How not to do product-market fit
Product market fit and focus.
The dichotomy and dissonance between what we say and what we do.
When you develop a product, you want to find a customer (easiest if you’re the customer), understand their pain and fix it at a price they like. Then when a customer/investor asks you ‘Why not do this also?’, you can say “We focus on doing X for Y. Doing Z would just distract us and confuse our customers”.
I lots of invitations to Webinars. They try to convince me that some place 8 time zones away with multi-billion dollar companies are a good fit for me. Maybe/maybe not.
Here is an example from the Israel Export Institute — they mean well but it is HELLO — really lame.
The North Texas life sciences industry is dominated by pharmaceutical, optical and medical device manufacturers, such as Alcon (Fort Worth) and Essilor of America (Dallas). The region has shown enormous capacity to attract major players in the industry like McKesson, as well as generating home grown successes, such as Peloton Therapeutics.
Medical equipment and supplies, as well as scientific research and development, are hallmarks of the North Texas life sciences industry. UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas is among the nation’s best in biology and biochemistry research, boasting countless clinical breakthroughs and innovations.
Why is this relevant?
Just because there are a bunch of big companies in Texas we should spend time in the Webinar?
So what?
How is that going to help me sell my software, medical device or molecule?
This pitch has zero fit to customer needs (which are to sell product and outcompete the other guys in your weight class, more or less).
It should have been:
In this 20' webinar we will show you how to reach decision makers in the North Texas life science industry and how to pitch your product to Texan decision makers.
This Webinar is designed to help connected medical device companies with at least $1M in sales in 2019, find qualified sales opportunities.
If you participate in the Webinar, we will get you a 3' to pitch the CEO of McKesson.
