The Hard Thing About Simple Things
On barbells and finding product-market fit
Want my help figuring out sales + PMF? See more info HERE and grab 15 with me HERE.
This week’s video - now available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!
Figuring out sales and finding product-market fit requires a simple set of actions:
Talk with potential customers and see if they buy
When 1 doesn’t work, figure out why it doesn’t work, and change something
When 1 does work, try to deliver and make them not churn
Obviously there’s a bit of nuance, as I wrote about HERE. But these are the core things you’re doing, and you need to do them relentlessly.
One thing I’ve noticed is that founders, me included, struggle to do these simple things. This is not a skills issue… it’s just that we find increasingly athletic ways to avoid these simple things while spending time on product roadmaps, pitch competitions, vision documents, team offsites, 1-on-1s, etc. And we look back at the week (or month, or year), and that little voice asks, “Did I accomplish anything real?”
Why does this happen, and what do we do about it?
The Barbell Doesn’t Lie
I found the answer in a weird place… a weightlifting program created by Mark Rippetoe, who happens to have the best voice on Earth:
Mark’s insight sounds stupid and obvious: In order to get stronger, you need to lift heavier weights.
And so he created the Starting Strength program, which consists of a few different basic lifts (bench press, squats, deadlifts, and press) for 3 sets of 5 reps, and you add weight to the bar every single workout.
Simple. And brutal, because every day you show up at the gym, you are lifting the most weight you have ever lifted. I wake up dreading each day’s lifts.
BUT HERE’S THE THING: Because of the program’s simplicity, I have no way out. The simplicity leaves nowhere to hide.
When you stare at a barbell you don’t want to lift, but have no excuses not to lift, you realize that complicated programs - in fitness, and everywhere - are just ways to avoid doing the obvious, simple things that work.
This is, to borrow a phrase, the hard thing about simple things.
0-1
The problem: We create complexity to avoid the simple things that work, because those simple things are difficult and unpleasant. We often do this with excuses for why the simple things don’t apply to us - because we’re deep tech, or B2C, or B2B2C, or in a specific niche, or enterprise, or whatever.
The solution: ???
Here’s my take:
Stop pretending the simple things don’t apply to us, and that we are creating complex work and elaborate excuses to avoid doing the simple things.
Accept that the alternative is death. We are generally people for whom everything has worked out in the past, so we generally assume that even if we don’t do the simple things, it will all work out. It won’t. If we don’t do the simple things, our startups are guaranteed to fail. If we do the simple things, we have a chance not to fail.
Find something that pulls us in the simple work. It’s not enough to just show up and go through the motions; we have to want to do the work. Yes, the simple work can suck, but when we get more fascinated by figuring out “who pulls what, when, and why” than we are scared to look dumb in a sales call, we tend to shift gears and start figuring stuff out, and stop feeling bad for ourselves.
Look at your calendar for this week - is it full because you’re doing the simple things that matter, or is it full because you’re avoiding them?
Want my help figuring out sales + PMF? See more info HERE and grab 15 with me HERE.