Overestimating Weak Customer Signals as Indicators of Success

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Common PMF Mistakes Founders Make
Mistake 1: Focusing on Marketing or Sales Hacks while Neglecting Customer Satisfaction
Marketing and sales hacks can work. But do you have a product-market fit or do you have a marketing fit? You can have a killer sales and marketing strategy that creates tons of momentum and virality, but if your customers are churning, then all you’re left with is… a killer sales and marketing strategy. Not product-market fit.

Mistake 2: Founders have such a bias toward proving our dominican republic telegram data hypothesis right that we tend to translate very weak signals from customers into signs of product-market fit. We want to declare “Mission accomplished!” and scale our startup ASAP.

Instead, think like a scientist: Try to prove your hypothesis wrong. Look for evidence that you don’t have product-market fit. Ask yourself if you can change the product to make it more essential to your customers’ lives.

Mistake 3: Assuming Product-Market Fit Will Last Forever
AOL. Blockbuster. Yahoo! These were major product-market fit success stories…until they weren’t. Technology changes. Trends change. Your customers’ needs are going to change along the way, too.

Instead, be more like Netflix. They saw how winds were moving towards streaming and they pivoted their product to fit the market. Remember: The market should pull the product out of startup. You’ll need to re-evaluate your product-market fit constantly.