Product/Market Fit has emerged as a key threshold of success for startups, but the concept can apply to businesses of any size.
First coined by Benchmark co-founder Andy Rachleff, Product/Market Fit was popularized by Marc Andreesen in 2007 in a famous essay titled “The Only Thing That Matters.”
In the essay, Marc defined Product/Market Fit as “being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” He added, “in a great market — a market with lots of real potential customers — the market pulls product out of the startup.”
And yet, in practice, the “pull” that Marc references is often treated as a “push”. Companies push Product to the Market, whether or not there’s a Fit. There’s frequently a lack of understanding of the Market to guide what to make and how to make it.
I stumbled across this insight from MediaTech Ventures founder Paul O’Brien:
“It should be renamed a Market / Product Fit…
“You don’t start with the Product and find the fit in the Market, you start with the Market and design and deploy a solution (the Product) that addresses the needs, wants, and desires of the market.
“Misunderstanding Marketing (thinking that it’s just advertising or promotion – which is what’s typically done) causes founders to treat it as what’s done WHEN ready for business. WRONG.
“Marketing is the competitive analysis, customer profiling, chats with people, community building, pricing modeling, partner development, and more that creates a customer…
“Marketing comes first, not after.”
Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years:
