The Guaranteed Way To Skyrocket Product Market Fit

The Guaranteed Way To Skyrocket Product Market Fit

The company I co-founded failed to discover product-market fit during the past year. We built a causal AI, secured pilot customers, and did not close one. After running out of money, I began a dedicated study on securing product market fit quickly.

The need for a solid product-market fit is startups' foremost struggle, so why not solve it at the very beginning?

The Pre-Start

Most founders make the mistake of asking potential customers, "Would you buy this if it existed?" Or, even worse, they ask friends and family what they think of their product idea. These methods don't work because they are theoretical. If someone had asked me at 16, "Would you buy this super cool sports car if we built it?" I would have said yes, regardless of the fact that I had no money or legal means to buy a car.

The Fantasy

A theoretical product gives customers a fantasy, like the 16-year-old presented with a future sports car; a product that does not exist puts customers in a dream world where the money to buy is also theoretical. This is why when founders return to the same buyer months later with a complete product, it does not result in a closed sale.

Making Reality

The best way to transfer an idea into reality is to ask someone to buy it. Ask a prospective customer to spend money before the product, website, logo, or even company name. Do not ask for some time in the future, but see who will buy today. I recently did this with a prospective company. Calling people who fit the assumed customer profile, I asked them to buy the service. When two out of twenty bought, it pointed to the potential for product market fit.

Paid Feedback

When working with the homeless years ago, I received unsolicited feedback. One of the most striking comments was, "Hey, you need to carry a big Bible around. " However, those commenting were not customers. In contrast, the homeless people who needed food and shelter just said thank you. The point is to only listen to people with a vested interest in what you are doing.

Testing The Fit

An initial group of paying customers is the first step. However, finding those customers gives insight that other forms of research cannot. The reason is that you are conversing with potential customers on day one. You can quickly learn why they do not convert to sales. It could be the wrong customer profile, or the pricing is off.

For example, I recently learned that people do not easily switch from competitors in an industry we would enter. This was discovered over a series of sales calls with potential customers. Instead, it turns out that most people buy this service and keep it until they move houses. Therefore, we were able to make some changes to the customer profile, delivery method, and sales technique to achieve product-market fit before the company name was selected.

Ultimate Stealth

The silliest thing is when someone has a LinkedIn profile with "Stealth Startup." I can say that because I have done it. It seemed really smart at the time, but now I realize that the ultimate stealth is to not announce anything until product market fit is discovered. This is achieved by cold-calling potential customers.

The Call

Most of what I learned on cold calling came from Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street. Love him or hate him, the fact remains that he can sell. Building a script from his teachings makes it easy to remove poor sales techniques from the equation so that true product-market fit can be discovered.

Conclusion

It is such an excellent method that no one will know if product market fit cannot be discovered. The people you called who did not buy do not remember, while nothing online has been posted. Furthermore, real money has yet to be spent. So, you can experiment with company names, product features, and anything else without building anything. Once you discover the winning formula, you can spend 100% of your funding on building and scaling.