"PULL is, I believe, the most important concept in startups and business. It is the hidden load-bearing wall that explains why some products take off but others don't, why customers really buy things, and what 'shape' of a new thing is needed in the market."
The Questions Everyone Asks
When people are trying to understand the PULL framework, they often ask very similar questions:
- Does the PULL framework apply to enterprise? B2C? Deep tech? Hardware?
- Do you need PULL in order to succeed?
- Does the PULL framework assume buyers are rational, logical, premeditated?
- Does the PULL framework explain the emergence of new categories -- like Steve Jobs and the iPhone? Henry Ford and the automobile?
- What does PULL feel like in a sales call?
The question that matters most: "Where does the PULL framework apply and where does it not apply?"
This question comes up for two reasons:
- The primary canvas is B2B AI startups. It's reasonable to wonder if the framework applies elsewhere.
- Everybody secretly hopes it does not apply to them. (We all wish we could just build magical products without selling and the world would shower us with adulation and money.)
The Framework
A buyer will rip your product out of your hands if these four things are true -- while everybody else would be weird to buy your product:
- The Project: There is a project on the potential customer's to-do list, which is being prioritized right now.
- The Urgency: There is a reason the project is urgent or unavoidable now, versus all the other projects on their infinite backlog. They would be weird if they didn't prioritize this project.
- The Options: They consider a list of options for accomplishing this project. These options are not just direct competitors -- they might be other technologies, hiring, or a variety of other things.
- The Limitations: The options they consider have severe limitations that prevent them from making the kind of progress they're trying to make.
The whole point of a startup is to find repeatable PULL, which causes fast growth. PULL defines a buyer's unmet need -- which pulls companies into existence and makes products relevant.
PULL Applies in Enterprise
Big enterprise deals can't be governed by something so simple as PULL, can they?
The Healthcare AI Story. A founder spent two years hitting his head against the wall trying to sell an AI executive coach. He tried selling into HR departments, coaching firms, and to individual execs with basically no traction.
One day, he had a random interaction with an exec at a big healthcare company. He had no healthcare experience, but he asked a very open-ended question: "What's at the top of your priority list that you need help with?"
The exec responded that she wanted to understand what people were saying on social media about certain diseases. The founder said, "Oh, we may be able to help you with that." They scheduled a second call. He pulled together a sample PDF report. The exec liked it. They crafted a contract.
Each of his early contracts -- all enterprise, all healthcare, all pre-product -- closed in 4-6 weeks.
This might sound like a lucky break, but almost every startup story (enterprise or not) goes like this.
More examples:
- A university team got their first customer -- a Fortune 100 entertainment company -- from random outbound pre-product. They turned around a vibe-coded demo in a few days. Good enough "fit" for the buyer's demand. Contract done in weeks.
- A conference organizer sold AI governance solutions (a mix of product + service) into the biggest automotive companies to bootstrap her startup.
PULL is extremely important in enterprise. Because it's so difficult to buy things in enterprise, your champion MUST have something they REALLY NEED to accomplish. The project on their to-do list is what's going to cause them to suffer through procurement and 47 group demos.
The Enterprise Nuance
In enterprise, the project on the champion's to-do list might be somewhat idiosyncratic per customer:
- John wants to demonstrate he's using AI to get promoted, and thinks your AI tool will help him do that.
- Jenny has been given the unfortunate mandate to shrink her team by 30% while doing the same amount of work, and can only accomplish that with AI automation.
John and Jenny both buy -- from slightly different roles at similar companies with somewhat different projects. This is still "repeatable PULL." It's just not perfectly identical like you might get in SMB.
The McKinsey Model. Consulting firms like McKinsey offer extremely variable services -- from strategy to transformations -- for different buyers in different industries. Each project fits each buyer's idiosyncratic PULL.
But the reason McKinsey can consistently deliver bespoke services at scale is because they've built a "factory" that standardizes everything other than the idiosyncratic project content. Recruiting. Training. Scoping. Kickoffs. Slide formatting. All standardized -- so they can consistently deliver on the specific thing the buyer needs.
PULL Applies in Consumer
Using the PULL framework to identify an ICP and a need in consumer is pretty uncontroversial. The controversial part is 1:1 sales in consumer.
It still applies.
Sarah Blakeley / Spanx. She went and sold Spanx in malls herself in the early days. 1:1 consumer sales.
Howard Schulz / Starbucks. He spent all his time in the first Starbucks store unfolding it from a fancy Italian espresso bar to something that fit the American yuppie's PULL. He did this by watching where people got stuck.
The Oak Room. A small American Oak distillery just opened a tasting room. The owner sat out on the front porch listening to people walking by who were considering coming in.
He heard people turn away after realizing it was just whiskey -- so he changed the name from "American Oak Whiskey Tasting Room" to "The Oak Room" and started offering other drinks. Others wanted food -- so he started offering small plates.
Four years later: still rocking 4.9 stars on Google as the top-rated spot in town.
In all these cases, 1:1 sales and customer interactions do not scale. But they help you learn what actually works -- what fits PULL. You can only scale something after it actually works.
PULL Applies in Hardware
Surely you can't sell-then-build in hardware?
Kickstarter suggests otherwise. That's B2C hardware.
What about B2B? Nonexistent hardware has been pre-purchased for delivery 6+ months out by serious businesses off a 1-page overview from a hardware startup team.
Moving on.
PULL Applies in Deep Tech (Sometimes)
There are two kinds of deep tech projects:
Fundamental Research. A specific research goal, not yet a company. May become a company through some happy accident -- they invent something in a lab that happens to fit PULL. PULL does not directly apply here.
Research for Commercialization. Common, and PULL applies. We need to find a need, and we should try to pre-sell because of the long lead time of research.
Unfortunately, researchers doing commercialization-oriented work tend to go through university accelerators where they are told to interview customers, not to sell. Why waste your life as a postdoc making $0.75 per hour while building something you think is validated but actually isn't.
PULL Applies in Every Moment
The concept of the "to-do list" is a foundational model for understanding human action.
In each moment, you take action (or no action), and your action reflects the to-do list in your soul.
The generality of the framework is by design: We need to understand the source code of human action in order to truly know how to make our cool little B2B AI companies take off.
Summary: Where PULL Applies
Enterprise. Champions need PULL to fight through procurement. Slightly idiosyncratic projects, but repeatable patterns.
Consumer. 1:1 sales teaches what fits PULL. Scale comes after learning what actually works.
Hardware. Pre-sell before you build. Kickstarter proved this. B2B hardware follows the same pattern.
Deep Tech (Sometimes). Commercialization-oriented research needs PULL. Fundamental research may stumble into it.
The Core Truth. Everybody secretly hopes PULL doesn't apply to them. They wish they could just build magical products without selling.
But PULL is everywhere. It's the source code of human action. It's why some products take off and others don't. It's why customers really buy things.
Find the PULL. Then build.