Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Build What Customers Pull For, Not What You Push

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Build What Customers Pull For, Not What You Push

May 28

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If you’re a founder (or dreaming of becoming one), you’ve probably been told to “solve a real problem.” Maybe you’ve spent hours mapping out pain points, brainstorming solutions, and crafting your value proposition. You might even have a beautiful pitch deck filled with customer personas and market research.

But here’s a hard truth: Just because you’ve identified a problem, that doesn’t mean anyone will care. Just because you’ve built a solution, that doesn’t mean anyone will buy. And just because you think your product delivers value, that doesn’t mean the market will pull it out of your hands.

So what actually matters? What’s the real bottleneck every pre-PMF (pre–product-market fit) startup faces?

It’s PULL.

Not “should want.” Not “it’s valuable.” Not “it solves pain.”
It’s: “Are customers actively trying to get this done, and are they stuck with bad options?”

What Is “PULL” Anyway?

Let’s get clear on what PULL really means.

PULL isn’t about the problems you see in the world or the pain points you think are important. It’s not about what you believe customers “should want,” or even about the solution you’ve built.

PULL is about what your buyers are already trying to do—right now—with whatever tools, hacks, or workarounds they can find.

It’s about the projects on their to-do lists, the jobs they’re desperate to get done, and the awkward, inefficient, or downright painful ways they’re getting by today.

When you find that spot—where people are actively trying to accomplish something but only have bad options—you’ve found the space for PULL. If you can offer a better way, customers will pull your solution into their world. They’ll buy, adopt, and even tell their friends. That’s when you know you’re onto something.

The Difference Between PUSH and PULL

Most founders start by pushing. You build something, polish your pitch, and try to convince people to care. You send cold emails, run ads, and hustle for meetings. You’re pushing your solution into the market, hoping someone bites.

But the startups that really break out—the ones that scale fast—are the ones that find PULL. They discover a force in the market that’s already there, waiting for a better answer. When you tap into that force, you don’t have to push so hard. Customers come to you. Deals start closing faster. Word spreads. Suddenly, hiring sales reps isn’t about brute-forcing growth—it’s about keeping up with demand.

Why PULL Is the Only Bottleneck That Matters

Every pre-PMF startup or idea faces a single, critical bottleneck: PULL.
If you don’t have it, nothing else matters. You can optimize your funnel, polish your UI, or add features, but if customers aren’t pulling, you’re stuck.

Solving for anything other than PULL is a distraction.
You might feel productive, but you’re not making progress toward what actually matters: building something people are desperate to use.

How Do You Find PULL?

Finding PULL isn’t about surveys or focus groups. It’s about observing what people are already doing, what they’re struggling with, and where they’re hacking together bad solutions.

1. Look for “Ugly Workarounds”

The best evidence of PULL is when customers are cobbling together their own solutions—spreadsheets, sticky notes, manual processes, or expensive consultants—because nothing better exists.

Ask yourself:

What are people trying to get done right now?
How are they doing it today?
Where are they frustrated, wasting time, or spending too much?

2. Listen for “Project Language”

When you talk to potential customers, listen for the language of projects:

“I need to get this report done by Friday.”
“We’re trying to automate this process.”
“I wish there was a way to…”
These are signals that something is on their to-do list, not just a theoretical pain point.

3. Watch for “Bad Options”

If people are making do with clunky tools, paying for multiple services that don’t quite fit, or hiring people to do repetitive tasks, you’ve found a space with PULL.

4. Test with Minimum Viable Supply

Don’t build a full product. Start with a hypothesis about what customers are trying to do and what form factor might fit.
Ask: “What’s the smallest, quickest way I can offer something to validate if there’s real PULL?”

This could be:

A landing page with a buy button
A manual service that mimics your future product
A simple prototype or demo

The goal isn’t to impress—it’s to see if people will actually pull your solution into their workflow.

Minimum Viable Supply: Your PULL Validation Tool

Forget “minimum viable product” for a moment. Focus on “minimum viable supply.”
This means: “Here’s my best guess at what they’re trying to do and how I can help. Let’s see if anyone bites.”

You’re not trying to solve every problem or serve every customer. You’re trying to find the sharpest, most urgent use case where PULL is strongest.

If you get traction here, you can expand. If not, you pivot—fast.

Real-World Examples of Finding PULL

Slack:
Before Slack, teams hacked together communication with endless email threads, clunky chat tools, or even in-person meetings. Slack didn’t invent the need for team communication—it just offered a vastly better way to do what people were already trying to do (collaborate quickly and efficiently).

Airtable:
Before Airtable, people used spreadsheets for everything—project management, CRM, content calendars—even when spreadsheets weren’t a good fit. Airtable saw the PULL for flexible, database-like tools that anyone could use, and designed around it.

Calendly:
Before Calendly, scheduling a meeting meant endless email ping-pong. People were already trying to solve this problem with bad options. Calendly offered a better way, and the market pulled it in.

