Rob SnyderGrix VC · Founder + Advisor | Fellow @ Harvard Innovation Labs | Founder @ Restack | Operating Partner @ Grix VC | HBS, ex-McK

Demand: Force against the status quo

10 Oct 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:29

In this monologue, the speaker introduces a foundational concept of demand, defining it as a force that a buyer exerts against their current state (the status quo). The speaker argues that without this force, demand does not exist. This force manifests as a project on the buyer’s to‑do list, turning an abstract desire into actionable work. The speaker distinguishes between items that merely sit on a to‑do list (backlog items) and those that have genuine force behind them, which are the true drivers of demand. Through observations of potential customers, the speaker notes that many expressed items on their to‑do lists lack the necessary force, indicating that they are not true demand but merely low‑priority backlog items. The core claim is that understanding and measuring the force behind a buyer’s intent is essential for recognizing real demand and converting it into actionable projects.

Chapters

this is where I got to this kind of, uh, foundational idea of demand, which, which is just like, how do we describe it in terms of a force, which it's primarily a force and it's a force that a buyer is, is basically exerting against their status quo. And that's what it is at its kind of like most core raw thing, right? If there's no force, there's no demand, then that force we need to understand because it has to take shape for them to do something about it. And so the, the force that they are exerting, I assert, turns into something that we can understand as a project on their to-do list, right? And that's, that's like a, just a way to conceptualize this force. But what matters is the force that they are exerting against the status quo. And right, what I was seeing in that conversation with the potential customers was that they were talking about things that were on their to-do lists, but it didn't feel like they were actually putting force behind those things. And so there's a lot of cases where you can have something on your to-do list. I have many things on my to-do list. That I'm not putting force against. They're backlog things that if you talk to me, I'll say, yeah, that's really important to me. But it's a, it's primarily about the force I'm applying.