The Importance of Product-Market Fit
This one is for the entrepreneurs!
You’ve have probably already heard the phrase, “love thy customer.” And, as a recovering entrepreneur myself, I understand both the empathy you must feel for your customers, but also the challenges of communicating that love to them…especially when you begin to get critical feedback. Criticism is hard to take, but we must not only embrace it, but revel in it. Your biggest critics are often the greatest source of learning along the entrepreneur’s path.
Once upon a time, I designed a website for my company. I thought it was brilliant. But I was the only one that shared that opinion! I began to immediately receive critiques from colleagues and potential customers. It stung, especially for the very technical founder that I was. They were critical of everything: branding, design, and our fledgling social media program. I was initially shocked and insulted—then I realized this was an opportunity for improvement, that people cared enough to be critical, and now I had a map to improve my marketing content and process.
The challenge for an entrepreneur is that you are a visionary. You are a creator. You have unique insight and experience. You are driven by your desire to make a massive impact on a minimalistic budget, and time is not always your friend. In the process of my web design evaluation, I learned something important: it is not about you or the product you want to create, market, and sell. It is about the product your clients want to buy and their perception of the value you offer, which can be wildly different from your vision. You can educate customers all day long, but they will not buy-in until they own the problem and solution, and your product or service aligns perfectly with that need. The modern term for this is product-market fit. The thing some entrepreneurs don’t understand is the customer decides when the fit is right--not you!
I had to take myself out of the equation, resolve to set aside my personal feelings, and quiet my own ego in order to let go of my creative and artistic pride. Reveling in criticism is the fastest path to success. It may not feel like it at the time, but the true measure of success is your product/service--the business--taking on a life of its own. I had to learn to create a business that would go on without skipping a beat with or without me involved. That means surrendering to the customer and letting them drive the product development, and then watching as they become brand ambassadors for you. Serve your clients and communities first and your brand becomes an active promise of that commitment.
Rather than being hurt that someone else does not appreciate your unique genius, take the opportunity to understand the client and the client’s needs at a new level so you can deliver an outstanding value with clear alignment with your customer. That is how we become successful. The final product may not resemble your original concept or design, but that means you are adapting to the market conditions you have been given, which are almost impossible to change as a startup entrepreneur. It is a necessary and good thing. Take pride in seeing the business fly from the nest. It was hard for me to surrender to this concept, but entirely necessary.
Now, I lead an angel syndicate and a venture fund. This is one of the first things I look for when evaluating any deal before me – does the product/service fill an obvious and protectable gap? Has the visionary aligned perfectly with the customer’s needs? Will there be an uphill educational battle for the entrepreneur? What tools is the entrepreneur going to use to prove product-market fit? When you can remove yourself from the frame, sometimes you see the bigger picture more clearly.