The Physics of Startups
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.
00:26:44 · RC, Rob Snyder
[00:26:44] S0: Yeah. And the um what that uh maybe real quick, I I realize I didn't get the examples. Uh can you give me two exam one or two examples of a case study? Like what is um, yeah, what is that what does that look like? [00:26:59] S1: Yeah, okay. Let's let's just do like mine with lovable. That's like a this is a classic one, or or even yours with lovable recently, as as uh we could talk about, which is um I want to create a website, I want to update a website that reflects my my kind of brand needs or whatever. Um right now, because I don't know, I'm about to release a book. That was my case, about to release a book, and my Google Doc website is not good enough. Um uh, but I consider using Squarespace or Wix or one of those point and click ones. And I the limitations on that are I don't hate myself enough to spend five hours clicking around in a point and click thing. I don't have the skill or patience to do that. So I am right, like I am stuck in that situation. Lovable comes around and says, Hey, maybe just tell us what you want to build and we will do it for you. And so I just rage type a three-paragraph essay and I have a website and it's done. And so, and so that's like the example, but but every single example of poll that we've given in this podcast, it in all of my newsletters and everything that like those are all just case studies.
00:28:10 · RC
[00:28:10] S0: Yeah, perfect. Okay, thanks. Just wanted to bring that and actually I kind of like that one because literally I heard your case study and it pulled and and then I pulled through that and like switched my website to lovable because I also had a deadline that I was gonna hit and I needed to not need to wrestle with a website for 15 hours or 20 hours or whatever, multiple weeks. Um, anyways, let's okay, you just brought up constraints. Um, okay, so pipeline sales delivery, like, okay, I get it. You gotta find people, or they've got to find you, or I've got to sell to them, I've got to deliver it to them. Um, why is uh pretend I'm an idiot, which shouldn't be super hard. Why have I been doing this whole time? Exactly. Why where does constraints come in? Like, what does the constraint look like? Um you know, choose, let's say that it's let's put it in the middle. Actually, sales is your constraint. It's not pipeline and it's not delivery. What like what does that constraint look like and why why is that the thing that you need to tackle rather than optimizing pipeline or optimizing delivery?