960 say, OK, cool, supply. Let's ignore, let's ignore 283 00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:41,440 supply. Let's totally not focus on 284 00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:45,120 supply and think just about people in their lives and in 285 00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:47,920 what ways they are stuck trying to do things that they're unable 286 00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:52,600 to do. And, and, and like, based on 287 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:56,240 that, that is a thing that we don't control out there in the 288 00:16:56,240 --> 00:17:00,480 world. We have to find, once we find 289 00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:04,960 that we can design, we can bend the world to design something to 290 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:08,480 unblock them in that case, which is basically supply is variable, 291 00:17:08,480 --> 00:17:11,599 we figure out what The thing is. And so basically every startup 292 00:17:11,599 --> 00:17:15,800 that that I've seen take off, they always start with this kind 293 00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:20,000 of product vision. They start with this and it, it 294 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,079 always comes from a good place. It's always well researched, 295 00:17:22,079 --> 00:17:24,200 it's always super logical, makes a ton of sense. 296 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:30,960 And in order to succeed, they almost always have to unfold 297 00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:34,280 based on what they loan on the demand side to, to design 298 00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:37,200 something that fits what actually is on the demand side, 299 00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:41,040 which is either, right, like it's same product but kind of to 300 00:17:41,080 --> 00:17:43,120 a different market or kind of same product to a different 301 00:17:43,120 --> 00:17:44,720 market. It's a slice of the product like 302 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:47,920 we were talking earlier, or it's something totally new. 303 00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:54,640 I've seen, I don't know, maybe 10, 10, maybe 20. 304 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:58,480 I don't know if I had to ballpark it say 10 or 20 of the 305 00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:02,120 startups that I kind of like helped zero to annoying, 306 00:18:02,120 --> 00:18:05,920 including including mine, my first one. 307 00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:10,920 Full code base rewrites, but no nothing shared from version 1 to 308 00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:18,640 version that worked. Yeah, control a delete and let's 309 00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:20,520 talk. It's been a while since we've 310 00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:23,840 talked about unfolding. I really like what you wrote 311 00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:26,280 also in in the blog. I won't read here about the 312 00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:28,840 difference between a pivot and unfolding. 313 00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:32,320 We haven't, we haven't talked about unfolding a little while. 314 00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:35,240 Rob, can you help us understand what, what do you mean when you 315 00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:39,280 talk about a product unfolding? And then maybe you know if I can 316 00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:42,880 put a recommendation for your long list and growing list of 317 00:18:43,120 --> 00:18:45,640 topics like dive more in the future and the difference 318 00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:48,800 between pivot and unfolding. But anyways, why don't you help 319 00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:49,920 us understand unfolding real quick? 320 00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:52,520 Yeah, unfolding comes from Christopher Alexander, who is an 321 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:57,240 architect. And it is about how it's, it's 322 00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:02,400 an evolutionary process and it evolved, we evolved towards 323 00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:08,120 something and rather than just kind of changing directions in a 324 00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:10,480 variety of different ways, changing random variables in a, 325 00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:13,400 in a like it doesn't like, it doesn't make sense to just 326 00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:16,400 change one variable in a complex system because all the other 327 00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:19,240 variables are, are connected. And so you have to evolve a 328 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:21,200 system like that. And unfolding is the process of 329 00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:24,600 evolving basically what you think pull is and what you offer 330 00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:28,400 on the supply side in a kind of sequential way based on what you 331 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:30,760 learn that pull this. Yeah. 332 00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:34,080 And is there always, can unfolding be targeting? 333 00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:36,880 Can it be messaging or like what's the yeah what, what 334 00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:40,160 constitutes unfolding? So I I think of it mostly as 335 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:44,960 like if you if you imagine a case study, you have a 336 00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:48,320 hypothesis of a case study. As you change one line in the 337 00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:50,640 case study, the rest of the case study doesn't make sense anymore 338 00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:53,840 and needs to be rewritten. And so it's just think of it as 339 00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:56,520 creating sequential case studies that are closer and closer to 340 00:19:56,520 --> 00:19:59,960 true pull. Interesting, interesting. 341 00:20:01,120 --> 00:20:03,840 Why don't we hit that? The third one, the thing that 342 00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:07,720 works is almost always embarrassingly small. 