Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:17:12 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:17:12] S0: Yep. And and, like, sometimes you're gonna do that and they say, okay. But the way we buy here is we actually need to pilot it. Okay. Cool. But don't proactively [01:17:21] S1: I see. Offer. Awesome. Okay. Another big question that came out of the community is from an external perspective, this feels like this just for startups and founders, but this actually applies for, and we mentioned this at the beginning, but just to reinforce this point, for larger companies that are working on new feature, new business lines sort of thing. Talk about just if there's anything that you would think about differently through this process if you're at a mature company building a new product. [01:17:46] S0: I'm hoping a couple companies launch their second product. And what they are doing is actually the founders are like, cool, we're doing it again. We're running it back. And the founders are taking this approach to existing customers because they're going to try to upsell them, and they are actually selling new features before they've built them. Another example at existing companies is, I can't share the name, but a company was... A new product leader at a company was telling me, Hey, yeah, the way we get our ideas, all of the ideas that have worked have come from sales calls where they said, Cool, yeah, you can do X, but could you also do this other thing for us? And the products that came out of the customer in the sales calls asking for something that could do that project for them all worked. All the ones they whiteboarded never worked.
01:17:46 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:17:46] S0: I'm hoping a couple companies launch their second product. And what they are doing is actually the founders are like, cool, we're doing it again. We're running it back. And the founders are taking this approach to existing customers because they're going to try to upsell them, and they are actually selling new features before they've built them. Another example at existing companies is, I can't share the name, but a company was... A new product leader at a company was telling me, Hey, yeah, the way we get our ideas, all of the ideas that have worked have come from sales calls where they said, Cool, yeah, you can do X, but could you also do this other thing for us? And the products that came out of the customer in the sales calls asking for something that could do that project for them all worked. All the ones they whiteboarded never worked. [01:18:34] S1: So the idea here is you have a product, you're hearing, you're basically finding these little nuggets of this could be a thing, and what I'm imagining is then you go through this whole poll hypothesis step by step, just like put up that hypothesis, talk to five of your existing customers, look for that poll, see if they're gonna actually buy it, and then kind of go through the same process. And an important wrinkle here that we haven't reinforced enough maybe is that it's the founders that should be doing this, especially in a startup. But it's interesting you said even at a mature company, if it's a new product, the founders ideally are doing that selling.
01:18:34 · Lenny Rachitsky, Rob Snyder
[01:18:34] S1: So the idea here is you have a product, you're hearing, you're basically finding these little nuggets of this could be a thing, and what I'm imagining is then you go through this whole poll hypothesis step by step, just like put up that hypothesis, talk to five of your existing customers, look for that poll, see if they're gonna actually buy it, and then kind of go through the same process. And an important wrinkle here that we haven't reinforced enough maybe is that it's the founders that should be doing this, especially in a startup. But it's interesting you said even at a mature company, if it's a new product, the founders ideally are doing that selling. [01:19:09] S0: Yeah. Ideally, not always the case. Yeah. There are people who are who are doing zero to one stuff, but I just recommend if you're in that situation and you're a non founder, really focus on trying to sell the thing and learning through selling because there's a lot of ways to get lost in zero to one. [01:19:26] S1: Awesome. And then again, if things aren't working, there's this idea you should have goblin mode of just like, okay. Just try a bunch of stuff. Talk to as many people. Get on planes. Go have 20 meetings, and just look for something.
01:19:26 · Lenny Rachitsky, Rob Snyder
[01:19:26] S1: Awesome. And then again, if things aren't working, there's this idea you should have goblin mode of just like, okay. Just try a bunch of stuff. Talk to as many people. Get on planes. Go have 20 meetings, and just look for something. [01:19:38] S0: Yes. Yeah. Hail Mary, goblin mode. Like, all of these things are just the... Your great class in case of emergency. Time is really valuable, and, like, staying suck... Stuck is awful. If you're in this, like, pain cave of zero to one, it's, like, the worst time of your life, and you just don't wanna prolong that. So just get on a plane, go to the office, go in person, do whatever it takes to find something. [01:20:04] S1: Rob, we did it. We went through everything. That was amazing. Is there anything else that you think is important to share or anything you wanna, I don't know, double down on before we get to our very exciting lightning round? [01:20:14] S0: Hopefully, what's come across is kind of how simple this is. Pull framework, show to people, see if they pull. There's a lot of ways to overcomplicate this, and there's a lot of ways where we try to solve every variable in our head in advance. And I've found that just pull framework, sell, see if they try to buy, and think of less in that process, it will get you there.
01:20:14 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:20:14] S0: Hopefully, what's come across is kind of how simple this is. Pull framework, show to people, see if they pull. There's a lot of ways to overcomplicate this, and there's a lot of ways where we try to solve every variable in our head in advance. And I've found that just pull framework, sell, see if they try to buy, and think of less in that process, it will get you there. [01:20:44] S1: Awesome. That sounds very simple. And I think it's important to note, this is very actually not... It's hard to find an idea that actually works, and this is all here to help you save a lot of pain and suffering and building and be kind of being disillusioned... Not disillusioned, miss... Feeling like there's something there wasting a lot of your life doing something that's not gonna work. [01:21:05] S0: Yeah. Think of it as like a... You know, like a metal detector on a beach. Like this is just giving you a metal detector. You might not find metal where you're looking right now, but at least I'm not giving you a spoon. [01:21:16] S1: At least I'm not giving you a spoon, meaning... [01:21:19] S0: For the beach, right? Like, it's a
01:21:19 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:21:19] S0: For the beach, right? Like, it's a [01:21:21] S1: white metal detector. Oh, I see. You have a metal detector versus looking through all the sand with a spoon. Wow. I love that metaphor. And then sometimes you may find a thing that and then you don't realize it's not worth anything. Okay. Wow. That's a great metaphor. Well, Rob, with that, we reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready? Let's do it. First question, what are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most other people? [01:21:49] S0: Oh gosh. The... My favorite one is the four volume Nature of Order series by Christopher Alexander. It's book on architecture, series of books on architecture. Best thing ever. [01:22:00] S1: Never heard that recommendation before. Those are my favorite. Favorite recent movie or TV show you've really enjoyed? [01:22:06] S0: I have two favorite movies that we watch repeatedly. One is the pride... The most recent Pride and Prejudice, and the second is the Penguins of Madagascar movie. Don't know why. There's very different in both ends of the spectrum there. [01:22:20] S1: Favorite or most interesting AI product that you recently discovered or use or love? [01:22:26] S0: I've been using Muse, and it's like, if it works for me, it can work for anyone. [01:22:31] S1: Yeah. Very hot right now. Amazing. Okay. Favorite life motto that you often come back to in work or in life? [01:22:43] S0: Life is what you make of it.