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Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

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Re: Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

#11

Post by modi15 »

There is no such thing as a Product-Market Fit. The article is at best marginally useful in thinking about your startup and at worst will take you on a tangent of intellectual mastrubation which can be a completely misguide you on how to think about your startup.

Startups exist in a complex ecosystem of competing forces. This ecosystem changes all the time. Your product and the market are only two of the multiple factors that could influence your startup. Even then, what constitutes your product and how you define your market will also change throughout the course of your startup.

The ideas behind 'product-market' reduce this complexity into an intellectual exercise whose premise that product should fit market for success to happen is too simplistic and inaccurate. Assuming the product-market fit theory and extrapolating to corollary's and model's the kind this article portrays is great for an MBA classroom workshop but little else outside.

Re: Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

#12

Post by avinium »

modi15 wrote: post #11

There is no such thing as a Product-Market Fit. The article is at best marginally useful in thinking about your startup and at worst will take you on a tangent of intellectual mastrubation which can be a completely misguide you on how to think about your startup. Startups exist in a complex ecosystem of competing forces. This ecosystem changes all the time. Your product and the market are only two of the multiple fac…

I must admit, I am partial to your perspective. People have been building successful businesses for centuries without any notion or discussion of "product market fit". What's more, all these observations are written in hindsight like there's some secret sauce you can learn.

But rather than ruminating at length on "PMF", I just prefer saying "if people ain't buying, change what you're selling".

On the other hand, I can see how it's conceptually more relevant to companies taking the route of "raise capital first, get exposure second and figure out profitability later".

Re: Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

#13

Post by luminati »

SparksZilla wrote: post #9
tschwimmer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the revenue model? You guys deserve to be compensated (richly) for the content; it's awesome. I'm just wondering how you folks make money.

What a lovely question. Top of mind for us, too. Our first Guide, on Equity Compensation, is entirely free. Think of it like our public sandbox. For now, we're thinking all future Guides will be available for purchase (one-time payment and you get digital access + updates). The first Guide we'll launch for purchase is The Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital ( https://www.holloway.com/g/venture-capital/about ),…

You guys certainly have product market fit for the free articles (atleast using HN as a proxy) :)

Curious to see if the same reception is there for the paid content, especially given that the topics you cover have a lot of free articles and videos (e.g.: YC has an entire library of it).

Good luck!

Re: Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

#14

Post by luminati »

modi15 wrote: post #11

There is no such thing as a Product-Market Fit. The article is at best marginally useful in thinking about your startup and at worst will take you on a tangent of intellectual mastrubation which can be a completely misguide you on how to think about your startup. Startups exist in a complex ecosystem of competing forces. This ecosystem changes all the time. Your product and the market are only two of the multiple fac…

PMF is nothing but a framework, a mental model, a bunch of heuristics rather than a magic bullet.

Yes, the ecosystem is constantly changing - but at any given moment in time, you have a specific product targeting a specific market. PMF is a framework to see if you're delivering on your promise to that market in that specific point in time. The corollary to PMF is that the market you've picked is big enough and/or growing.

PMF is not going to save you from external forces (the arrival of the internet in yesteryears or in more contemporary times, the SaaS-ification of everything) happening and neither does it claim to be. That would be an entire different topic ("Innovators Dilemma" - but even then you need to have PMF in the first place to even have that dilemma ;)

Re: Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

#15

Post by modi15 »

luminati wrote: post #14
modi15 wrote: post #11

There is no such thing as a Product-Market Fit. The article is at best marginally useful in thinking about your startup and at worst will take you on a tangent of intellectual mastrubation which can be a completely misguide you on how to think about your startup. Startups exist in a complex ecosystem of competing forces. This ecosystem changes all the time. Your product and the market are only two of the multiple fac…

PMF is nothing but a framework, a mental model, a bunch of heuristics rather than a magic bullet. Yes, the ecosystem is constantly changing - but at any given moment in time, you have a specific product targeting a specific market. PMF is a framework to see if you're delivering on your promise to that market in that specific point in time. The corollary to PMF is that the market you've picked is big enough and/or gro…

The fundamental premise of the framework is that PMF is a discrete event and the journey of a company can be thought of as pre PMF and post PMF. The reality is that most founders will be unable to articulate when and if PMF has been achieved.

A journey of a startup to scale is better categorized as a continuous series of PMF points where the product evolves to target a continuously changing perception of the target market in the eyes of the founders.

Obsessing over PMF as a fundamental metric will limit founders from exploring the true complexity of the ecosystem in which a startup operates in and can often be a stumbling block in optimising for their subjective outcomes.

Re: Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

#16

Post by simonebrunozzi »

SparksZilla wrote: post #3
kine wrote: post #2

This is phenomenal.

Thanks! Everything we publish at Holloway is built to be improved over time, so let us know if there's anything we missed so we can make this as helpful of a resource as possible!

How do you decide who is going to collaborate with you?

Is there a specific business model behind the company?

Re: Fundamentals of Product-Market Fit

#17

Post by jbchoo »

avinium wrote: post #12
modi15 wrote: post #11

There is no such thing as a Product-Market Fit. The article is at best marginally useful in thinking about your startup and at worst will take you on a tangent of intellectual mastrubation which can be a completely misguide you on how to think about your startup. Startups exist in a complex ecosystem of competing forces. This ecosystem changes all the time. Your product and the market are only two of the multiple fac…

I must admit, I am partial to your perspective. People have been building successful businesses for centuries without any notion or discussion of "product market fit". What's more, all these observations are written in hindsight like there's some secret sauce you can learn. But rather than ruminating at length on "PMF", I just prefer saying "if people ain't buying, change what you're selling". On the other hand, I ca…

Totally agree. If people aren't buying...."
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