Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:26:32 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:26:32] S0: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's... What you're seeing is is it weird for them not to buy right now? Are they, like, are they behaving as if it's weird for them not to buy? [00:26:41] S1: Mhmm. Is... What's... Is there like a limp... Like a... You know, there's like the I will buy this. I do... Like, they say they will buy it versus a sign they will actually buy it. Is it the body language? Like, how do you know they're serious about it? [00:26:54] S0: So I call it, like, a pole shaped action. Not a good good term, but but a pole shaped action is like, need this right now. How do... Like, I am pulling it out of you. How do how do we move forward right now? It is not like a, oh, I could totally see us using this in q four kind of thing. That's a that's a not pulling towards me. That's a kind of pushing out into the future. [00:27:24] S1: Like the urgency of, like, I need this now. There's always this advice of solve your own problem, which is different from what you described. Is that a path you recommend, or would you recommend against that?
00:27:24 · Lenny Rachitsky, Rob Snyder
[00:27:24] S1: Like the urgency of, like, I need this now. There's always this advice of solve your own problem, which is different from what you described. Is that a path you recommend, or would you recommend against that? [00:27:34] S0: So a friend, so like Emily, at a company called Clearly AI. She was in security engineering at AWS. And she found something there that she would have paid somebody to solve, but there was nobody out there. And so in that case, it's solve your own problem. Yes. A 100%. Where the solve your own problem falls kind of flat a lot of times is it's a thing that you wouldn't have paid somebody to do for you, but you just think should exist. Right? If it's... And so you have to be honest with yourself. I have done things where I've built things that like, oh, I think the world needs this. I ran into this problem. But if I looked myself in the mirror, I wouldn't have said, yeah, buy this right now. [00:28:20] S1: Along those lines, is this advice mostly for B2B SaaS sort of software, or is this applicable to, say, consumer app? [00:28:28] S0: So I am mostly in the B2B space, but I have seen quite a few people. I've been kinda surprised that a lot of people from the consumer space have have used this as well. And someone sent me the story of, like, Spanx, which was basically... She she did the same thing of of, like, selling one on one with people, seeing how they reacted to figure out all the different pieces of of what became Spanx.
00:28:28 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:28:28] S0: So I am mostly in the B2B space, but I have seen quite a few people. I've been kinda surprised that a lot of people from the consumer space have have used this as well. And someone sent me the story of, like, Spanx, which was basically... She she did the same thing of of, like, selling one on one with people, seeing how they reacted to figure out all the different pieces of of what became Spanx. [00:28:51] S1: Yeah. And she solved her own problem, famously. Just tore off her pantyhose there. I think that's the story. Just I guess she needed it now. I think it was like, yeah, she's going to an event. So that's that's a cool example. You have this... We're gonna talk more about this, but you have this idea of the Hail Mary approach. Talk about that.
00:28:51 · Lenny Rachitsky, Rob Snyder
[00:28:51] S1: Yeah. And she solved her own problem, famously. Just tore off her pantyhose there. I think that's the story. Just I guess she needed it now. I think it was like, yeah, she's going to an event. So that's that's a cool example. You have this... We're gonna talk more about this, but you have this idea of the Hail Mary approach. Talk about that. [00:29:07] S0: So the Hail Mary... So we've been talking about the happy path here. You find something, you're talking with people, and they're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. This is exactly what I need. A lot of the time, that's not gonna happen. You're gonna get that kind of lukewarm feel. And so what I've tended to find is that's also an opportunity to what I call throw the hail Mary, which is, okay. This doesn't seem to be a thing. Is there anything on your to do list that you would pay me to do right now? Like, that you would pay somebody to take off your plate. And that's just an open ended Hail Mary. I've actually seen quite a few startups totally pivot and take off from the Hail Mary, which has been really interesting. There's one startup. They were trying to sell an applicant tracking system into governments, and they had a call with somebody. And the person was like, yeah. That's kind of interesting. But after the Hail Mary question, yeah. What I'd actually pay you to solve is this job description thing right now. And that became their first contract. That became their first customer, they've grown super fast since then.
00:29:07 · Rob Snyder, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:29:07] S0: So the Hail Mary... So we've been talking about the happy path here. You find something, you're talking with people, and they're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. This is exactly what I need. A lot of the time, that's not gonna happen. You're gonna get that kind of lukewarm feel. And so what I've tended to find is that's also an opportunity to what I call throw the hail Mary, which is, okay. This doesn't seem to be a thing. Is there anything on your to do list that you would pay me to do right now? Like, that you would pay somebody to take off your plate. And that's just an open ended Hail Mary. I've actually seen quite a few startups totally pivot and take off from the Hail Mary, which has been really interesting. There's one startup. They were trying to sell an applicant tracking system into governments, and they had a call with somebody. And the person was like, yeah. That's kind of interesting. But after the Hail Mary question, yeah. What I'd actually pay you to solve is this job description thing right now. And that became their first contract. That became their first customer, they've grown super fast since then. [00:30:10] S1: That's awesome. So the advice here is just sometimes feel free to just ask what problem can we solve for you.
00:30:10 · Lenny Rachitsky, Rob Snyder
[00:30:10] S1: That's awesome. So the advice here is just sometimes feel free to just ask what problem can we solve for you. [00:30:16] S0: Yeah. And that leads to how to think about sales. Well, I'll just give a little... And we can dig into this if it's interesting. But I always was kind of nervous to sell as a mega introvert and overthinker. It just feels like a lot of pressure, and it... Like, I need to convince you to buy. And so that question feels uncomfortable. But if you kind of reframe it in your own head of, no. I'm just seeing if they need help with anything that they are stuck on. And if they don't, that's fine. But if they do, cool. We can explore if it... If I can help. Then it kinda changes your orientation towards sales. [00:30:54] S1: I I am in the same boat as you, and that's a really nice way of thinking about it. I'm just trying to solve someone's problem. Yeah. That's why why is it so hard? Before we get to the next step, which is getting your first sales call, finding... Basically finding someone to talk to that you don't already know. Are there any anti patterns or just kind of signals or just like traps people fall into when they're coming up with ideas?