Would anyone Notice If You Died?

A client asked me this week if I thought he had achieved "product-market fit" and I said, "Not even close."

However you define product market fit, I define it as "would your customers notice or suffer if you died/went out of business.

I wasn't trying to be mean, but it was an honest answer because the product has no identity for whom it is designed.

Now I could easily write 2000 words on what product market fit is and how to measure etc, but instead, let's talk about the thing few people discuss in this conversation, which is how "niche" your business is. I have seen many times brands try to be everything to everyone instead of being the only choice for a few. That few could be hundreds of thousands of people and be the foundation of building a billion-dollar company, but those "few" must all look and smell the same. That could mean the same industry or similar geography or many other similarities. The quickest way to product market fit is (in my opinion) finding that niche that isn't being served and overserve them.

When I worked at FreshBooks the then CEO Mike McDerment used to always say (paraphrasing here) we serve an underserved market [micro small businesses] because we love them. They need our platform because no one else cares about them the way we do.

I added a photo here cause I felt like the newsletter needed it.

Being niche means going deep. FreshBooks wasn't accounting software, it was accounting software for creative professionals. Going deep can also mean specialization; you are not selling baseball equipment; you only sell catcher equipment. Or you specialize in clothing for Tall women like Tall Girl Shop, or you sell a Field Service tech solution for people who use Salesforce like ServiceEcho.

Finding your niche is as important as finding your product. Long are the days of mass marketing. Diet Coke is niche, it is not made for everyone, nor is it marketed to all people...

....Because if you are for everyone, you are not interesting and really for no one.

So who are you for?