The hunt for finding product/market fit in an early-stage startup is an elusive one, often fraught with chaos, and certainly never easy. I’ve led the hunt for product/market fit in 3 startups that I co-founded and also had the opportunity to do so for 3 new products launched at established tech giants LinkedIn and Microsoft. Most recently, in advising 5 early-stage startups, I have been helping other founders through their respective hunts.
I put together this presentation to share a framework I’ve leveraged in my own startups as well as now in those that I’m advising to bring some much-needed discipline to the hunt for product/market fit. While there is certainly no silver-bullet, I do find that leveraging an iterative cycle of defining, validating, and iterating on each of your most critical product/market fit hypotheses is a sure-fire way to bring some predictability to the process and provide guidance on whether your team is getting closer or farther from the ultimate goal. I hope some of the best practices I detail in the deck can be helpful for your team as well…
