This is an extension of my #FMB “Founders are Made, not Born: How Founders Become Learning Animals” series, based on my Stanford Masters of Education research. Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII. Extensions: Parts 7, 8, 9, 10.

Last year in June of 2023 I wrote about product market fit not being a one-way door.

In tech we talk a lot about finding PFM. Less about losing it. What else should we expect from our eternally optimistic industry? But PFM isn’t a one-way door. In fact, we talk about PMF all wrong as an industry.

The statements I hear people share about what product market-fit is are all totally off. You know them:

• PMF – You know it when you have it
• PMF – The phones are ringing off the hook 
• PMF – when you’ve hit 1M ARR 

These epithets are far too crude. These perfunctory shorthands hide the important, nuanced truth: Product-market isn’t a one-way door. It’s a transitory state.

You don’t “find” product-market fit like you you’ve found the location of a secret club. You “have” product-market fit for however long you have it, like being in shape. You have to keep working at it, and if circumstances change, your PMF changes.

This is why the right market is so important. Great markets have ever-present needs that withstand cultural cycles (short lived tailwinds). 

You “find” product market fit like you find serenity. You know it when you have it, but it’s a transitory state that you have to work to maintain if the environment or offering changes. 

And they are always changing. Covid crash, Post-covid spending spree, Rising inflation and budget cuts = the market just keeps changing. 

If you’re working wayyy harder to retain the same revenue level, product market fit is slipping.

If the pipeline is evaporating fast and formerly excited customers are ghosting you, product market fit is slipping. 

If formerly high levels of investor outreach totally dried up, product market fit is slipping. 

If journalists stopped reaching out to ask for quotes for their story or to interview you, product market fit is slipping.

Formerly high-growth, venture scaling companies whose growth has slowed to 10% YoY? Probably lost. 

It’s a sinking sensation for a founder to watch the former product market fit unravel around you.

Graham Duncan has a great essay called “What’s going on here, with this human?” about candidate selection. I love this passage:

“When you’re taking someone from one ecosystem to another, changing their context, you have to try to see the water in both. It’s disruptive and risky to take someone out of the setting in which they’re thriving, since there are a lot of subtle things going on in the original that may not be immediately obvious. How much of their success depends on the water in the first ecosystem?  Was there someone there who believed in them that set a positive feedback loop in motion that may not persist across systems?”

Rephrasing this for product market fit: 

“When you’re taking a company from one market to another, changing their context, you have to try to see the water in both. It’s disruptive and risky to take a company out of the market in which they’re thriving, since there are a lot of subtle things going on in the original that may not be immediately obvious. How much of their success depends on the water in the first ecosystem?  W[ere] there tailwinds that set a positive feedback loop in motion that may not persist across markets?”

Product market fit is a state of existence. Find your serenity. Or at least come to peace with having to revisit PFM.

Product Market fit is not a one-way door, it’s a transitory state.