Wait, you’re not supposed to just start coding as soon as you have an idea?
As a technical or nontechnical founder, it can be daunting to decipher all that goes into exploring a problem, solving a problem, and growing your business.
From my previous posts, you know I’ve replaced the popular Product-Market Fit with 7 (more detailed) benchmarks that I believe will keep startups from avoiding the 90% failure rate.
Two weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to talk out my new framework with Gregarious Narain on his Founder Craft LinkedIn Live series.
At the beginning of our conversation, you’ll find that Gregarious and I have known each other for some time now and have a crazy connection we can’t quite pinpoint.
It’s no wonder we’re both passionate about digital product development and supporting startup founders in their entrepreneurial journey.
[2:58]: You’re not supposed to just start writing software as soon as you have an idea? With a business idea in mind, many entrepreneurs will go straight into software development. I address the fact that it’s best to move slower in order to avoid wasting money from the get-go.
[4:00]: Product-Market Fit: Startups in Silicon Valley still accept a 90% failure rate as a given. The number 1 reason for failure is no market need. This shows that the popular definition of Product-Market Fit as an inflection point is not working.
[6:32]: Constant Evolution: Greg explores the fairly common advice that startup founders are given — to find a problem that they personally experience. He believes that too many people don’t have a big enough problem to solve. To quote Steve Jobs, “Don’t listen to users because people lie.” So, is it always the market fit?
He wonders whether constantly changing markets and problems cause a disruption in a business’ Product-Market Fit. Is it possible that a business may have achieved Product-Market Fit previously but can no longer claim this?
[8:34]: Know Your Customers: I believe that Steve Jobs shouldn’t be used as an excuse to ignore your customers. Returning to the idea that 90% of startups fail, this can be traced back to a crack in the foundation — knowing something about your customer. This means that Product-Market Fit isn’t helpful because founders are missing something about their customers (the market) from the very beginning.
[10:00]: The 7 New Benchmarks to Replace Product-Market Fit: My Benchmarks start with a founder being the right founder to solve this problem and go through to identifying the most valuable problem and on to iterating and marketing. This entails that you go from prototype to actual product and derisks your investment going forward. Unfortunately, many founders simply create a product and jump to launching and scaling.
Read: Product-Market Fit has Jumped the Shark
Read: The Top 10 Reasons Startups Fail All have the Same Source
12:00: Customer Research: Good customer research requires really good empathy and understanding of what a customer is going through. Founders get this wrong so much because they have a hard time separating themselves out of the story and ignoring their own bias and background.
12:42: Founder/Problem Fit: First and foremost are you the right person to solve this problem? Do you have the right skills? An extremely valuable skill is being able to listen. Gregarious quotes Lindsay,
“A problem can only be a business if you’re obsessed with it and there are early customers that will pay you to solve it.” — Lindsay Tabas
Otherwise, your product is just a utility or tool for yourself.
12:41: Problem/Value Fit: The typical scenario of every founder is at first sight of a problem, we get anxious. At this point, we can either move away from the problem or find a solution. If we opt for a solution, we often go with the first solution because it eases our anxiety. In turn, our serotonin boosts, and we feel excited, accomplished, and creative.
We take that solution, talk to friends and family, get their support, log a few customer interviews only hearing what we want to hear, and believe we are ready for product development.
To quote Albert Einstein, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Knowing that most people jump at their first solution, it’s important to stick with the problem longer, marinate in it, and look at it from every vantage point. There, you’ll find the kernel of knowledge that will set your solution apart from the obvious ones everyone else runs with.
18:17: the Earlyvangelist: Steve Blank’s Earlyvangelist concept indicates that your first customers should be the people that already have the problem, know they have the problem, have come up with their own solution, and are willing to use your solution because it is incrementally better.
20:09: Investors’ Challenge: The question that investors ask is “Is this just a visionary person that can talk the big talk or can they execute?” As a founder, you’ll have to explain the incremental steps you will take to reach your target a year from now. Gregarious adds, “If you can’t solve a small problem, how would you solve a bigger one?”
21:37: Build a Customer Advisory Board: If you’ve followed Founder/Problem and Problem/Value correctly, then you know your earlyvangelists well. Keep these people around as your customer advisory board.
25:46: Solution Benchmarks: The Value/Prototype Benchmark is really talking about the commonly known Minimal Viable Product.
Minimal Viable Product is the smallest amount of features that demonstrate the unique value that you can offer in solving the most valuable problem.
The other component of this is doing this in the cheapest way possible. I urge nontechnical founders to avoid spending tons of money on software developers at this stage. Instead, use Concierge Services by offering a service that mimics the way in which you imagine your product solving the problem.
Use the technical tools available to use (like Typeform, Zapier, and Slack) to piece together the value creation.
34:48: Go To Market Strategy: In a startup, you should be in a persistent state of go to market. Don’t just zoom past marketing basics to invest in expensive marketing tactics. If you haven’t established the fundamentals of your brand, tactics like digital ads will not work.
39:35 Actionable Items: I suggest a marketing activity called Voice of the Customer. With this tactic, you use your customer’s language to sell the product back to them. If you’ve done all of the benchmarks correctly, you should be sitting on a ton of feedback from your customers. That is a gold mine for your marketing and will allow a real customer’s voice to shine through and tell your company’s story.
There are 3 myths behind Product-Market Fit. You can check them out in my ebook.
I thoroughly enjoyed this sit down with Greg since we got to dive into my Product-Market Fit content on a deep level. Let me know what you think of the segment in the comments below!
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And, as always, if you want to talk 1-on-1, go to this page on my website to book some free time with me. Tell me you came from Medium, and we’ll do the talk over video chat so it’s more personal.
