Searching for Product Market Fit
Searching for Product Market Fit
Lessons from a new online course for tech founders
Last month, when I gave a webinar to tech founders on the five traps to avoid in finding product market fit (PMF) in the U.S. I was delighted by the engagement and hunger for actionable insights on this topic by the SaaSBoomi founder community. In that talk I had laid out a framework of five factors that affect PMF: customer, product, category, go-to-market strategy and talent. Based on the positive response from the community, I decided to develop a course.
The Product Market Fit (PMF) Course
Last week, I completed a 2-week course on Speeding Up Product Market Fit where I worked with a cohort of tech founders to further develop this framework into hands-on worksheets and guided discussions: all with the goal of building and accelerating their PMF plans.
I am blown away by the work the tech founders put in, and by their commitment to the PMF journey. And I am glad they found the course valuable.
The average recommendation score was 9.3 on 10.
“This course helped me stitch everything together.” “The most important part - it brought clarity” “Helped me understand how PMF looks like in real-world” “Sharp questions led to deeper insights” Founder Quotes
Seven Lessons
Here are my top seven lessons from leading this cohort-based course.
1. Finding PMF is a complex problem.
There are no standard answers, no fixed solutions: only heuristics. Sure, there are several principles, such as finding a powerful use case for early customers, or iterating fast on your MVP (minimum viable product), but these are hard to apply.
2. Founders need a structured approach.
Most first time founders are lost in how to navigate product market fit from first principles. Do you go for revenue or repeatability of customers? Do you build growth bottom up or top down? Even serial entrepreneurs, who are wiser, approach PMF with trepidation, especially in newer markets.
3. A structured approach offers a map, a navigation guide - and a lot of questions.
I found that all the five factors, both the external ones (customer, category, GTM) and the internal ones (product and talent) need to be taken into account. Importantly, the approach should be built on two premises: one, how these factors interact in the real world and two, how to guide founders through these factors with a set of tools that address gaps in their knowledge and the market risks they face. Throughout, the focus has to be on the right questions, not answers.
4. Founders still need to do the heavy work, on their own or with the cohort.
Since there are no ready answers, the founders have to do the work to break down their hidden assumptions, and build back a PMF plan that is grounded in reality. Here, a cohort of like-minded founders going through similar challenges can help each other get better with their PMF plans.
5. Biggest benefit: strategic clarity for the founders and their teams.
Coming out of the program, founders need to have a coherent value story, and a concise view of their key risks and unknowns. Such as, should they double down on a customer segment? Or should they redefine their product offering? And what is the key talent needed to achieve PMF? This clarity should drive focused actions to validate PMF in the market, which is the highest point of leverage for any founder.
6. Innovation is guided, not hampered, by this process.
Using a structured approach frees the founders to focus on innovation in areas that get them close to PMF. E.g. is my pricing wrong? Or is my growth pathway misaligned? Questions point to different areas to innovate in.
7. This approach can be applied to most tech domains.
We had a cohort of founders building companies in various domains (sales and marketing, ecommerce, security), using multiple business models (SaaS to marketplace) in different software categories (apps, business platform, and infra tools). Based across Bangalore, Tel Aviv and San Francisco, they found common ground in helping each other improve their PMF plans. I found this the most encouraging.
Announcing PMF Bootcamp
Based on all this, I am launching an expanded 4-week intensive course in February 2023
Product Market Fit Bootcamp: A Market Based Structured Approach to Building & Testing Your PMF Plan.
This is for the founders who are looking to go deep and reconstruct their PMF plans to achieve faster time to success, especially in this economic climate.
If you know tech founders who could benefit from this, please share with them.
To join the waitlist, contact me.
Special shout out and many thanks to Avi Harsh avi@weavr.cafe and Kirsty Hall kirsty@weavr.cafe of WeavrCafe for partnering with me on this course and on incubating a cohort-based community.