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The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

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Re: The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

#61

Post by gizmo »

light_triad wrote: post #57
gizmo wrote: post #23

I think this article misunderstands the concept of product-market fit. Many mediocre products sell and with enough sales effort you can create a big business that only sells mediocre products. This shouldn't surprise anybody because most products aren't that great and most businesses make plenty of money regardless. Product-market fit is not about that. It's not about whether you can find somebody who wants to buy yo…

Good points but I think you're talking about 3 different concepts: - Network effect: does the product get better with more users? - Viral growth: does each user bring more users? - PMF: is there a correspondence between the market, problem and solution that results in market pull? You can have PMF without the other 2, which is not as strong. You can also have PMF for a niche that never grows to a mass market or have…

You can't grow to 10s or 100s of millions of users without some kind of network effect or viral loop. It's pretty much impossible.

Re: The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

#62

Post by gizmo »

jvanderbot wrote: post #53
gizmo wrote: post #23

I think this article misunderstands the concept of product-market fit. Many mediocre products sell and with enough sales effort you can create a big business that only sells mediocre products. This shouldn't surprise anybody because most products aren't that great and most businesses make plenty of money regardless. Product-market fit is not about that. It's not about whether you can find somebody who wants to buy yo…

I think you switched from a binary flag ("no true PMF ... ") to a scalar without realizing it: > Most businesses don't have product-market fit in this way. They'll have it to a lesser extent? The word "Fit" kind of implies a scalar relationship, and the disagreement over who has "it" and who "doesn't" comes down to size of market and suitability for that market. Why can't you can be perfect for a small market, or cra…

Endothermic and exothermic are different categories of reactions and both are also scalar. PMF is exothermic in this analogy. Growth produces more growth by itself, like a raging forest fire. Whereas regular business growth is endothermic: when you stop selling you stop growing.

Re: The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

#63

Post by mnemonicsloth »

gizmo wrote: post #61
light_triad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points but I think you're talking about 3 different concepts: - Network effect: does the product get better with more users? - Viral growth: does each user bring more users? - PMF: is there a correspondence between the market, problem and solution that results in market pull? You can have PMF without the other 2, which is not as strong. You can also have PMF for a niche that never grows to a mass market or have…

You can't grow to 10s or 100s of millions of users without some kind of network effect or viral loop. It's pretty much impossible.

McDonald's. Disney. Walmart. Kroger. Comcast. Verizon.

And many more who sell crops, chemicals, power, machine parts, cars, concrete...

Many companies have billions of customers and no trace of lock-in or virality at all. You might want to shift your perspective a little and remember that there is a world outside of Silicon Valley.

Re: The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

#64

Post by jesseab »

lowkey wrote: post #38
wslh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree but there are important points that the article doesn't address while trying to be very assertive, including: - At the core of PMF is the idea that you are producing something novel in some business and/or technical aspect, NOT that your are selling a product or service that already exists and PMF is there. For example, if you want to compete with Salesforce you already know there is a PMF, it is a CRM! Your st…

Respectfully disagree with this comment “At the core of PMF is the idea that you are producing something novel in some business and/or technical aspect, NOT that your are selling a product or service that already exists and PMF is there. For example, if you want to compete with Salesforce you already know there is a PMF, it is a CRM!” PMF is not about building something novel. It is about ensuring your product solves…

I don't exactly see it this way - "You can only do this by doing actual discovery interviews with prospects in an unbiased way where you explore their experience around specific problem areas without ever mentioning your brilliant solution - as proposing a specific solution is likely to bias your subject."

Sometimes the entrepreneur needs to expand the possibility space, rather than just addressing an "unmet need". There's the Jobs-ism about figuring out what the customer is going to want before they do. Thiel also talks in Zero to One about some of the biggest innovations not spawning from customer feedback or lean methodology.

I wouldn't say that GPT addressed a problem I had per se. It just created a whole new set of activities I wanted to try.

Re: The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

#66

Post by zht »

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #63
gizmo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't grow to 10s or 100s of millions of users without some kind of network effect or viral loop. It's pretty much impossible.

McDonald's. Disney. Walmart. Kroger. Comcast. Verizon. And many more who sell crops, chemicals, power, machine parts, cars, concrete... Many companies have billions of customers and no trace of lock-in or virality at all. You might want to shift your perspective a little and remember that there is a world outside of Silicon Valley.

Comcast and Verizon have no lock-in?

Re: The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

#67

Post by mnemonicsloth »

zht wrote: post #66
mnemonicsloth wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's. Disney. Walmart. Kroger. Comcast. Verizon. And many more who sell crops, chemicals, power, machine parts, cars, concrete... Many companies have billions of customers and no trace of lock-in or virality at all. You might want to shift your perspective a little and remember that there is a world outside of Silicon Valley.

Comcast and Verizon have no lock-in?

Verizon competes with T-Mobile and AT&T. Comcast competes with a different arm of AT&T, Google Fiber, various older satellite internet services and now Starlink.

Outside the US, broadband providers are still huge but differences in regulation mean there are five or six of them in most markets.

Overall, I think my point still stands: claiming that you can't build a giant company without Silicon Valley's growth formula is ridiculously narrow. The vast majority of big companies are built by other methods.

Re: The Myth of the Product-Market Fit (2013)

#68

Post by jvanderbot »

gizmo wrote: post #62
jvanderbot wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you switched from a binary flag ("no true PMF ... ") to a scalar without realizing it: > Most businesses don't have product-market fit in this way. They'll have it to a lesser extent? The word "Fit" kind of implies a scalar relationship, and the disagreement over who has "it" and who "doesn't" comes down to size of market and suitability for that market. Why can't you can be perfect for a small market, or cra…

Endothermic and exothermic are different categories of reactions and both are also scalar. PMF is exothermic in this analogy. Growth produces more growth by itself, like a raging forest fire. Whereas regular business growth is endothermic: when you stop selling you stop growing.

Endo / Exo have a zero point, across which you discretely jump categories, after which you scale up or down subjectively.

PMF does not have a zero point. If you sell (clasically) "zero to one" item you may or may not have PMF. One nuclear reactor / aircraft carrier is a big deal. One newsletter subscription is a small deal.

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