[jkkorn]

I've had that question mulling around in my head for a few years.

Like others have mentioned, of course there's an element of luck. It helps to have a product that fits the zeitgeist.

But in my experience, the remaining 99% is all working smart and understand what and the "why" of the problem at hand.

The Google Ads technique is good, but only if you're working on a product with a known problem. For anything new... it probably won't be much help on it's own. It's useful though if you use to see how people try to solve known problems.

Best resources hands down IMO for understanding 0 to PMF are: The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen. Gives a good view on how products fit with the market. If the problem space is wobbly, the solution space will suck. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick (my favourite). Excellent book on user interviews. It's so good that I made a primer out of it: https://gum.co/DeSxL The PMF Engine by the founder of Superhuman: https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine... It's a more quantifiable way of approaching it.