Author of The Power of Pull and writer of the newsletter The Physics of Startups; has advised more than 50 startups on growing from zero to $1 million in revenue.
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Their wordsSo, buying is not this common thing. It is weird and rare.
Their wordsSo wants needs are not causal, not necessary, sufficient or predictive of purchases.
Their wordsproblems, pain points, ROI, value don't cause purchases, no matter how big they are
Their wordsYou could give me a, a 100x better printer for my house and I won't buy it cuz I don't, I'm not blocked.
Their wordsif you recognize just how weird it is for someone to buy something, then you're going to behave differently.
Where this was said
Watch from 11:12 plays hereTheir wordsdemand isn't about products or features at all. He saw that demand is something that exists independently of products or features.
Their wordsSo when a customer says I need or I want this feature, that is not demand for a feature. That is a request for supply.
Their wordsThe supply side can be totally new and innovative and different. But it will only work if the demand side exists
Their wordsOne of the main mistakes people make is thinking that pull is a thing that a company has. It's a thing a person has. Even if you're selling enterprise software, you're selling not to the company
Their wordsThings that work in practice are designed for one real person. If we don't design it for one real person, it works for zero real people.
Their wordsFounders spend months suffering from a PULL hypothesis that only makes sense in theory, that's actually based on the product the founder wants to build rather than the demand a real person has
Their wordsAll that matters is you find pull.
Their wordsRepeatedly sell and deliver as many times as possible, as fast as possible. This method allows us to focus narrowly on figuring out PULL, using sales and delivery as the main learning battleground.
Their wordsYou're often told to niche down, which makes sense in theory, but if you niche down to some segment that you want to sell to, it's irrelevant because they might not be in a situation where they're weird not to buy.
Their wordsthe concept of minimum viable product is correct. we just apply it incorrectly because we start from the supply side
Their wordsthe people who actually have something really important they're trying to get done, they don't want to be a design partner. They just want that thing done.
Their wordsit's a negative signal to the most, to people with, who actually have pull and it's a positive signal to people who don't.
Their wordswe have to say that the core mechanism is good, is by default, good.
Mental modelIncentives
Their wordsAnd what capitalism does is it creates the incentive
Their wordsthat is the only rule I think you actually need in order to derive like how capitalism works.
Their wordsThat simple, like difference in rule will determine how you think about capitalism, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.
Their wordswe have ceded the ground of capitalism being a good thing
Their wordsthe job is just to unblock people from the important and meaningful things they are trying to do. That's the history of progress.