How product/market fit can help you build a customer-centric business.
Have you ever written your own obituary? Sat down to think about when you’re dead? Considered what you hope people say about you after you’re gone? Meditated on what you want your legacy to be?
If you haven’t, it’s a worthwhile exercise. It helps you recognize what’s important along with what you’re doing right and wrong to support the biggest priorities in your life.
Starting at the end is about identifying what you want to accomplish and working backward to determine the steps required to get you there. Your life is pretty straightforward because there’s a definitive end, whereas your business may outlive you and your kids. How do you start at the end of something that you hope doesn’t have one?
In business, it begins and ends with your customers so I like to write a customer review as a place to work back from. By writing a raving review from a customer, you’ll verbalize what you want customers to say about your business, products, or services. What’s more, you’ll start to identify the disconnected dots required to achieve that result. This way you’ll be able to connect those dots and guide your customers through your sales process smoothly, for their benefit.
Creating a relationship with your customers is easiest when they need what you have. The happiest customers are the ones who’ve had a problem solved and expectations exceeded. In order to solve a problem, you must first identify and define it. This is how to connect the dots.
Product/market fit is the entrepreneurial term for finding problems worth solving and developing a sellable solution, connecting the dots from innovative technology to a viable business model. Product/market fit is the holy grail of evaluating early-stage ventures, being the sticky question that can make every other discussion point more interesting or essentially pointless. When a founder has a good handle on product/market fit, they answer questions with satiable examples of conversations with real people, real customers. When they don’t, it’s often a one-sided conversation filled with anecdotal evidence and isolated assumptions.
If product/market fit is still eluding you, here are some of the best ways to find it.
Talk to people, all people.
It’s a common misconception that you need to talk to the ‘right’ people about your business. In my experience, everyone has something to offer. Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had began with a different context than where it ended. Some of the best conversations are simply those that lead to other conversations. Every conversation is an opportunity to learn and help someone else.
Don’t just talk, ask questions.
The easy thing to do is talk about yourself and it’s always appropriate to share your story. You’re likely to learn the most when you ask more questions, getting others to tell you about themselves and their experiences.
Don’t just ask questions, ask great questions.
Not all questions are created equal. Any question that can be answered with a yes or no is a bad question and to be used for clarification purposes only. If you want to hear a story, then ask for a story. One of the best ways to frame a question is “Can you tell me a story about a time…” Most people will take that opportunity and run with it, sometimes faster than you can keep up with.
Listen and take notes.
You won’t remember the conversation, I promise. Even if you’re superhuman, there will be important tidbits that you forget. Worse yet, you’re likely to space out and start thinking about yourself or your business at some point in the call. Resist this selfish tendency and stay engaged for as long as you can, taking notes can help with this by giving you a reason to listen and something to refer back to. Just be careful to keep the conversation natural while taking notes. When I take notes I usually tell the other side and let them know if I don’t respond as quickly that it’s likely because I’m jotting down all of the useful information they’re relaying.
Recognize patterns.
The internet will trick you with this one because it serves you based on what it thinks you’re interested in. After a few consistent google searches, you’ll start to believe the whole internet thinks you have a great idea and that the whole internet could be your competitor. Don’t get too excited, or concerned, it’s likely you’re missing some important details. The best patterns will come through conversations with your potential customers. Once real humans start saying the same things, you’ll know you’re onto identifying a problem worth solving.
Share what you learn with others.
Helping others is why you’re in business. If somehow you read this far and aren’t trying to help people then keep reading. A business is built to serve its customers. If you’re building for a different reason, then you will struggle. Find your people and help them, share with them and your success will grow with each relationship you cultivate. In your journey to find product/market fit you’ll likely talk to a lot of people who are interested in your project. Don’t ghost these people, they’re a valuable resource for you, they have a problem they hope you’ll solve, and they are interested to hear how they’ve helped you. Share your learnings with them!
Share early and share often.
“Piracy is not the problem, obscurity is.” – Seth Godin expressed this sentiment over the fear of someone hearing about your business and stealing it. While the threat of piracy is a great excuse to keep your ideas bottled up, it’s as unlikely as facing actual pirates. I’ve found it better to share your insights early. This approach helps you learn and spread helpful information to others. It also helps you to refine the assumptions you’re making about the problem or solution and helps you to refine how you talk about your idea.
It’s not about your idea.
Deep down you know this. You know that ideas are the easy part. You know that coming up with good solutions is solely dependent upon how well you understand the problem. You know that if no one buys what you’re selling then you won’t have a business. You really know that if you’re not helping someone then they have no reason to help you. Yet, the idea gets pedestaled as our thoughts and emotions pine over the results, the rewards it will yield.
Product/market fit is all about formulating a business model. While it’s not the end, it is the goal when starting up a new venture. It’s the who, what, why, and how of your business, the plot through which your customer’s stories unfold. With the right model, your customers will tell and sell your brand story. By focusing on the customer and their problems you’ll be able to design a business model that serves your customers, keeps them coming back, and constantly learns from them. And if you help your customers they’ll leave you great reviews. And if they leave you great reviews, they’ll say nice things about you long after your fulfilling life has ended.