343 00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:10,240 You hinted at this with one of your one of your favorites, but. 344 00:20:11,080 --> 00:20:14,640 This is what you're right about that the the initial market 345 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:18,360 isn't huge and the product this market needs seems tiny. 346 00:20:18,360 --> 00:20:21,000 Talking about the startups that you've seen take off. 347 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:24,120 When you understand the pull framework and pull theory, you 348 00:20:24,120 --> 00:20:26,240 realize that customers don't want big. 349 00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:29,240 They just want whatever is on their To Do List done. 350 00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:32,680 Why don't you like, are there examples that you would call out 351 00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:34,400 here or what would you say about? 352 00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:38,200 Yeah, why? It's embarrassingly small. 353 00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:41,360 So this is just always the reaction. 354 00:20:41,360 --> 00:20:44,680 So there's a startup that that I was talking to, they're out of 355 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:46,680 YC, they're selling into insurance. 356 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,320 They had kind of like gone in a bunch of different directions 357 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,560 and they wanted to sell this like platform that can do all 358 00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:57,440 these different workflows. And it turns out that the, the 359 00:20:57,440 --> 00:20:59,840 potential customers, these insurance brokers, like the 360 00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:03,440 product they actually want just does one simple thing. 361 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:06,280 And they, the startup came to me and this is when it clicked for 362 00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:10,600 me because I keep hearing this like, but it can't just be that, 363 00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:14,760 like, why not? And it, it's this common 364 00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:18,000 reaction that, that, that I see of when you find something that 365 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:20,960 actually takes off the surface area of it is actually super 366 00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:22,960 small. And it, it can't be super big. 367 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:24,760 It has to be, it has to be coherent. 368 00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:26,480 It has to fit what's on the demand side. 369 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:29,440 But you don't want it to be big because the bigger it is, the 370 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:31,600 more they have to think about, the more features they have to 371 00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:35,280 understand and all of those things and surface area for them 372 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,840 to be able to, one, understand it. 373 00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:39,880 It's very hard for people to understand what the heck we're 374 00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:43,480 talking about. And two, they understand each 375 00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,000 piece of it. They have to assess if each 376 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:49,280 piece fits, the more things they need to have to assess if it's 377 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:51,640 going to fit or not, but less likely it is to fit. 378 00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:55,400 It's just it's, you know, it's. It would be weird if all 40 379 00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:57,800 features you want to highlight actually fit what they need. 380 00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:03,600 Having a minor internal existential crisis about how big 381 00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:09,040 my product is, right? I think I need to heed your 382 00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:12,880 advice on this one. Why don't, why don't we hit #4 383 00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:17,680 Most founders are counterproductive at sales, but 384 00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:21,520 so are most sales people. First, you're, you're not saying 385 00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:23,040 that they're bad at sales, you're saying they're 386 00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:25,280 counterproductive at sales. Why not? 387 00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:26,800 Why don't you go off on? That and a lot of the things 388 00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:31,920 that we are taught about sales make you worse at sales, make 389 00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:36,200 you more counterproductive at sales because like, yeah, I, I 390 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,600 had AI have a story in the book where I followed a very popular 391 00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:42,040 framework for sales that caused us, that caused the potential 392 00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:44,120 customer that I was pitching to. Again, we followed the 393 00:22:44,120 --> 00:22:46,440 framework. We're not not idiots like me and 394 00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:48,800 my head of sales. We read the book, followed the 395 00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:53,320 framework and it went so poorly that they that this massive 396 00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:56,040 potential customer that could have taken us from 5 to 20 397 00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,000 million plus AR and and like months, right? 398 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:04,040 Like they were so offended that they took our pitch and gave it 399 00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,080 to a competitor and asked them to build it. 400 00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:08,080 And they did. And so it was. 401 00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:14,800 And so the, in order to sell effectively consistently, you 402 00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,080 have to have a theory about why people buy things. 