Product-market fit

<p>The concept is incredibly powerful and yet almost impossible to determine with a metric. Perhaps the easiest way of defining it is through the negative[<a class="litnote tooltip" href="/literature/@feld2015">@feld2015<span class="tooltiptext">The Illusion of Product/Market Fit for SaaS Companies</span></a>]:</p> <ul> <li>Myth 1: Product market fit is always a discrete, big bang event</li> <li>Myth 2: It’s patently obvious when you have product market fit</li> <li>Myth 3: Once you achieve product market fit, you can’t lose it.</li> <li>Myth 4: Once you have product-market fit, you don’t have to sweat the competition.</li> </ul> <p>Perhaps the problem is that we try to abstract the issue to a single concept, something we need to thrive for, but that does not necessarily make sense to use if it is so hard to grasp and yet so simple. </p> <p>In [<a class="litnote tooltip" href="/literature/@kin">@kin<span class="tooltiptext">Pmarchive · The only thing that matters</span></a>], the argument goes a bit deeper, looking at pattern that emerge in different startups. In the end, it is a team building a product, which makes me think that perhaps it should be rephrased as <a class="wikilink" href="/team-market_fit/">team-market fit</a>. Can a poor team deliver a product that fits so well in the market that it will make the startup succeed? The other way around is quite clear, even a good team can fail at getting a sense of the market's need. </p> <p>Another take at the challenge is done by [<a class="litnote tooltip" href="/literature/@itamar2015b">@itamar2015b<span class="tooltiptext">The Illusion of Product-Market Fit</span></a>], that uses some concepts of physics to try to explain it: Product/Market fit is like a resonant wave. You can change the wavelength, or you can change the boundary conditions. Adjusting the wavelength are the small changes you can add to your product (or to the <a class="wikilink" href="/value_proposition-market_fit/">value proposition-market fit</a>). </p> <p>The boundary conditions can be regarded as <em>the market</em>. Sometimes we can change the market, create a need that didn't exist before, like what happens when you have to <a class="wikilink" href="/create_the_need_for_a_product/">create the need for a product</a>. </p> <p>Sometimes focusing on a different market (pivoting) allows to redefine the boundary conditions without having to actually <em>change them</em>.</p>