The Physics of Startups
00:18:51 · RC
[00:18:51] S0: Let's let's take a couple pieces of this because it it took me time. I I think you introduced this concept to me two years ago, three years ago. Like I and it uh now I love it. I'm like medium addicted to it. It's how I think about my startup. Uh but uh at the same time, like it it took it took a while. So let's uh I want to hit those three machines, but first let's talk about a case study. Like my intuition about a case study was basically like came from consulting. It was like a slide that we we put in front of a new client to tell them that we had done this work before, so that hopefully they bought whatever it was that the partners were selling. Um you're referring to something specific with the case study. Um what what is it? And can you give us an example of uh an example or two of like what does a case study look like for a specific startup, or if you need to genericize it, you can?
00:19:49 · Rob Snyder, RC
[00:19:49] S1: Yeah, yeah. So a case study is um certain person at certain company was trying to do something right now for some reason. They considered their available options, and those options weren't good enough. So we offered them something that unblocked them, and as a result, they were able to do XYZ. That's the kind of rough structure of a case study. It's a story. Which people will recognize as pull. Like you've you've put pull into a package. Yes, yeah, yeah. It's it's basically pull, what we offer, so what? Um, and you just package that all together. That is a case study. It it just reads like a case study, it reads like a story. Um, and and yeah, and that is uh essentially the only piece of collateral you need. [00:20:41] S0: And it's uh the what you want from the case study is for a person to read case study or be told case study or see case study, whatever it is, and think that is me. I am the pre-part of the case study, and I want to get to the other end of the case study. And uh and they identify with the most important elements of pull, they understand the connection with supply that your product or solution, whatever it is that you're offering, and the outcome is the thing that they are trying to achieve. [00:21:12] S1: Yes. Yes. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so pull, how we help, and what's their unblocked life look like.
00:21:12 · Rob Snyder, RC
[00:21:12] S1: Yes. Yes. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so pull, how we help, and what's their unblocked life look like. [00:21:19] S0: And so how does uh like if I if I think about like that thing in a box, um the the goal is to, is it like, I don't know, conceptualizing this. I'm sorry, I'm gonna take this too far. It's like take new customer, put them in their own box and create a successful, like they they they purchase the solution, it's implemented, and they end up as the happy, yes, a new happy case study, basically.
00:21:44 · Rob Snyder
[00:21:44] S1: Customer shows up with pull, they show up with pull. That's the whole point of pull. Pull exists before your startup exists. They show up with pull as a potential customer in the pipeline step. We need some way to get them to show up, but that's the pipeline step. And they just show up. Up with poll, they say, here's what my poll is. Then we have sales, which is again basically what what I've been describing in sales is it it's just have them tell you what their poll is, describe what your supply is, and see if they pull or what they do. And you can use a case study as part of that. A lot of people do, but it's still just a case study that's like, here's other people's pull. Does this look like you? Yes. Here's what they wanted. Does that look like you? Yes. Cool. And then and then the sales process is just that. There's a little bit more nuance to it, but not that much. That's the essence of the sales process. And then once they've bought, okay, we know what outcome they are shooting for, right? We know what they're trying to do. We know what their unblocked life is because we talked about that in the sales process. And so it's just deading them there. And so we kind of go through the process. They sh it's basically pipeline is they show up with pull. Sales is we kind of show a case study of somebody who had poll who looks like them and what we did for them. And they say, Yeah, that's what I want. Delivery is we help them become that. Done.
00:23:12 · RC
[00:23:12] S0: Yeah. And then they they either uh you mentioned their unblocked life. It's like uh, which might be a subscription, it might be a project that you have delivered for them, and it and it, you know, it gives them the thing that they wanted. It's like that the happy, satisfied customer at at the end of it. Um, and uh for folks that are watching on uh you know Apple or Spotify or or YouTube, I just pulled up um uh if you're if you're not watching, I'll drop the link for this uh for Rob's Substack in the show notes. Pull it up because Rob has visual, like given basically the visual of imagine this is this is the flow diagram of a startup's uh factory, and it goes potential customers, and then you hit the three machines, pipeline sales, and delivery. Uh, and then you know that the product of the delivery is the package case study essentially that you can then you know kind of like feeds the sales actually part of it, or feeds the pipeline part of it. Um, and there's also this this important element here that you haven't hit yet, which is the drop-off. Like there's waste that happens uh in each of these steps, which is also you know a big part of manufacturing and you're trying to minimize waste. What what do you do with that element of of this, Rob?
00:24:24 · Rob Snyder
[00:24:24] S1: Yeah, so so when you look at your startup as a factory, not as a funnel, not as a like whatever. Um you look at it as a factory, you're then able to import like manufacturing thinking into it. And manufacturing thinking is all about how do we how do we like how does someone pull through the factory with the least amount of waste? And and how do we eliminate unnecessary steps? What does waste look like? How do we root cause analyze where there where where things are getting stuck here? And that's the that's the um thingy. So what I tend to find when when I um when I look at the typical startup sales calls, when they come to me, what I find is that roughly 95% of what happens in their sales calls is waste. It is not just like unhelpful, uh, it is counterproductive. It is convincing the person not to buy. And so when you eliminate that, then right, you're you're making the sales process more effective, compressing it, you're reducing unnecessary steps. Unclear why, but everyone seems to believe you need an ROI calculation in your sales process. I don't get it. I don't get why everyone thinks they need a group demo in their sales process. And you just and so, um, and so all of these steps are added in when um they're actively counterproductive. And so when you have this conceptual model in your head, you then start asking the question, okay, what's minimum necessary to get through the sales process? What do they actually need? And you design, you redesign your sales process around that and you continuously improve it when it's the constraint. And you figure out what you figure out what the constraint is in this the manufacturing system by saying, okay, if we improved this part, like let's consider improving all the different parts in the system uh based on what uh how do we decide which to improve? Well, yeah, you improve the one where if it improves the most if it improves uh the output of case studies uh on a given unit of time increases the most. That's how you grow the fastest. And that's what manufacturing thinking gives you. It you find the constraint.