Improving Product Market Fit

Speaker 0: speaking of improving, you mentioned boosting close rates and improving product market fit using your framework. what are some signs that up startups product market fit is off, and how do they realign?

Speaker 1: yeah. i mean, we talked about a couple of them. i mean, the biggest one, i think, just going back to the previous point is where the where the prospect is just not closing and they're giving you positive feedback. i think that's always a big challenge. you know, there's just so much that, people do, especially where, you know, for example, you know, your retention rate is low compared to your industry. that's another common sign that your product market fit is off. another simple one, honestly, is, just look at what everybody else in the industry is doing. if you're doing something really different, your product market fit by nature will be off. but the big thing that i want to highlight is we have this idea that product market fit is the static thing, but it's not. and i actually have if you're a listener and you wanna check out my newsletter, it's on beehive decision lab dot beehive dot com. i actually have an article coming out, i think, next week. it's already scheduled that's on product market fit and how to detect problems in your product market fit. and one of the first things i talk about is that it's a dynamic idea, your product market fit. it's not static because the market is constantly changing. new incumbents are coming. existing solutions are, you know, becoming worse or better or what have you. and product market fit has to be this dynamic thing, and i also really advocate for the icp, your ideal customer profile, to also be a dynamic thing. it's not a static thing. just because, you know, we were talking about this earlier, your cultural tides may shift and a certain industry or a certain type of customer may no longer be as ideal for you. if you wanna meet certain, you know, certain goals in terms of close rates and how much business you wanna get and maintain consistency and all that jazz. so, you know, i think first of all, it's dynamic. it's not static. so we need to stop looking at it that way. i think the second thing is you need to look at all the signs, you know, retention rates, you know, your close rates, getting positive feedback, and not getting anything, not getting enough advocacy from existing customers. all of those are common signs. the other really common sign is when people ask, and i know everybody's gonna say, oh, that's not true, when people ask for a pilot. you know, when you really nail product market fit, people stop asking for pilots. so pilot isn't just because the client is afraid of risk. it's because they don't quite know how they're gonna use you, and that's an indication of a misalignment there. so you have to work towards a place where you can sell without a pilot, and that's when you know you're nailing it.