403 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:22,240 And the, the theory, if you kind of read underneath our first of 404 00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:25,720 all our intuitions about how sales works, but also if you 405 00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:29,200 read some of the kind of typical sales books you're told to read, 406 00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:32,680 it feels like, and, and it's fine. 407 00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:36,320 They're designed for sales people who are given a territory 408 00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:40,480 and said and given a number and said and, and said, don't worry 409 00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:43,240 about customer satisfaction necessary like hit the number. 410 00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:45,920 And that's OK. In that context, this the kind 411 00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:51,000 of like sales advice is counterproductive but works well 412 00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:54,640 enough that whatever what I've seen is just, you know, this, 413 00:23:54,720 --> 00:24:00,360 all of this presupposes that sales is me convincing you to 414 00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:02,160 buy something. Yeah. 415 00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,240 And that doesn't. That's not what causes sales. 416 00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:06,040 We talked about the physics of sales before. 417 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:10,320 What causes sales is if they have pull and if they have 418 00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:13,080 pulled or trying to do something blocked from doing it. 419 00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,120 All we need to do is show up and show them something that 420 00:24:16,120 --> 00:24:19,000 unblocks them or even just talk about something that unblocks 421 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:22,800 them and help them assess if it fits into what they need. 422 00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:27,000 Yeah, that simple. Which is basically anything more 423 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,880 than doing that is convincing them not to buy for the surface 424 00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:33,640 area reason we just talked about, it's creating additional 425 00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,400 surface area. Or it's like lecturing them and 426 00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,040 say I don't need to be lectured on the future procurement and 427 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:41,800 thank you very much. Like I'm, I'm trying to do X. 428 00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:47,120 And so all the anything other than just kind of finding people 429 00:24:47,360 --> 00:24:50,800 who has pull, who are weird not to buy and, and offering them 430 00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,440 something that fits and seeing what they do and like. 431 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:58,640 And, and anything other than that tends to be 432 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:00,440 counterproductive. And it's just because we have 433 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,800 the wrong theory in our heads about why people buy things. 434 00:25:05,120 --> 00:25:09,720 You know, I went back into my three years ago go emails 435 00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:12,240 looking for a link that I shared with somebody and I came across 436 00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:19,000 one of my early, early decks and it was it was all I I offended 437 00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:21,960 everything about like what you just talked about. 438 00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,080 Like there was education, there was market. 439 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,680 This is why you should care. There was a lengthy explanation 440 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:28,800 that didn't really make sense. There was there was. 441 00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:33,360 So it was all supply focused and and literally nothing that was 442 00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,680 remotely close to what's the project that you're trying to 443 00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,320 already accomplish and how we help you do that. 444 00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,480 Yeah, you write something else really interesting and this in 445 00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,880 this section about why or most founders are counterproductive 446 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:49,880 at sales. You write every startup that 447 00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:54,080 grows very fast narrows their targeting and focuses more on 448 00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:58,520 disqualification than persuasion in their sales process. 449 00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,880 When they find someone with pool sales is about helping that 450 00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,280 person buy. What do you can you, can you 451 00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,400 just quickly Rob, tell us what do you mean? 452 00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:09,920 They focus more on disqualification than 453 00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,520 persuasion? I was talking with the founder 454 00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,920 who has grown quite fast and, you know, I basically I help 455 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,280 startups kind of get figure it out at 1st. 456 00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,600 And then they will often bring in a kind of like sales coach 457 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:27,440 for as they hire sales people to help, you know, with all this 458 00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,400 kind of stuff. And, and what she said really 459 00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:35,680 struck me, which is, yeah, my time is insanely valuable. 460 00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:41,600 I only have so many hours in a day and so I can't waste time 461 00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:45,440 with people who don't have poll and aren't going to buy. 462 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:52,800 So she spends none of her time persuading in early sales calls. 