Product-market fit only connects two dots. You have nine.
Here's how to connect them
To understand why product-market fit is elusive, thinking about completing a business model canvas is helpful.
Answering each of the nine building blocks is easy.
However, startups never have just one idea for any building block. They easily have four.
So, they end up with over thirty answers across the canvas.
Generating options is the easy part. Selecting the right ideas is the hard part.
Common dilemmas
Which segment is our beachhead, because each has certain benefits?
Which JTBD is their main goal after talking to five different managers?
What is the key problem, among the three you identified?
What is the dominant competitor, among the five you’ve heard in interviews?
The solution to identifying the right answer is fit.
All these answers should fit together cohesively. You can imagine that among those nine building blocks of a successful business, there’s more than one fit.
In theory, for nine nodes, there are 36 connections possible. That would be very complex. I’ve made it simpler by identifying the key building blocks and linkages for product-market fit.
The 9 building blocks of product-market fit
When it comes to product-market fit, I’ve broken it down into nine building blocks.
Your task is to map out all your options for each segment and find the best set of 9 answers that are cohesive.
In the diagram below, you can see the 11 most important fits for your product-market fit. You can use these to identify the right set of answers.
Evaluating fit using your gut
Luckily, humans come with an intuitive fit assessment tool: our gut. Consider you are launching a taxi company, and are completing the canvas for the business segment.
Customer: Bob, the business traveller
JTBD: Needs to be at the airport at 05:00 AM
Problem: However, he lives 100 km away from the airport
You get an idea of why that might be problematic. Bob needs to travel to the airport to catch the flight, so need to find a solution—hopefully your taxi company.
Do you have a blue car problem?
But now check out this one.
Customer: Bob, the business traveller
JTBD: Needs to be at the airport at 05:00 AM
Problem: However, his car is blue.
You just feel it doesn’t make any sense. If you don’t, go see a doctor (me). You don’t want a blue car problem in your startup. Here’s another one, to test your gut feel.
Customer: Bob, the business traveller
JTBD: Needs to be at the airport at 05:00 AM
Problem: However, he has skipped breakfast.
I still feel it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but a little more than his car being blue. You may feel that fit is a spectrum.
Evaluate your fit with this tool
For your startup, you should answer these nine building blocks to get a sense of your product-market fit. To help you with evaluating fit, I’ve made this tool, free to use for everyone.
