
How to Find Product Market Fit – founder of Segment (2017) [video] - gajju3588
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6pl5GG8RQ4
======
robterrin
Really great video and lots to learn here. I think this may be the third time
I've seen it, and I'm still getting more out of it.

The biggest thing that hits me this go round is that staying alive is key. PG
may have said, you burned $500k and have nothing to show for it, but if they
had quit then, they would never have made it through the Great Startup
Filter(tm)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter).
The lack of great businesses (90% failure rate) reveals that the hardest part
of building a company is starting a company.

In earlier times when there was more low hanging fruit, the hardest part of
starting a company was scaling it. You had to have government backing (e.g.
East India Company) or sit in an important part of the supply chain (e.g.
Standard Oil) or cover really high capital expenditure (e.g. FedEx). Now that
it's easier than ever to start a company, the good ideas are mostly already
picked, so finding one is harder.

In economics, this called the explore/exploit or multi-armed bandit problem.
What is so interesting to me on this viewing is that Peter Reinhardt's
unrelenting enthusiasm and self delusion were a feature, not a bug. There is
no way they would have stayed in the game long enough to find product market
fit without that. Even though the kernel of the idea existed early on, they
needed to taste true desperation to humble themselves enough to do the
simplest, stupidest thing that customers wanted.

~~~
throwaway84742
Finding an “idea” is a mistake that most startups make. Ideas alone are
worthless. The phrase you’re looking for is “finding a need”, preferably the
kind you can address and charge a lot of money for solving. This is the hard
part that most startups fail spectacularly at.

~~~
robterrin
throwaway84742, you are correct. That is why I said, "thing that customers
wanted" and not "idea." Even having the kernel of the idea was insufficient.

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Tagore
I've been thinking about striking out on my own, having both run a contract
software business and worked for a startup recently.

I'm inclined to think that the best way to find fit is to make sure people are
willing to _overpay_ you for services. For instance, I have a great deal of
expertise when it comes to graphics, and I could probably insist on being
overpaid in this realm.

If I could automate what I am overpaid for at scale I might have a business.

~~~
iovrthoughtthis
What does "over pay" here mean? More than what you perceive the value of the
product or service to be?

I think the key here is shifting your mindset to see value as percieved by the
customer.

Percieved value is actual value.

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karmakaze
As an example the iPod solved an problem people had. As a counter-example the
iPhone solved a problem people didn't know they had.

~~~
talltimtom
The iPhone solved known problems. It was a phone, It was a media player, It
was an Internet browser. People knew the problems, the iPhone was just one of
the early convenience focused products on the market.

~~~
karmakaze
Easy to say in retrospect, but solving many problems in one device was
revolutionary. Earlier PDAs weren't actually that personal which was the
tipping point.

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ChangeUPBudgets
I believe every accelerator should show this video. Very helpful!

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epiapp
Everyone should block Segment requests when browsing. If you have EasyPrivacy
installed, then you're all set.

~~~
rpedela
Can you elaborate?

~~~
varenc
Same reason people block google analytics, ad analytics pixels, facebook
iframes, etc?

It helps keep more of your data out of the hands of 3rd parties. The website
you're actually using will still usually work just fine.

(though as a developer, many of these, including segment, are quite useful...)

~~~
cyberferret
Seems a bit disingenuous to lump Segment in with ad pixels etc.? We don't use
it, but I know of several other SaaS apps who use them to integrate their web
app with support tools like Intercom etc. If you block Segment in these cases,
sure the web app will work, but the in app chats etc. won't.

~~~
varenc
True, but segment provides many integrations and the user won't know where
that data is getting sent or for what purpose. See the list of advertisers
with integrations here:
[https://segment.com/catalog](https://segment.com/catalog)

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lbj
Fantastic video, the best on the topic of pm fit if you ask me.

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z3t4
he's probably very smart and works hard, but is humble about his success,
which most people would attribute to the former.

