The Physics of Startups
00:24:11 · Rob Snyder
[00:24:11] S1: No, I don't so so I don't know. I I don't know. I I haven't like actually I I've like when I look at startups like lovable, for example, that we've talked about as a damn bursting. The reason there is a damn bursting is because there's a bunch of people like me and like you. We recently talked about your lovable example of like you were in a situation where you would change your website, your Squarespace or whatever website, uh, but you're not doing it because there isn't a you would change it way faster if only there was a way. Right. And so there were a lot of people with that latent demand there who are just kind of piled up with latent demand. And the startup that shows up that attacks that latent demand, you have this massive group of people who are just there stuck. If only there was a way. Now there is a way. And it's like a, it's again, like a dam bursting. The other example that we've talked about is like classic, it might be a way more of a wave, where it is, yeah, it's a small group of people right now, but it's going to be a bunch more people in the future. And these are people often who are tinkering at the frontier. It's people building with AI agents, people like building the frontier of the software factory, who are like this size. They're tiny now. But we think, you know, X number of, you know, the market is six months behind. Like the normie is six months behind that one. And so, and so um to think they're 12 to 18 months behind. Six months. Dude, wait until I tell you about ChatGPT. You're just gonna blow your mind.
00:25:54 · S0
[00:25:54] S0: I'm I think I mispronounced Claude for like eight months. Uh so I don't uh uh you know one one other thing that's I feel like there's a huge risk with the idea of late in demand. Yes. Um and and the the one that I see is like just waiting. So it'd be like, it's there, I know it's there, you're pretty supply-focused, um uh you're you're not impatient for understanding the demand. You're like, when I show up with the right product, people are going. It's like it's almost like late in demand is what people think startups are before they like create a startup that works. And sometimes it's like some for some startups, it is late in demand. For a lot, it's not. How can a founder interrogate like if there's really late demand or what do they do about that? This this is the thing, yeah.
00:26:46 · Rob Snyder
[00:26:46] S1: So this is the thing we've been talking about. This comes to the very last point that you read out, which is um, which is what startups tend to do. Like our products tend to like unblock certain constraints. That's the whole point of building a product is you're blocked before this product unblocks you. Um but you get no points for building something that unblocks people in a way they don't care about, in a way that they're not leaning against. And so the uh if there's one core thing we keep coming back to, it's that demand rules everything. Demand rules everything. And um and so what we have to do is when we have this kind of fancy new idea, uh product idea or whatever it is, we have to go and see if the demand is there, which is which is again independent of the technology. It is trying to do X or would do X if only there was a way. And we go out and test that through all the things that we have talked about. It's the same, same thing here. All the only thing we're changing here, if if if if we're changing anything, I think we're just the describing is that there are kind of two forms of demand that are kind of, if you squint, they're kind of the same thing. Sometimes you can find demand by just like asking, what would you pay for right now? What are you actively prioritizing? Whatever. Other times you can't, because it takes this form, and in both cases, I think, the the way to figure out what demand is, is to learn to feel. Learn to feel it for yourself, learn to observe it in yourself, and then apply those methods of observation to feeling what your potential customers are feeling so that you know the ways at which the the things that they're that are pulling at them.
00:28:44 · S0
[00:28:44] S0: It feels uh do you mean um empathizing with the the things that are pulling at them in their job or understanding the body language of a sales call? Is it both of those things? No, no, no.
00:28:55 · Rob Snyder
[00:28:55] S1: It's it's like it's um so uh it's well, I guess I think we'll we'll have an entire uh uh thing on this because this is this is like the me search thing that we were told is the worst possible thing to do. Never do me search, like never whatever. Um, and I think that's that's entirely wrong. We have to like you have to know what poll feels like yourself. And then you have to know how to feel that as your potential customers do, in order to know, okay, is this real poll or not? Like, let me give let me give an example with AI Rob. Um, I don't know that this is right. But what I am sensing from the people that I'm talking to and from my own feelings is just that the real thing, the real kind of latent or whatever demand is like, I just want to know exactly what to do on go to market without having to overthink it. Right. It's just like I like that's the thing in my soul that I that I really, really I want, I just want to figure out exactly how to grow this thing without overthinking it, without having to just like hit my head against a wall and feel like I'm getting lost and all that kind of stuff. And that's a that's a that's a what when I did this activity for myself, I realized that I was looking at my potential customers from the outside in, trying to understand their behavior, trying to predict their their behavior, like an impartial scientist. And then what I realized is, oh no, I can actually, I can actually think about what it feels like in this situation, and like know what it feels like in this situation. And so we're gonna go a lot more into feeling in coming weeks, I think. Um, but the the in the takeaway is the same. This is just like the tell like use the teleportation example on yourself. Know what that feels like. Start observing how you feel in other places where you're observing your own latent demand. Would do X if only there was a way right now. Yeah. And then apply that to seeing through your customers' eyes and try to understand those things that they are and so which means you have to go spend time with them. You have to go, like this is not a kind of like outside in type thing. It's it's very much inside out. And so, um, and so if you want to find latent demand, you have to like it, it's I don't think it's gonna come out in an interview.
00:31:27 · Rob Snyder, S0
I don't think it's gonna, right, like I don't think these things, these these things are felt. [00:31:34] S0: Yeah. Well, Rob, why don't we um why don't we wrap pretty close to this? And folks, I don't feel like I did a particularly good job interrogating latent demand in this one. If there's things that you wish we would have hit uh in in this that are on your mind related to latent demand or other things, just like drop it in the comments. Um, and this might be one that we continue to um investigate and kind of push up, push a little bit more on to get you know crisper with the articulation of it. And like Rob said, if there's a unifying theory that makes sense to you across latent classic, like whatever this kind of like semi-false dichotomy is that that I've portrayed, then um, you know, just just leave a comment on it. Um, Rob, uh anything that you would say founders should do with this, like actions that they should take coming out of it?