Overheard a guy at a coffee shop say founder-market fit is more important than product-market fit

I was grabbing a latte in downtown Denver last Tuesday and this guy at the next table was telling his buddy that most B2B startups fail because founders pick a market they don't really get. He said something like 'you can build the best tool but if you don't breathe the industry's air every day, you're dead in the water.' It got me thinking about how many times I've seen founders pivot products but never their own understanding of the customer. Has anyone else noticed that the founders who used to work in the exact industry they're selling to seem to have way fewer missteps right out of the gate?

3 comments

3 Comments

ericschmidt29d ago

Three years ago I would have argued product-market fit is everything, but after watching a former finance guy build a killer accounting tool that nobody bought, I completely flipped. That coffee shop conversation nails a pattern I see constantly where outsiders miss the unwritten rules and trust signals that insiders just know. Real industry experience gives you a sixth sense for where the money actually flows and what problems people will pay to fix without needing a sales pitch.

the_uma29d ago

The coffee shop story actually glosses over that the insiders he's talking about are often the ones who built the broken systems in the first place. I mean, watch any construction tech startup try to sell to a GC who still uses paper invoices and you'll see that insider trust can also mean "we've always done it this way and we don't trust anything new." That accounting tool probably failed because it didn't match how actual CPAs think about money, not because the guy lacked finance background. Maybe it's just me but I've seen plenty of insiders build things that insiders also ignored because they assumed they knew what everyone wanted without actually asking.

eva_ward8813d ago

Insiders definitely know the unwritten rules, but I've watched guys with zero industry background walk in and ask such basic questions that they stumble onto stuff everyone else stopped seeing. The coffee shop story works both ways.