What founders get wrong about pilots / POCs / trials

Your pilots are going well. Users are getting value. Usage is increasing. So why aren't customers buying? Or buying still is painful?

Rob unpacks a common startup assumption: if a pilot succeeds, the customer will buy. He explains why pilots, demos, procurement reviews, and other parts of the sales process never cause a purchase. Instead, they can only prevent one.

Understanding that distinction helps founders design shorter sales cycles, avoid endless pilots, and focus on the factors that actually drive buying decisions.

In this episode:

• The two things that actually cause a purchase

• Why pilots belong in a completely different category

• How founders accidentally sabotage deals by offering pilots too early

• What procurement, security reviews, and compliance really do

• How to uncover the reason behind a pilot request

• Why "success criteria" can be a trap

• How to design pilots that accelerate deals instead of delaying them

Links:

Pre-order The Power of PULL and get Rob's Claude skill: www.robsnyder.org/book

Work with Rob: www.robsnyder.org

Connect with Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsnyder1/

Follow Rob's Substack: https://thephysicsofstartups.substack.com/

Chapters:

00:00 One month until The Power of PULL launches

02:02 The founder question: pilots that don't convert

05:18 What actually causes a purchase?

08:43 Procurement, compliance, and other purchase blockers

12:07 Why pilots can hurt your sales process

14:29 Understanding the demand behind a pilot request

18:20 Why "success criteria" often create delays

22:06 Mistaken causality and failed lessons

25:15 Designing pilots around failure conditions

29:29 Design for causes, minimize preventers