product market fit and timing

Good morning Predictable Revenue community,

Does product market fit belong in a book about helping founders running sales for the first time?

My initial frame for the book was that predictable revenue is created by multiplying your product market fit by your go-to-market effort. My plan was to touch on the importance of product market fit but not talk about what goes into finding it. As I’ve worked through the outline and had many conversations with people in this community (big thanks to Brandon, Pierre, Marc, Chris, Jason, Kathy, David, Jacob, Prakash, and many others), I’ve heard a desire for more focus on both finding and measuring product market fit.

Here are the big three learning outcomes I’m aiming to achieve:

1. How to find and measure unmet market needs (product market fit)

2. What goes into closing your first $1m in revenue (founder-led sales)

3. How to step from founder-led sales to running a sales organization (go to market fit)

Collin

PS - reply back with YES if you think it fits or NO if I should stick to sales.

PPS - here’s some more context if you’re interested.

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Above is the outline of the book that I wish I could have read when I was getting my start 12 years ago. I knew how to sell but totally messed up the PMF and it cost me valuable time vs a competitor.

The #1 killer of startups is doing the right thing at the wrong time —> investing in growth before you have strong product market fit. There’s a nuance to the conversation because there are pressures from investors, early hires to show progress and that usually means growth.

At my first startup I spent 18 months trying hard to sell something that nobody wanted to buy and ended up with 1 customer. I paused for 4 weeks, interviewed another 50 sales leaders with a slightly different frame, and walked away with 7 customers. If I would have paused 12 months sooner, I would be in a very different situation now. It’s not that I didn’t do any customer dev ahead of time, I did plenty, I just didn’t have a method for measuring the size of the unmet needs. If I had one, I would have pivoted sooner which would have saved time, money, and improved my odds of making it.

If that sounds interesting, here’s how I’m thinking of organizing the section on product market fit:

1. My process for running customer development interviews

2. How to measure the size of the unmet needs and identify big market opportunities

3. How I used Dave MacLure’s pirate metrics to give me confidence it was time to invest in growth

If you’re still reading, thank you! Please hit reply and let me know what you’re thinking. What’s missing? What doesn’t make sense?