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Why Founder Market Fit Matters…A Lot

September 3, 2020 by Luke Szyrmer 1 Comment

Back in the day, I was looking into entering the weight loss market with a SaaS solution or coaching services. In theory, it sounded like a great idea. I based it on a “signature success” story of my own. Based on that success, I thought I could provide value, help others achieve the same. But I overlooked the importance of founder market fit.

What I didn’t consciously realize was that most of that actual market was very different from me. I was a young, somewhat nerdy guy, the type of guy who got excited about techie stuff and spreadsheets. And that’s how I achieved what I did in the context of weight loss.

Often new ventures can operate in the same domain as previous experience (i.e. founder-market fit), but the way customers are acquired is different. For example, elephant-hunting enterprise software sales leaders aren’t really a good fit as self-service hosted software founders, even if the core business software vertical is right in their wheelhouse. A killer paid online acquisition guru isn’t a good fit for a venture which requires fostering an open source community for adoption. And sometimes domain expertise can’t be relied on at all when markets are entirely new it’s much more challenging to have founder-market fit for a VR startup when the category didn’t meaningfully exist a few years ago. However, you can still have founder-go-to-market fit in an emerging or entirely new market because the methodology for customer engagement can rhyme with what founders have done in the past. (genuinevc.com)

Ditto on the consumer side. Someone with experience in a particular industry will sense patterns, how marketing works in that space. And also will have industry friends who can help, if needed.

Filed Under: assumptions, innovation, Risk, unknown unknowns Tagged With: founders, market risk, product market fit

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  • About Luke

    Luke Szyrmer is an innovation and remote work expert. He’s the bestselling author of #1 bestseller Launch Tomorrow. He mentors early stage tech founders and innovators in established companies. Read More…

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