Item — HN Reader

It's interesting that so many startups listed lack of product-market fit as the reason for failure, even though another startup with an adjacent idea has been able to get traction.

For example, the first was a "same day ingredient delivery service" that "simply didn't have legs", but both Blue Apron and Instacart could be considered same-day ingredient delivery and both are growing fast.

I wonder if we can "unpack" product-market fit into a checklist of smaller goals?

2 comments

"Fit" is a checklist of subtle details and features that together make up the product. I like to think of it as "When the sum total of nice touches and problems solved that make you love the product is greater than the sum total of annoyances, missing features, and usability snafus that make you fear and loathe the product." Most of these are invisible to someone reading a 1-sentence summary, but you very much notice them as a user.

That's why MP3 players and smart phones failed to get widespread consumer adoption before Apple, why Instagram succeeded where Picwing failed, why Facebook has taken over the world while Xanga is relegated to the dustbin of history, and why Google makes billions while Lycos, Infoseek, Altavista, etc. failed. Same product category, but the product itself was much better.

That's product quality, not market fit. Market fit is reaching the people who would buy your product, and meeting their needs, before you are famous enough for them to find you.

I think it would be valuable to do so.

Product-market fit has more nuance than the words suggest. Maybe the product wasn't right for the market they tried (Caviar for rural Kentucky I'd imagine), or the market as a whole never wanted the product (drive thru dog grooming), and then there's the matter of timing, maybe it was right, just not at that moment. It would be interesting to explore those deeper assessments of lack of product-market fit (as assessed by the founders and outsiders) and see which one is most common. I'm sure we'd find some fun surprises.