Product-Market Fit and Leading from the Front

Marc Andreessen has a famous post about product-market fit, called The Only Thing That Matters that is a must read. He essentially describes it as a time when your product is flying off the selves so fast that you literally can’t keep up. The money is pouring in at such a fast rate that your bank account might explode. Needless to say, most startups never reach this point. Sure you can get lucky and get acquired by someone. But truly achieving product market fit is really hard to do.

But some entrepreneurs are able to succeed here. I haven’t personally with my current startup, but we’re trying!

Michael Bloomberg was able to achieve PMF, and now he’s worth $50 Billion. Coming from a finance background, it is fun to hear his perspective on achieving PMF, because I think its a lot different from what you will hear from people in SF or YC folks.

First, hey says you have to build what people are going to need in the future. No what they need now. If you do that latter, either someone is already solving the problem for the customer or, by the time you finish your product, the customer will no longer have the same needs. So, step 1: Skate to where the puck is going.

MB really sides with the idea that you have to convince people that the thing you built is going to be very useful to them. “Keep knocking on doors”, he says, “and you will eventually find a buyer.” So step 2: Sales is really important.

He calls step 2 leading from the front. Leading from the front is very common in politics. Government officials don’t poll the citizens asking for what they want. They instead come up with their own ideas for the future and convince people they are the right ideas.

I like MB’s perspective. It makes you feel like if you try hard enough, you can use brute force to achieve PMF.