Being Too Emotionally Attached to an Idea is Bad for Finding Product Market Fit
It’s easy to get carried away with an idea. Remember how as kids we were fueled by our imagination for hours on end, discovering places nobody had ever seen before and doing things others thought were impossible. As adults we’re more likely to be fooled by our imagination, knowing that there are consequences if our ideas don’t match up with the real world. No where else is this fact felt the hardest than it is in a startup. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, as they say.
Startups essentially take an idea of a problem and try to find a solution by offering a product that happens to solve it. If this solution happens to work, and continues to work, we say it has found product market fit.
How do we know if our startup idea is going to work? The simple but sad truth is that it’s impossible to know for sure. This is why the entrepreneur has to continually test that her product does the right thing for the right people. In other words, the entrepreneur has to experiment to finds ways of getting product market fit.
What is Product Market Fit?
According to Justin Wilcox a Lean Startup coach from Customer Developer Lab, the concept of product market fit was first coined by Marc Andreesson, which he defined as:
“Being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market”
But in his “5 Experiments You Need To Find Product Market Fit” podcast, Justin Wilcox argues that this definition doesn’t really explain what a good market is. What does product market fit mean for someone who wants to start a business to accomplish something they want? To answer this he revised the concept to mean:
“Product market fit is satisfying a market what satisfies you”
Why Being Too Emotionally Attached to an Idea is a Bad Thing
The success of a startup is dependent on a complex range of factors. But nothing can be more futile than starting something based on a poor idea. So the problem with being too emotionally attached to an idea is that we become blinded to the reality behind our product and its fit with its market. If we can’t see this relationship then we can’t explain why our idea isn’t working; and will therefore be unable to fix it.
Check yourself before you wreck yourself — Ice Cube
Wilcox poses the following scenarios:
- What if customers don’t want your product?
- What if they are not ready for it?
- What if you are before your time.
To answer these simple questions, you have to take a step back and consider why you’re really doing this (startup)? Are you following your idea, or keeping some aspects of it because you think or feel that that’s the right thing to do. Remember: assumptions make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ & ‘me’
LEAN STARTUP LESSON:
Don’t be too emotionally attached to early parts of your idea
A startup is a process of experimentations to find product market fit. But importantly this fit must be in line with what you want also. You need to find a fit that satisfies you without jeopardizing the internal and external consistency of the idea to the market. By not being too emotionally attached to an idea you can pick up problems and learn from mistakes around product market fit. If you’re too latched onto an idea thats weak you will fail without knowing why you failed.
READ AND LISTEN TO MORE ABOUT LEAN STARTUP CO. BY GOING TO: https://leanstartup.co/