The Force That Gets Deals Done

When you find PULL, the force to get deals done comes from the customer, not from you.
You’re not convincing, cajoling, or pushing. You’re responding to a need that’s already there.

This is why scaling becomes possible. When you hire sales reps in a PULL-driven startup, they’re not cold-calling into the void—they’re responding to inbound demand, closing deals that customers are eager to do.

How to Design Around PULL

Once you’ve found a space with PULL, your job is to design your supply to fit perfectly.

Talk to your earliest users. What are they trying to do? Where do they get stuck? How does your solution fit into their workflow?
Iterate quickly. Don’t overbuild. Ship small improvements that make your product easier to pull in.
Watch your metrics. Are customers coming back? Referring others? Paying without you chasing them?
Double down on what’s working. If you see a segment with strong PULL, focus your energy there. Don’t get distracted by “nice to have” features for other groups.

Avoiding the Distraction Trap

It’s easy to get distracted by things that don’t matter before you have PULL:

Fancy branding
Fundraising
Scaling infrastructure
Hiring a big team

None of this matters if you haven’t found PULL.
Your only job is to find the spot where the market is already trying to get something done and offer a better way.

What If You’re Not Seeing PULL?

If you’re not seeing PULL, don’t panic. It doesn’t mean your idea is doomed—it just means you haven’t found the right angle yet.

Go back to your customers. Watch what they do, not just what they say.
Look for more urgent, more painful, or more frequent jobs-to-be-done.
Try new form factors. Maybe your product is too complex or not focused enough.
Be ruthless about pivoting. Don’t fall in love with your first idea.

The Founder’s Mindset: Obsess Over PULL

The best founders aren’t obsessed with their solution—they’re obsessed with finding and serving PULL.

They ask:

Where are customers already trying to get something done?
What are the bad options they’re stuck with?
How can I fit my supply into that gap, quickly and simply?

If you keep asking these questions, you’ll find your way out of the pre-PMF wilderness.

Final Thoughts: Make PULL Your North Star

If you’re a wannabe founder or just starting out, remember:
PULL is your only bottleneck.
Don’t get distracted by polish, features, or even “value.”
Find the spot where customers are already trying to get something done—with bad options—and fit your solution into that space.

When you do, you’ll feel the difference.
Customers will pull your product in.
Deals will close faster.
Growth will start to happen—sometimes faster than you can keep up.

That’s when you know you’re building something that matters.
So, go find your PULL. Design around it.
And let the market show you the way.

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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Are You Stuck in the Startup Pain Cave?

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Are You Stuck in the Startup Pain Cave?

May 22

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The Brutal Reality Most Founders Face

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re dreaming of launching a startup—or you’re already deep in the trenches, hustling to get your product into the world. Maybe you’re building a SaaS tool, a community, a marketplace, or something totally new. You’ve done your research. You’ve read the books, watched the YouTube videos, and maybe even taken a few online courses.

But despite all your preparation, you might find yourself in a place every founder dreads: the “pain cave.”

What’s the pain cave? It’s that alternate reality where you’re doing everything “right”—building features, tweaking your landing page, running surveys—yet nothing sticks. Your product is well-researched, your pitch is polished, but… nobody’s buying. You’re pushing something you believe in, but the world just shrugs.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Most founders spend way too long in the pain cave, burning time, money, and energy on products that never find real demand.

Why Do So Many Founders Get Stuck Here?

Let’s be honest: building is fun. It’s safe. You’re in control. You can tinker, iterate, and convince yourself that just one more feature will make all the difference. But building in a vacuum is a trap.

The hard truth? Most entrepreneurs don’t fail because they can’t build—they fail because they build something nobody actually wants.

We all want to believe our idea is the exception. That our research, our passion, and our unique insight will be enough. But hope is not a strategy. The market doesn’t care how much you believe in your product. It only cares if you’re solving a problem people will pay to fix.

The Pain Cave: Where Good Ideas Go to Die

The pain cave is seductive. It’s filled with endless possibilities. Anything could work… in theory. But in practice, it’s a place where you can spend months (or years) perfecting something that never gets traction.

You launch, you wait, and… crickets. Maybe a few polite signups, a handful of free users, but no real momentum. You start to question yourself. Was the idea wrong? Did you miss something? Should you pivot or persevere?

The longer you stay in the pain cave, the harder it is to get out. Your confidence takes a hit. Your runway shrinks. And worst of all, you start to lose the joy that made you want to build in the first place.

The Way Out: Find Intense Demand, Build Unique Supply

Here’s the secret: All that really matters is finding intense demand and building unique supply.

It doesn’t matter how you get there. Some founders have their breakthrough during a wild ayahuasca retreat. Others stumble on it through scientific experimentation or random YOLO-luck. But for most of us, there’s a more reliable path: sell-then-build.

What Is Sell-Then-Build?

