Finding product market fit is not enough
If you’re a new or established founder or a budding entrepreneur with an idea, you’ve no doubt heard that once you find product-market fit, your business will increase sales and grow.
A key component of product-market fit is having your target customers buying in large enough quantities for your business to be able to sustain growth and profitability.
When a startup does create a great product that solves genuine problems and offers real value, they largely rely on their customers naturally coming to the conclusion of wanting to buy.
This is because the components of product-market fit don’t address how to help your target customers “BUY” in a repeatable sustainable fashion which is critical to predictable growth and therefore this essential factor is out of the sphere of influence for many startups.
To take control of this critical part of your startup's success, you must focus all your sales efforts on helping your target customers get to a buying decision as quickly as possible.
You must find your startup’s unique sales approach or “Sales Market Fit” that aligns with the markets you sell into and I’ve written a book to help you begin piecing this puzzle together using 3 easy to follow core principles.
The book is called “Startup Sales Secrets” and is based on the lessons I’ve learned as an enterprise SaaS salesperson from many years in the field.
The book walks you through exactly how to build a winning startup sales approach to help your future clients buy and see your unique value...even if you don’t have any sales experience.
I guarantee you will look at selling from a different perspective and immediately change how you approach the sales function in your business.
If you’ve been struggling with not quite knowing where to start, I highly recommend you read this book.
Here is a link to my book page if this is an area of challenge for you: https://go.salesmarketfit.co/startup
I've always interpreted product-market fit as two main components finding each other and compounding into a proven pathway for successful transactions. I.e. a specific consumer segment finds a product/service and engages in an ideal exchange of energy, in whatever sequence of events that may happen. So in essence I see it as a hierarchical system with PMF on top. It is the epitome of validation of both product and strategy. It's a vertical non-linear process where PMF instigates the upward movement, after inertia has been overcome, and paradoxically meets itself at the very pinnacle of that movement. However, if we're talking about growth then that's a different conversation, but perhaps one OP was referencing as a factor of startup success? I equate it to a vector. In physics, it's a quantity that has both magnitude and direction. PMF is direction, growth (e.g. active paid users) is the magnitude.
Completely agree. Product-market fit is definitely one of the most important fundamental building blocks, but without knowing how to bring it to your buyers in the most simplest, effective and pleasant way possible - it will be impossible to generate any long term scalable growth.
Cheers for the feedback!!
If you're a new founder, I highly suggest taking the time to read this