Chris Muth

The bad part is that you can fool yourself into thinking you have product-market fit. You have a product (the “tech”) to go along with (or “enable”) your service, but are people buying your service because of the accompanying product?

Growing without product-market fit robs you of agility. Agility allows you to iterate. If you can’t iterate fast enough, you won’t get to product-market fit.Here is my suggestion to founders of tech-enabled services: don’t grow until you achieve product-market fit. Get a few customers in the door to start, then move any further demand to a... See more

However, it is usually easier to begin with single-player. Building multiplayer is more complex. You need to have liquidity (ie: friends needs to be online for the ah-ha moment to be most fertile).

With service-market fit, there is little market risk. Tech-enabled services generally start out as just services that use existing technology well. You’re not testing a hypothesis by offering a service that other people already offer - you know there is demand for what you’re selling.

Once you know your product actually makes your service 10x better along some dimension, then grow. Don’t fall prey to temptation (or pressure from your investors) to grow before then.

The most common question I get about this framework: Do I start single-player or multiplayer?

Well, first you start with the community. You find an underserved niche that you feel you understand them and speak to them in a way that resonates.