The Physics of Startups
Most 0-to-1 and product-market fit advice is a pile of things that worked for someone, once. This show is built on causal relationships, not tactics.
Rob Snyder has helped 50+ startups go from $0 to $1M ARR. He's the creator of the PULL framework and author of "The Power of PULL" which explains why customers buy and why some startups scale and others stall.
For VC-backed and bootstrapping founders who are tired of advice that sounds smart but doesn't work.
More about Rob: https://www.robsnyder.org
The Physics of Startups
DECK DROP - Rob's latest
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Whatever you're doing, make time to read through Rob's latest deck: "Notes on the Physics of Startups"
Access here (free): LINK
Work with Rob: robsnyder.org
Links
- Rob's Substack: The Physics of Startups
- AI Rob waitlist: https://robsnyder.org/ai-rob
- Work with Rob 1:1: https://www.robsnyder.org
- Get The Power of PULL: Amazon (https://amzn.to/48KC1yv), Barnes & Noble: (https://bit.ly/4dyMTSv)
- Connect with Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsnyder1/
Rob, big day. We are we are dropping knowledge. We've got a big new presentation that's out. Tell us about it. What's going on?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I don't remember why I thought to do this. At some point, it was like, cool, I'm just gonna I'm gonna make a big presentation. And so um I had done I had done one of these basically two years ago to give a six-hour workshop, like a full-day workshop at Harvard. And I think I've been building like with the book, with everything I've done since then, I've been building a like evolved version of that that is, I think, probably 10 times better and also much longer. And so it turns out it is currently 150 slides on why do startups take off, how to make startups take off, and it will likely keep growing. Uh, but I'm gonna I'm forcing myself to release this version today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and uh on that note, it's like, yes, some of the core ideas are similar. Like you use some of the same words around demand, but there's also things that are uh in the in the last two years since that since that drop are just new. Like it's your your thinking has evolved, like pull, even as a concept didn't exist at that time. And so this is uh revisiting kind of like your hallmark, why what happens that causes startups to take off, but through a better, like a better lens, like a more complete lens is is how I read it. Um and yeah, it is a it is a mammoth. I'll I'll share it here just so that people know it's uh know it's like a real thing. But what you do is in different pieces, you walk through uh the or instead of me putting words to it, Rob, how how would you describe like how this is structured and what people are gonna find in it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's framed from the typical position that most startups, basically every single startup, finds itself in. Every single founder, every single startup, and a lot of established companies find themselves in where you have a product or an idea or whatever that is objectively valuable and differentiated and interesting. And even customers are saying that, and they're saying they want it, or they're saying they need it, or you're you know, something like you're hearing all the right things, you have all the right pieces, and yet you're not, they're not buying fast, you're not taking off. And what I've realized in the past couple of years of doing this is that basically that is the that is not the natural state of the world, but that is the default outcome of the way that we are taught to think about startups. And so that's where where the the this all starts, which is this place where everything makes sense and doesn't work, or it isn't isn't taking off specifically. And so from there we have to basically say, okay, why is this happening? And what's causing this? And there are a ton of books out there and playbooks, and there's a ton of advice out there. What are we missing here? And I found the right I uh what I think is the right way to talk about that, which gets us to the the core question, which is okay, why do people actually buy things? And from there, like that's where I think the core misunderstanding comes back, which is that we think that people buy things because they have pain points, because they have problems, because we offer value, because they want a product. When in fact, those things are not related to purchases.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And once you embrace that difference, you can build a new model for thinking about startups that makes it both more intuitive, which is kind of helpful, but uh more importantly, actually work. Um, when when everything up until now is often intuitive, it just doesn't work. This is a model that is both intuitive and works, and we've seen this a time and time again, where startups go from the kind of pain points, problems, vision, like value props that they are pushing onto a market where the market doesn't pull, to just like switching this little bit of thinking at the core about why are people buying things and everything about their business changing at that point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And then there's uh, you know, one thing while I was reading through this, uh, I've been as closer, closer to you, like you're thinking um, you know, for the last several years as basically anybody. And it was still helpful for me to connect the dots between this is how the system works. Like maybe there's been concepts like the toll booth. Okay, that resonates. And um, you know, pinpoints versus problems, which you just talked about. Like maybe maybe that's insane. Um, okay, like the delivery mechanism or the pricing. Like maybe there's been some of these concepts, but they're a little bit disjointed, like they're like tips that live on their own. But what what this presentation or like what this drop does is it shows you how the system works when it is uh and like how the different elements connect to each other and why they connect to each other in a way that um yeah, actually, you know, it connects to that foundational understanding of why people buy and then what is the system if if that's where you start, what is the system of a startup that develops as a consequence of that?
SPEAKER_01And yeah, exactly. It's it's the goal is to build one model for startups that and from that model you can know what to do at any one point in time. Yeah, and so it starts with the why people buy, designs around that, and gives you a way to look at a startup that tells you what to do in any single moment. So you go from that it feels like there's a lot of things that are important, we're trying a lot of things, we're hearing all the right things, feel like we're doing all the right things, and people aren't buying fast, we're not taking off. Yeah, to I am just doing one thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And we are taking. It's like a it's a the goal is to create a it so no the goal is to describe reality, and reality happens to have seems to have this um this this magical thing to it where it works this way and it happens to be simple.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, we will uh in the coming weeks dive into some of those elements and I'm sure go like way deeper. You've got some more stuff planned on this. The to what the way to access it, we'll we'll drop the link in the description of this. Um it's gonna be through Rob's Substack, is where you can just visit there and uh download the whole presentation. It's free. Um, Rob, anything to add on access or um feedback that you want to get from folks on this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's so this is it's currently 150 slides. It is an overview or like a taste of the book, which you should pre-order. It's coming out in July. It is also very much not complete. I've realized that I am going to at some point write a textbook, and uh, and uh I don't want to, but it one must be written on this, and so I I think I have to. And so as you go through this, if there are things that aren't clear or things that are missing or whatever, just reach out, email me, reach out on LinkedIn, whatever. Uh to and you know, I may or may not add slides, or I'll just keep these concepts in the back of my mind uh to for for the next evolution or for the textbook. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Love it. Perfect. Well, we'll have all that info. Um, I'd say like for me, when I I went through it, it's it's long. You go through the concepts quickly. Like I would say like 40 minutes to skim it. Um, you'll want to revisit some of them. You might you know save some more time in case one of them you just like want to sit with that idea. But just in case folks want to um you know think through like, oh, I don't have time to read it. You do, I promise. Um and uh yeah, with that, Rob, anything else we we want to hit before we go?
SPEAKER_01I don't think you have time not to read through this.
SPEAKER_00Uh honestly, like actually that's a that's a better way because you're gonna spend it'll change the way that you spend the rest of your day, the rest of your rest of your week, maybe the way you approach your business. Um awesome. Well, we will uh see everybody in in Rob's Substack uh in next week. Uh resume kind of like more normal programming. See you later. Yeah, later.