A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:34:13 · Rob, Pablo Srugo
[00:34:13] S1: It is a, it's a hard thing and especially because as a founder, you are probably the best salesperson. Hands down. You will not hire somebody in this stage of a company that can sell better. If you have the passion and you understand the business that you're in, you believe it, you, you breathe it, you bleed it, and the person you bring in will give up sooner, will say the wrong words, faster will not succeed like a founder succeeds. And even in the current business that I'm in is that we know that, that our CEO is the greatest salesperson that we have, like among other skills. But what you , what you end up forgetting is that as you're trying to scale, they become, they, they distance themselves from that skill and, and you are making it up like so now it's like four to one. I need four salespeople to do what one guy did before. And then when he comes back into the sales role, like stuff happens overnight. Like it's unbelievable. And you can't get that. [00:35:10] S0: It's almost like, you know, they tell you, they tell you shouldn't be working in the business, you should be working on the business. And I'm like, no, you should be working <laugh> in the business as long as humanly possible. You should do whatever's the hardest thing to do that you're best at. That's probably a thing you should be doing for as long as you can until it's truly breaking versus trying to kind of get ahead of it and infrastructure your way and and org chart your way into something that looks like a beautiful company on paper, right?
00:35:36 · Rob
[00:35:36] S1: Like , I'm gonna do it for the first 100 times. I'm gonna do it where it's unscalable. There's a lot of , uh, mechanical tur, it's, it's human. Like I'm sending the emails. So like if you get an email from me, it is coming from me, written from me at that moment and I'm doing the unscalable thing and I'm gonna test a whole bunch of different things as I go along. And then I'm gonna realize what does work because I'm gonna see a natural pull. I'm gonna see a lift because of the effort and it's just gonna tumble. And then I'm gonna say, okay, let's put that into a strategy, a playbook. We'll productize that and then I can hand it off when I feel very comfortable with the fact that I'm seeing that lift. Not because I'm pushing, but because I'm getting pulled and, and I need to know that. It's just when you learn how to water ski for the first time, like it's not hard to stand up on water skis. It's just not, but you can't pull, you have to be pulled , you have to go with the boat and most people pull right away and then they sink. So what you need to be able to do is you need to be able to get up, stand up , and then the whole thing has to pull you. And that's when you know that it's okay to maybe pull back a little bit and, and bring somebody else in to do that.
00:36:39 · Pablo Srugo
[00:36:39] S0: So the last one, just to wrap this up, which is the, the pivot one, right? Pivot harder, faster. I'm, you know, honestly like I'm a very impatient dude, <laugh>, and uh , you know , oftentimes the question with this one is like, okay, like when do I know if I should pivot, right? Like, I've been doing this thing, it's kind of working, it's kind of not my kind of hot take. <laugh> is , uh, just pivot like <laugh> , you know what I mean? Like, it just do it, it rips bandaid off. I, and I'm sure there's like, it's kind of wrong. Like I'm sure there are examples of when like when, you know , you shouldn't have, I'm not saying give up, do something completely different, but like change something material. You know, like if , if you've been doing it for an amount of months and like, it's almost like by the time you're asking yourself the question, because you start off with so much excitement, right? And you're kind of like, you're in it and you're like, things are gonna work and whatever, and you get some signals that things are working. And so you , you're probably gonna , if anything, it's, it's the same similar to an employee, right? Like by the time that you're like, I don't know if this person's really working out, maybe, maybe we should part ways, you probably should 80% plus of the time in startup world, like bigger company's different, but in startup world, just because there's a reason why you've gone there. And I'm not saying the employee's not good, I'm saying there's a fit issue, right? Um, similar with, with this product market fifties , like, you know, once you're seriously thinking about, I dunno , maybe I should pivot 80% of the time you probably should. And 80% of the time you probably don't. I
00:37:56 · Rob
[00:37:56] S1: I'm mixed on this because like , I I also believe that it's really easy to give up, right? Like the real thing, the challenge that I have with, with today is that platforms make it really easy to test something or to start a business. And then if it's too much work or if it's too much effort to find, to answer these questions, people just give up and they go to the next one and they go to the next one and they go to the next one. And it , and you can see that quite a bit in , in , uh, bit in some, some entrepreneurs where they've started a whole bunch of businesses. I talk to 'em all the time. Uh , it's just the nature of our business as well as like, oh , you know, I , um, I had to put my business on hold because like, it's easy to give up. It's very easy to give up. So there's gotta be a little bit of tenacity around, around the business idea. And, and that's where if you've done your research and the idea and you've been in market and you've talked to those people that are doing it, then, then the pivot shouldn't be a dramatic pivot or a give up. Um, and so, but you definitely have to be open to it. I, I just , uh, I I worry that some great ideas that take a lot of hard work get into the idea or get into the mind of a weak entrepreneur and they don't have the tenacity or the strength or the desire or whatever. It's the calluses to see that idea through and they're like, nah , I'm not interested. And then they go off and it doesn't get invented.
00:39:22 · Pablo Srugo, Rob
[00:39:22] S0: We did Nike, right? Not too long ago. Like how long did, did Phil Knight fight the good fight of , uh, and he should [00:39:26] S1: Have given up every month, every year, right? Like that's, but there is a balance though, because I've seen some really stupid ideas and I mean , I mean this like really bad ideas, [00:39:36] S0: But again, like going back to this, like Phil Knight actually was doubling really small numbers, but he actually was doubling, you know, his sales every year. So anyways, that's the , uh, those are the five steps kind of that elaborated, let's say, [00:39:48] S1: As you said earlier on though , Pablo, none of this will, like following these five won't get you funded. Like you, you still have to have that, that ability to turn it into a business like this is something that just following these five steps doesn't mean that, that ultimately somebody's gonna write you a check. You , you still have to build a business. [00:40:07] S0: That's it, that's the key man. Well, like , and I , you know, there's separate skills, like finding true product market fit is a separate skill from , uh, from fundraising, right? There's one that there are people that can do one, people that can do the other people that can do both, but, but none of this is, is for fundraising. But even, I think, I do think doing all these things does two things. One, I think it increases your odds of finding product market fit, and I think it shortens the amount of time that you're gonna take on something that's probably not gonna get the product market fit.
00:40:07 · Pablo Srugo, Rob
[00:40:07] S0: That's it, that's the key man. Well, like , and I , you know, there's separate skills, like finding true product market fit is a separate skill from , uh, from fundraising, right? There's one that there are people that can do one, people that can do the other people that can do both, but, but none of this is, is for fundraising. But even, I think, I do think doing all these things does two things. One, I think it increases your odds of finding product market fit, and I think it shortens the amount of time that you're gonna take on something that's probably not gonna get the product market fit. [00:40:35] S1: And it might just lead to a lifestyle business, which could be fine. Like , there's nothing wrong with that. That's the thing. 99.9% of all businesses are lifestyle businesses. Well , [00:40:45] S0: I'll tell you this, man, everybody, like, everybody's jealous of the founder who raised 10 million until they see the founder that has a 10 million a year business and they own a hundred percent of it <laugh> . And then they're like, whoa, that would've been nice.