The Product-Market Fit Mirage

Why it happens and how to combat it

One of the most common challenges and joys in an early-stage start-up is the constant change.

The sand is always shifting beneath your feet. It’s equal parts thrilling and equal parts scary, but it’s definitely one of the major reasons I love working with startups.

However, one of the major challenges for business founders and early-stage VPs of Sales is expectation setting.

How do you set expectations when things are shifting at such a rapid pace?

In my experience founders make multiple avoidable errors in the phases from product-market fit through to scale that results in a variety of issues that impact the growth and culture of the startup, and sees multiple VPs of Sales get hired and then ceremoniously fired.

The most common error I see is claiming PMF prematurely. Here’s my take on why they do it, why its a challenge and how to solve it: