| I tend to agree with the autho’s point of view. PMF should be viewed as a point on a spectrum, not a binary state. You don’t achieve PMF so much as you progress from no PMF to extreme PMF with respect to progressively larger and larger target market segments. Many pundits claim of PMF that you’ll know it when you see it because the market will suddenly be clamoring for your product faster than you can make it. This is categorically wrong to the point of being harmful advice. You need a leading indicator of PMF so that you don’t delude yourself into believing you have achieved PMF prematurely, only to scale and find yourself in the valley of despair where customer response to your value proposition is mediocre or churn is high. Clues you have product-market fit with a specific customer include: 1/ the prospect has the problem you think they have 2/ the problem is of critical importance for the prospect 3/ they know they have THAT problem, and not some adjacent problem or symptom 4/ they articulate the problem using the same language you use to describe it 5/ they have tried to solve the problem themselves and have allocated budget and time to solving it, but failed Too many entrepreneurs and product managers trick themselves into believing they have PMF when they do not - because they fall in love with their particular solution and try to sell prospects on their idea instead of actually doing customer discovery interviews - unbiased interviews where the prospect tells you about their experiences in the problem space without you ever mentioning your idea. |