Product/Market fit is the key to startup success
Marc Andreessen continues his “Guide to Startups” blog series and addresses a very fundamental principal that speaks to the root of what makes a startup work- “The only thing that matters; Product/Market Fit”.
It starts with identifying common traits that best correlate with both startup success and failure: Team, Product, and Market.
In my experience, many startups spend an extraordinary amount of time “team building” and creating a “Stellar Product”. While these things are vital there should be a constant need to understand the market. Any market is constantly shifting and the team should be consuming market data like they consume breakfast, lunch and dinner. Keeping your team up to speed on your market makes it easier to reach “product/market fit”- the key to startup success. Detailed market knowledge allows better, more focused, strategies and the ability to easily determine features, functions and capabilities to exclude from your stellar product.
Rachleff’s Law of Startup Success: The number one company killer is lack of market.
Excerpt from “The Pmarca Guide to Startups, Part 4: The only thing that matters“:
Read MoreDo whatever is required to get to product/market fit. Including changing out people, rewriting your product, moving into a different market, telling customers no when you don’t want to, telling customers yes when you don’t want to, raising that fourth round of highly dilutive venture capital — whatever is required.