Finding Product Founder Fit: 3 Steps to Discover Ideas Worth Pursuing

Do you ever lose interest in a project or business idea when the novelty wears off? Unfortunately, I know this feeling all too well. To stay committed this time, I researched tools to help me choose a project I'll stick with. The goal is not to assess an idea's viability but to evaluate how well it aligns with the founder's values and ambitions.

Want to do me a big favour? Read this directly on my substack.

Ever since I saw Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” on Tedx the idea of purpose has roamed around in my brain like an uninvited guest. It’s not an unwelcome guest per se, but I’m also not entirely comfortable with its presence. It’s a presence that can feel judgemental of my lack of purpose. Or at least my indecisiveness.

As an ADD-er, I must identify the purpose of any endeavour to make it a long-lasting pursuit. Instead of passively waiting for a problem to solve, I need to take time to find the sweet spot where passion, skills, and purpose meet. These steps won’t magically turn anyone into a happy, successful entrepreneur, or give birth to the next world-changing organisation. However, they provide a moment to reflect on what one truly enjoys doing and act as a personal compass to guide you in your decisions. Let’s go:

1. Reflect

In order to build anything sustainable, it is important that you as the leading person can sustain it. Sounds obvious right?

To create a strong fundament for our new pursuit, we’ll reflect on our well-being. The PERMA Model is a well-being theory developed by positive psychologist Martin Seligman. The model suggests that there are five essential elements to human well-being, which are:

1. Positive Emotion (P): This encompasses feelings of hope, gratitude, contentment, and compassion. It's about cultivating a positive outlook on life. Make a list of all the things that trigger positive emotions for you. For example: hobbies, spending time with friends, going to concerts, meditating.
2. Engagement (E): This involves being completely absorbed and engaged in activities or tasks that challenge us, also known as experiencing 'flow.' It’s more likely you’ll experience this state of engagement and flow when you use your strengths. Reflect on what triggers flow for you, and write down what activities get you into this engaged state.
3. Relationships (R): This encompasses the different types of interactions you have with others. Relationships give us support, allow us to care for others, and provide a context in which we can share and enjoy life's pleasures. Reflect on how you feel about your social relationships.
4. Meaning (M): This element is about having a sense of purpose and direction in life. It's about knowing that our lives and work have significance and contribute to something larger than ourselves. You can skip this one for now, we’ll focus on meaning in the next step.
5. Achievement (A): This involves having goals, ambition, and the drive to achieve. It's about the pursuit of success, mastery, and accomplishment for its own sake. “Achieving intrinsic goals (such as growth and connection) leads to larger gains in wellbeing than external goals such as money or fame (Seligman, 2013).” Write down a list of the things you have achieved and a list of things you’d like to achieve.

The goal of this exercise is to recognise what is most important to you and allow you to take steps to consciously improve your well-being.

2. Ideate

Ikigai is probably the most well-known of the 3. It’s a Japanese concept that combines the words "iki" (生き), meaning "life" or "being alive", and "gai" (甲斐), representing "value" or "worth". Together, they form something that translates loosely as "reason for being" or "a reason to wake up in the morning". It consists of 4 spheres that overlap, with your Ikigai being where they overlap. The reason we use Ikigai as a starting point for our ideation process is that we want to find ideas that hit the sweet spot - or what some ideologically might call purpose.

To find your Ikigai you consider four perspectives:

1. What You Love: Take your time to write down all the things you really love. It can be anything absolutely anything, whether they can become a profession or serve a greater purpose does not matter.
2. What You Are Great At: Next write down a list of the things you’ve been great at. Hobbies, professional skills, interpersonal skills, write them all down.
3. What the World Needs: Then write down issues in your neighbourhood, community or the world that you feel very strongly about. It’s about fulfilling the needs of something bigger than your own.
4. What You Can Be Paid For: Lastly you ideate things that you can potentially get paid for at the intersection of the 3 above. A methodology we can use to come up with ideas is Crazy 8’s. It’s designed to push beyond the first idea as that is usually the most common and safe idea.

This exercise isn't about grand or world-changing passions. It can be found in the simple, everyday things that give life a sense of meaning. And when listening to the successful indie hackers in the IH podcast, it appears it’s often the smaller problems close to the founders that prove to be a particularly good fit.

3. Decide

In the previous step, we came up with 8 ideas that you could potentially be paid for. Now we’ll apply the Bentoism framework to pick the one that fits us best.

Bentoism is a framework developed by Yancey Strickler and is designed as a tool for making decisions that align with our values and goals. It helps us to look past our immediate self-interest by considering 4 dimensions. The name "Bentoism" comes from the Japanese bento box, a lunchbox divided into several compartments that each hold different types of food. Just as a bento box helps balance and portion a meal, Bentoism aims to help individuals balance and portion out their decisions and values.

The Bentoism framework presents a 2x2 matrix divided into four boxes and first, we will plot our values in these four boxes. Which we can then use as a map to navigate our decision. Use the outcomes of the previous two steps as inspiration for the boxes:

1. Now Me: This represents what you value right now, in the present moment. It's the self-interest most of us are familiar with. In this box, you write down what you find important for yourself today. Click here for examples.
2. Future Me: This represents the needs and interests of your future self, the person you're becoming. Decisions made with this perspective might involve planning for the future, considering long-term goals, or pondering what legacy you'll leave behind. For this box, write down where you’d like to be in the future. Examples: become more entrepreneurial, empathic, curious, and reflecting.
3. Now Us: This represents the needs and interests of your collective identity in the present. It could mean your family, your community, or any group you're part of. Decisions made with this perspective might be about what's best for the group, or how your actions impact those around you. Examples: spend time with family and friends and volunteer in my local community.
4. Future Us: This represents the needs and interests of future generations and the future of the collective. Decisions made with this perspective might involve considering the environmental impact of your choices or the kind of world you're helping to create for future generations. Examples: help people do work they love, reduce human impact on our planet, and inspire aspiring entrepreneurs to start a company for good.

Then encircle the ones that are closest to you and create the Bento matrix once more with only the values you've circled.

Finally, having thoroughly reflected on our well-being, passions and interests, skills and strengths, and the values that drive our decisions, we can test our eight ideas against them.

So for each of the ideas we ask ourselves the question:

Should I pursue a business in <insert business idea>?

• Is the idea aligned with the values of “Now Me”?
• Is the idea aligned with the values of “Future Me”?
• Is the idea aligned with the values of “Now Us”?
• Is the idea aligned with the values of “Future Us”?

The idea(s) with four yes-es are the most likely to fit you as a founder.

In conclusion, finding product-founder fit is crucial for building a sustainable business. By following the three steps of reflection, ideation, and decision-making, we can identify ideas that align with our values, strengths, and passions. Taking the time to evaluate ideas in this way can help us avoid losing interest in our projects and instead create a sense of purpose that guides our decisions.

So, go ahead and give it a try and let me know if it helped!