The biggest opportunities often address needs that don't appear on a customer's "calendar" because no good solution exists. Products like Lovable for web design unlock latent demand by finally providing an accessible way to accomplish a goal that was previously too difficult.
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Instead of inventing new features, Prepared identified its most lucrative expansion opportunity by seeing users' painful workarounds. They noticed 911 dispatchers manually copy-pasting foreign language texts into Google Translate—a clear signal of a high-value problem they could solve directly.
A 'dam' represents pent-up demand where users are frustrated and merely 'coping' with the status quo. Introducing a 10x better solution, often via new tech, doesn't create demand; it bursts the dam, releasing a flood of customers who see it as a magical fix for a problem they already have.
Startups often fail by targeting abstract concepts like 'markets' or 'personas,' neither of which actually buys products. The fundamental unit of demand is a specific project on a single person's to-do list. Solve for one person's tangible need, then see if that need replicates across many others.
True product demand lies in the gap between what customers are currently doing (observable on their calendar) and their ultimate goals (their mental to-do list). A successful product closes this gap, better aligning a customer's actions with their underlying objectives. This mismatch is where "pull" is found.
Some of the largest markets address needs customers have completely given up on because no viable solution existed. This powerful latent demand is invisible if you only observe current activities. You must uncover the high-priority goals on their mental "to-do list" that they have quit trying to achieve.
Identify how users are already "hacking" your product for unintended purposes (e.g., using Facebook Groups for commerce), then build dedicated features to serve that existing intent. You can't make people do new things, but you can help them do what they already want to do more easily.
A product has strong market pull when it aligns with the customer's true goal (their "to-do list") far better than their current action (their "calendar"). Automated note-taking app JMP had pull because it perfectly matched financial advisors' hidden goal to minimize time spent on compliance paperwork.
Pull isn't just a problem; it's a state of active struggle. Think of it as physics: the customer is applying force toward a project, but their existing options are applying a counter-force. Your product's role is to unblock this potential energy, which is often invisible until a viable new solution is presented.
The "Pull Framework" defines demand not by pain, but by observable action. It requires a customer to have an active, unavoidable project, to have already explored existing options, and to find those options insufficient. This is the signal for a product they will eagerly "pull" from your hands, even if it's imperfect.
Loom was founded on the observation that easy video sharing was ubiquitous in personal life but painfully complex at work. This gap between consumer-grade user experience and clunky enterprise tools highlighted a massive, latent demand. Entrepreneurs can find opportunities by bringing consumer ease-of-use to the workplace.
