Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:25:22 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:25:22] S0: Yeah, you look for a couple things. The thing that really, really matters is that they actually try to buy. They say, okay, cool. How do we get started? And they will do that. I have a friend who was selling into... He kind of pivoted around for a while, but he knew he found pull when someone, an exec in pharma, before he had a product said, If you can do that, I will pay you right now. So, okay, that's the signal you are looking for. What you're looking for as well is they're leaning in. Wait a second, you can do what? What you're not looking for is kinda, like, leaned out enthusiasm. Okay. Well, tell me more. Well, let me... Yeah. We'll we'll think about it. Can you send more information so our team can review that? Like, you know, and and any of those kinds of things, anything that is not like, okay. How do we actually move forward on this? It's just not worth your life force going after. [00:26:13] S1: It's interesting how much body language and just, like, the physical experience of getting excited about an idea is is a sign that it is good. I just had Josh Woodward on the podcast, head of Google Labs, and he's similarly... Like, you see a twinkle in their eyes, and their eyes just light up. And it's so interesting that that's a sign of of pull. Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:32] S0: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's... What you're seeing is is it weird for them not to buy right now? Are they, like, are they behaving as if it's weird for them not to buy?
00:26:32 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:26:32] S0: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's... What you're seeing is is it weird for them not to buy right now? Are they, like, are they behaving as if it's weird for them not to buy? [00:26:41] S1: Mhmm. Is... What's... Is there like a limp... Like a... You know, there's like the I will buy this. I do... Like, they say they will buy it versus a sign they will actually buy it. Is it the body language? Like, how do you know they're serious about it? [00:26:54] S0: So I call it, like, a pole shaped action. Not a good good term, but but a pole shaped action is like, need this right now. How do... Like, I am pulling it out of you. How do how do we move forward right now? It is not like a, oh, I could totally see us using this in q four kind of thing. That's a that's a not pulling towards me. That's a kind of pushing out into the future. [00:27:24] S1: Like the urgency of, like, I need this now. There's always this advice of solve your own problem, which is different from what you described. Is that a path you recommend, or would you recommend against that?
00:27:24 · Lenny Rachitsky, Rob Snyder
[00:27:24] S1: Like the urgency of, like, I need this now. There's always this advice of solve your own problem, which is different from what you described. Is that a path you recommend, or would you recommend against that? [00:27:34] S0: So a friend, so like Emily, at a company called Clearly AI. She was in security engineering at AWS. And she found something there that she would have paid somebody to solve, but there was nobody out there. And so in that case, it's solve your own problem. Yes. A 100%. Where the solve your own problem falls kind of flat a lot of times is it's a thing that you wouldn't have paid somebody to do for you, but you just think should exist. Right? If it's... And so you have to be honest with yourself. I have done things where I've built things that like, oh, I think the world needs this. I ran into this problem. But if I looked myself in the mirror, I wouldn't have said, yeah, buy this right now. [00:28:20] S1: Along those lines, is this advice mostly for B2B SaaS sort of software, or is this applicable to, say, consumer app? [00:28:28] S0: So I am mostly in the B2B space, but I have seen quite a few people. I've been kinda surprised that a lot of people from the consumer space have have used this as well. And someone sent me the story of, like, Spanx, which was basically... She she did the same thing of of, like, selling one on one with people, seeing how they reacted to figure out all the different pieces of of what became Spanx.
00:28:28 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:28:28] S0: So I am mostly in the B2B space, but I have seen quite a few people. I've been kinda surprised that a lot of people from the consumer space have have used this as well. And someone sent me the story of, like, Spanx, which was basically... She she did the same thing of of, like, selling one on one with people, seeing how they reacted to figure out all the different pieces of of what became Spanx. [00:28:51] S1: Yeah. And she solved her own problem, famously. Just tore off her pantyhose there. I think that's the story. Just I guess she needed it now. I think it was like, yeah, she's going to an event. So that's that's a cool example. You have this... We're gonna talk more about this, but you have this idea of the Hail Mary approach. Talk about that.
00:28:51 · Lenny Rachitsky, Rob Snyder
[00:28:51] S1: Yeah. And she solved her own problem, famously. Just tore off her pantyhose there. I think that's the story. Just I guess she needed it now. I think it was like, yeah, she's going to an event. So that's that's a cool example. You have this... We're gonna talk more about this, but you have this idea of the Hail Mary approach. Talk about that. [00:29:07] S0: So the Hail Mary... So we've been talking about the happy path here. You find something, you're talking with people, and they're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. This is exactly what I need. A lot of the time, that's not gonna happen. You're gonna get that kind of lukewarm feel. And so what I've tended to find is that's also an opportunity to what I call throw the hail Mary, which is, okay. This doesn't seem to be a thing. Is there anything on your to do list that you would pay me to do right now? Like, that you would pay somebody to take off your plate. And that's just an open ended Hail Mary. I've actually seen quite a few startups totally pivot and take off from the Hail Mary, which has been really interesting. There's one startup. They were trying to sell an applicant tracking system into governments, and they had a call with somebody. And the person was like, yeah. That's kind of interesting. But after the Hail Mary question, yeah. What I'd actually pay you to solve is this job description thing right now. And that became their first contract. That became their first customer, they've grown super fast since then.
00:29:07 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:29:07] S0: So the Hail Mary... So we've been talking about the happy path here. You find something, you're talking with people, and they're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. This is exactly what I need. A lot of the time, that's not gonna happen. You're gonna get that kind of lukewarm feel. And so what I've tended to find is that's also an opportunity to what I call throw the hail Mary, which is, okay. This doesn't seem to be a thing. Is there anything on your to do list that you would pay me to do right now? Like, that you would pay somebody to take off your plate. And that's just an open ended Hail Mary. I've actually seen quite a few startups totally pivot and take off from the Hail Mary, which has been really interesting. There's one startup. They were trying to sell an applicant tracking system into governments, and they had a call with somebody. And the person was like, yeah. That's kind of interesting. But after the Hail Mary question, yeah. What I'd actually pay you to solve is this job description thing right now. And that became their first contract. That became their first customer, they've grown super fast since then. [00:30:10] S1: That's awesome. So the advice here is just sometimes feel free to just ask what problem can we solve for you.