463 00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:57,400 The early sales calls are just about like, do you actually have 464 00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,040 poll right now and want to buy? And, and like, does our benefit? 465 00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:06,280 Do you actually want to buy? If not, great follow up with us 466 00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:08,680 when? When that's the case, there's no 467 00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:14,000 persuasion at all. Once they say yeah no I do have 468 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,440 pull. You seem like a fit then. 469 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,280 Cool. Then it's worth her time to 470 00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:22,440 invest further. But if you if if you actually 471 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,600 believe poll is a real thing and it governs why people, then you 472 00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,120 don't want to waste your time with people who don't have poll 473 00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,560 and so you're really just trying to get the people your sale. 474 00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,920 Your goal is to only talk to people who have poll, and if 475 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,760 they don't have poll, you want to remove them from your 476 00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,040 pipeline so you waste even less time with them. 477 00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,880 Yeah, I bet our listener can think of a customer, maybe it's 478 00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:51,160 current, maybe it's past one who they spent way too much time on. 479 00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,360 I can think of like 10 right now where it should have been like, 480 00:27:54,360 --> 00:27:57,000 wow, I wish I could have taken those hours and, and put them 481 00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,120 into a much more valuable search for people that were easier, who 482 00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:02,520 are there was they already had demand. 483 00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:06,040 They didn't require commencing. All right, let's get to #5 real 484 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:07,800 quick. And then, and then we can, we 485 00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,640 can wrap everything #5 everything hinges on figuring 486 00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:15,040 out how to get potential customers to talk to you, which 487 00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:19,080 is harder than you think. What is going on like this? 488 00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,160 I want you to just talk about this for a second and also 489 00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,960 answer why does this even need to be mentioned? 490 00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:31,560 Which like it it does, I know it does, like I've made this 491 00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,960 mistake, but why? Why is this something that we 492 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,680 even have to bring up? So I've just been talking to 493 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,520 startups recently and I've been comparing the startups that take 494 00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,840 off with the ones that don't and, or the ones that just like 495 00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,760 take forever to get there. And so the ones that just take 496 00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:48,840 forever to get there are the ones that don't meet with many 497 00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:51,960 people or they don't want. And like that's, that's just the 498 00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,000 first bottleneck and it's, you know, starting with one and 499 00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,120 they're like having five sales calls a month. 500 00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:02,200 It's like, OK, I know startups that are having five sales calls 501 00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:06,000 a day and, and learning from those. 502 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:10,120 And if you just like, imagine you learn one important thing 503 00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:14,440 and each group of five sales calls, the the difference in 504 00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:19,200 learning velocity is just, it's just obvious if you're having 505 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:23,440 more sales calls in a given day. And so like that's it's just if 506 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,640 you think of, if you think of the case study factory, like the 507 00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:30,320 first bottleneck is pipeline. And so yeah, like if you don't 508 00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,080 have enough conversation and then the the layer on top of 509 00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,800 that, which is like whenever I talk to a startup in that 510 00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:39,640 situation, I feel like it's a 5 alarm fire crisis. 511 00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:46,680 Like I'd feel, I'd feel awful, anxious, like horrible, not have 512 00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:48,480 it going a couple days without a sales call. 513 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:53,920 Like that would just be that to me, would make me just not feel 514 00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,360 good and what I said. For the listener that you do 515 00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,360 feel that way, then on on the receiving end of the DMS, 516 00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,120 whatever that's happened, yeah. And it's, you should feel 517 00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:05,360 paranoid when that's not happening. 518 00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:07,800 Like it, it doesn't make sense not to feel that way. 519 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,920 And the sense that I, and so I feel that way, but I don't feel 520 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:13,800 like every founder feels that way. 521 00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,920 And, and, and then, you know, I just like, I'll push on it and 522 00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,240 be like, OK, So what does your calendar look like? 523 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:24,560 And it's a bunch of nonsense. And, and, and so if you ask what 524 00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,200 does my calendar say about my philosophy? 