A Smart Bear » Excuse me, is there a problem?

“We focused too much on what we wanted to bring to the world. We needed to pay attention to what the world wanted from us.”, Ivan said. And people were just not interested in a no-code programming application.

That’s a really important takeaway — you  need  a wedge into your market. A  specific problem  and use case that is real

... See more

So many founders have a great idea but can’t figure out how to sell it. Second-time founders know that they shouldn’t even bother with an idea if it is not sell-able. Marketing risks force you to face the truth: Do you know enough about your market to know how to sell it and who will buy it?

I should mention one sort of initial tactic that usually doesn't work: the Big Launch. I occasionally meet founders who seem to believe startups are projectiles rather than powered aircraft, and that they'll make it big if and only if they're launched with sufficient initial velocity. They want to launch simultaneously in 8 different publications, ... See more

Product-market fit works in both directions. The perspective of the builder is always toward what they can do to change their product, what features and functionality to add. But with a long enough lens on successful and failed technology launches, you see that things like market context really matters. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t see as many ideas t... See more

The problem you solve for customers is increasingly one they can’t even articulate for themselves . The ones that are easy to understand have already been built and funded over the last 20 years. Building something of true excellence will require a hungrier engagement with the world

Bad markets are the reason many great products and teams never find PMF. A declining or non-existent market will kill you no matter how good your execution is.