Sell-then-build flips the traditional startup script. Instead of building first and hoping people will come, you start by selling—before you’ve built anything substantial.

This doesn’t mean scamming people or making empty promises. It means validating real demand by getting commitments (pre-orders, deposits, letters of intent, or even just strong buying signals) before you invest months of your life in development.

Why does this work? Because it forces you to answer the only question that matters: Will people actually pay for this?

Why Avoiding Early Sales Is a Trap

Many founders avoid early sales for all sorts of reasons:

“I want the product to be perfect first.”
“I’m not a sales person.”
“What if people say no?”
“I need a demo to show.”

But here’s the thing: avoiding early sales almost never works. If you can’t get someone excited enough to commit before you build, what makes you think it’ll be easier after?

Early sales aren’t just about money—they’re about proof. They show you’re solving a real problem for real people. They give you feedback, momentum, and (crucially) confidence.

How to Sell-Then-Build (Even If You’re Not a “Salesy” Person)

You don’t have to be a natural salesperson to validate demand early. Here’s a step-by-step approach any founder can follow:

1. Start With a Clear Problem

Don’t pitch your product. Start by deeply understanding the problem you want to solve. Talk to potential customers. Ask about their pain points. Listen more than you speak.

2. Share Your Vision

Once you’ve uncovered a real pain, share your vision for how you’d solve it. This doesn’t have to be a finished product—it can be a sketch, a landing page, or even a conversation.

3. Ask for Commitment

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Don’t just ask if they “like” your idea. Ask for a real commitment:

“Would you pre-order this if I built it?”
“Would you put down a deposit?”
“Would you sign a letter of intent?”

If people hesitate, dig deeper. Is it the price? The timing? The feature set? Their feedback is gold—use it to refine your offer.

4. Build Just Enough to Deliver

Once you have real commitments, build just enough to deliver on your promise. This keeps you focused, lean, and responsive to real customer needs.

5. Iterate Based on Real Feedback

With paying customers (or strong commitments), you can iterate with confidence. You’re building for people who’ve already voted with their wallets.

Stories From the Trenches

Let’s look at some real-world examples:

Buffer: Before building their social media scheduling tool, Buffer’s founder put up a landing page describing the product and asked people to sign up if they were interested. When people clicked “plans and pricing,” they saw a message saying the product wasn’t ready yet—but they could leave their email. Once enough people signed up, Buffer built the product, knowing there was real demand.
Tesla: Elon Musk famously took pre-orders (with deposits) for the Model 3 years before the car was ready. This validated demand, generated cash flow, and de-risked the massive investment needed to build the car.
Gumroad: The founder tweeted about a simple way to sell digital products. When people responded with interest, he built the MVP over a weekend and started selling immediately.

These stories aren’t just outliers. They’re proof that sell-then-build works, even for solo founders and small teams.

What If You’re Not Ready to Sell?

Maybe you’re still figuring out your idea. Maybe you’re nervous about rejection. That’s okay! You don’t have to go all-in on sales from day one. But the sooner you start talking to real customers, the sooner you’ll escape the pain cave.

Try these low-pressure steps:

Share your idea on social media and see who responds.
Run a simple survey and ask people if they’d pay for a solution.
Offer a free pilot or beta in exchange for feedback and testimonials.

The goal isn’t to get rich overnight—it’s to learn, iterate, and build something people actually want.

The Mindset Shift: From Builder to Problem Solver

The biggest shift you need to make isn’t technical—it’s mental. Stop thinking of yourself as just a builder. Start thinking of yourself as a problem solver.

Your job isn’t to create the perfect product. It’s to find a real problem, validate intense demand, and build a unique solution. The rest is details.

Avoiding the Pain Cave: Practical Tips

Talk to customers early and often. Don’t hide behind your laptop. Get out there and have real conversations.
Don’t fall in love with your solution. Fall in love with the problem and the people you’re serving.
Use commitments as your compass. Likes and compliments are nice, but only commitments (money, time, or resources) prove real demand.
Iterate quickly. Don’t wait for perfection. Ship, learn, and improve.
Celebrate small wins. Every pre-order, every positive conversation is a step out of the pain cave.

Remember: There’s No Single Path

Sell-then-build isn’t the only way to find product-market fit. Some founders stumble on demand through luck or intuition. Others experiment their way there. But avoiding early sales—hiding from the market—almost never works.

The market is the ultimate judge. The sooner you face it, the sooner you’ll know if you’re on the right track.

Final Thoughts: Escape the Pain Cave, Build What Matters

If you’re a wannabe founder or just starting out, don’t let the pain cave swallow your ambition. Don’t spend months (or years) building in isolation, hoping the world will love your idea.

Instead, get out there. Talk to real people. Test your assumptions. Ask for commitments. Sell before you build.

It’s not always easy, and it can be scary. But it’s the fastest, most reliable way to build something people actually want—and to build a business that lasts.

So, what’s your next step? Will you keep guessing… or will you start selling?