525 00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,640 It's like, it's often like, I think I'm going to take off even 526 00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:34,120 if I don't spend any time trying to get customers made with me or 527 00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:36,160 even if I outsource lead gem to somebody. 528 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,680 And it's just like, that's not, that's not going to happen. 529 00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:43,200 And so, and so, yeah, it's it, you know, winds up being how 530 00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,840 fast can you find pull, how fast can you find poll? 531 00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:51,640 And then once you find poll, how fast can you debug the system so 532 00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:56,520 that you're just stacking new customers And as as compressed a 533 00:30:56,520 --> 00:31:00,400 way possible, condensing your sales process, kind of filling 534 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:05,200 your calendar with with meetings that turn into a compressed sale 535 00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,960 with a very high conversion rate, then handing that off and 536 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:09,600 then replicating and then scaling that. 537 00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,520 Like that's that's the whole thing. 538 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,640 And so the main thing I just see is that people just don't the, 539 00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,000 the people don't treat that like it's the only thing like their 540 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,960 life depends on that. Yeah, yeah. 541 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:32,840 Rob, you also hit some bonus things specific to why the 542 00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:39,040 prevailing, you know, pop advice basically for sales and how 543 00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:42,200 startups work are wrong, which includes discovery interviews, 544 00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:47,200 unpaid design partnerships, big visions and plans which are 545 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,560 contradictory to several of the things that you wrote earlier in 546 00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,760 the blog. Anything else you would add here 547 00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:59,720 Rob, before we before we wrap? So I would say the most of 548 00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:05,000 hopefully most of what I talked to is like pretty practical and 549 00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:09,080 straightforward. It's just find people who want 550 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,640 to buy from you and and sell them what they want to buy and 551 00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,120 like figure out everything else out along the way. 552 00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:16,920 That's always how startups have have worked. 553 00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,360 And I feel like we have, I don't want to say over 554 00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:23,480 intellectualized it, but we have like wrongly intellectualized it 555 00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:28,520 or incorrectly intellectualized it into a set of theories and 556 00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:32,080 playbooks and things that basically prevent you from doing 557 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,160 that, that like actually prevent you from doing the obvious 558 00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,080 things and make you feel like you shouldn't be doing them. 559 00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:45,280 And so, yeah, I don't know. It's a it is interesting to see 560 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:50,720 how things can be make total logical sense, be totally 561 00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:55,760 reasonable, even be backed by experimental data and be wrong. 562 00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:00,080 It makes you, it makes you. That's my broader thinking about 563 00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,360 the world. But but yeah, that's that's kind 564 00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:06,280 of my reflection on everything that I've been taught about 565 00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:12,080 entrepreneurship. Well, why don't we wrap around 566 00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,480 here any actions that founders should take in the meantime? 567 00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:18,960 Go sell. I don't. 568 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,320 Know get, get 5 calls, 5 calls a day or five calls a week and, 569 00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,520 and figure it out. We'll, we'll leave the, the link 570 00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:31,520 to Rob sub SAC and the show notes as as well as links to 571 00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:33,440 pre-order your book or order your book. 572 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,080 It'll be out here shortly. And then you've also got a 573 00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,280 course that if folks want a deeper dive, basically you've 574 00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,680 got a publicly available, of course that folks can can buy. 575 00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,720 And it's, it's very similar to your PMF camps that you've done 576 00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,600 in the past, like a lot of really great content there. 577 00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,080 If there's nothing else to add, Rob, why don't we call it a day? 578 00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:56,960 Cool, I'm gonna crawl up in a ball and die. 579 00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,080 All right, we'll see everybody next week maybe.