Whenever I hold discovery calls with potential clients and ask them to explain their challenges, they always start by explaining the product and their idea for the future.
You know, the “We’re gonna have the best product ever.”
We will build this and we will build that. It’s all about building, everything in the startups is about the product. We think about how to improve the product, which features to add, and how the next thing on the roadmap will unlock the next step to our success.
The next feature will make our customers love us and we will achieve product-market fit.
Will we though?
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For B2B founders, it’s even worse. It’s like: “We have the best technology, we have the biggest database, and we’re technically superior to our competition.”
Yeah.
But customers don’t see our technical superiority do they? Even when we say that we are the best.
Who says that we are, everybody can claim that they are the best. As a product marketer, I came to realize that while a remarkable product is important, it alone does not guarantee a successful product-market fit.
Great product is not the path to great product-market fit
We have a tendency to believe that a great product is the path to a great product market fit.
In reality, it’s not your product’s job to attract users, and it’s probably not your product’s fault that you can’t convert users.
Let’s break down the term product-market fit, shall we?
So you have the product on one side, does the product have to be good?
Absolutely.
But what about the rest of the equation? What about market fit?
You probably can’t get product-market fit because you’re forgetting about the market fit component.
That is your positioning, your messaging, and the context you’re giving to the users when they come into the product.
You might have the best product in the world, but I assure you, the best product in the world won’t achieve product-market fit or successful presentation if it is not effectively presented to the market.
Are you controlling both sides of the equation?
Think of it as an equation.
If your product is perfect, let’s give it a rating of 1 from 0 to 1, and your market fit component sucks, let’s give it a rating of 0, from 0 to 1.
The equation is 1 x 0 and that always equals 0.
To improve your product market fit, you need to build the second part of the equation – your positioning and messaging.
Around 72% of startups never make it there. And I get it. The struggle with achieving and holding a product-market fit is real. You don’t know where to start. You don’t know where to look. There is no recipe. Copy-pasting strategies from other successful companies won’t guarantee the same results, as each company operates in a unique context.
Product-market fit is not a switch
I believe one of the problems is the general misconception that you achieve product market fit. But it’s not a switch, is it?
It’s not an either you have it or you don’t. It can be anything in between or different for different audiences.
But the reality is patience pays off. So working on it, working on that equation, listening to customers more than anything, pivoting according to customer feedback will get there.
I noticed that all of the clients I have worked with so far focus on the product side.
It’s never the product’s fault. It’s just that there is not enough effort put into the market fit component.
We are all iterating the product, but we are forgetting about iterating the market fit component. So that’s why in all of my cases with startup clients, I started innovating on the market fit component.
With startup teams, we iterate positioning and messaging. It’s just like a founder iterates the product. So if you can’t acquire, or if you can’t convert customers, if your customers churn, you need to put more focus into what you’re saying to your customers, and how you’re presenting the product to your leads.
Want to iterate your positioning just like you iterate on your product? Schedule a call with me.
