This is really helpful. I've been wrestling with undestanding and communicating Product-Solution fit vs. Product-Market fit for a while. I think your idea of Offer-Market Fit is a big help.
I'd love to hear what you think about Minimum Viable Segments for the earliest stages.
No, not at each phase. I’ve had a chance to give your post more thought (and coffee) since I read it. I hope you’re ok with a lengthy comment that puts this reply in context (if not, let me know!).
I’m in the middle of running an Alpha cohort for an UnAccelerator programme I’m designing. Yout post is timely because I’m about to introduce a roadmap of Milestone Challenges that I expect founders to go through.
It’s really important that I can articulate objective criteria for each stage.
Until I read your post the three initial stages were:
1. Validated Minimum Viable Segment as coined by Michael Skok. The criteria is a group of people who have exaclty the same job-to-be-done. Needs to be validated by 15 consumers or 5 business interviews.
2. Proposition/Market (Segment) Fit. A similar number of people sign up based on a landing page or slide deck vividly illustrating the proposition.
3. Product-Market fit: 25 reference consumers for an MVP (including price and revenue model) or 40% of your customers (haven’t decided yet).
This is a work in progress, but I think it’s consistent with your milestones.
The only part that confuses me (or where I may disagree) is that your customer traction includes an offer. I tend to insist that founders define a job-to-be done without any mention of the potential solutions. The purpose of the MVS milestone is to confirm that there is an gap in the market because there’s a job to be done. This is an opportunity for many solutions. Which one will be viable is deferred until they can articulate a validated design brief as the result of this first stage.
I'm not sure I have a clear answer for what minimum audience sizes should be, I'll think about that some more.
My first impression is that it would be very hard to define a definitive number for each stage. To give one example, when I do customer discovery interviews, I define the job to be complete and validation complete when we stop hearing anything new and the learning is complete. Often, for some reason I cannot explain, this often happens around 12 people. But if the problem is noisy and there is not much consensus, it could certainly take longer.
Of course in the later stages of validation issues like statistical significance come into it. But in the early stages I say "if you need statistics to tell you whether it is significant, it isn't!"
Sorry I guess this doesn't answer your question, but I'll read your Skok reference and give it some more thought. Thanks again for your thoughtful input!
No worries about the number. My question was more about the fact that your first stage already has an 'offer' in mind, whereas I'm just requiring a problem with a gap to be iidentified. But it's completely agnostic as to what the solution might be. Or did I misinterpret that?
Ah I see. Well I do advocate for researching problem and need before introducing offer too. It’s just that in the simplified 3 step model I drew the line a little later, after the offer has been introduced.
So I agree there is a step before that where one should test the need before the offer, but it is a subset of the first phase outlined here.
This is really helpful. I've been wrestling with undestanding and communicating Product-Solution fit vs. Product-Market fit for a while. I think your idea of Offer-Market Fit is a big help.
I'd love to hear what you think about Minimum Viable Segments for the earliest stages.
Do you mean minimum size of audience for each phase?
No, not at each phase. I’ve had a chance to give your post more thought (and coffee) since I read it. I hope you’re ok with a lengthy comment that puts this reply in context (if not, let me know!).
I’m in the middle of running an Alpha cohort for an UnAccelerator programme I’m designing. Yout post is timely because I’m about to introduce a roadmap of Milestone Challenges that I expect founders to go through.
It’s really important that I can articulate objective criteria for each stage.
Until I read your post the three initial stages were:
1. Validated Minimum Viable Segment as coined by Michael Skok. The criteria is a group of people who have exaclty the same job-to-be-done. Needs to be validated by 15 consumers or 5 business interviews.
2. Proposition/Market (Segment) Fit. A similar number of people sign up based on a landing page or slide deck vividly illustrating the proposition.
3. Product-Market fit: 25 reference consumers for an MVP (including price and revenue model) or 40% of your customers (haven’t decided yet).
This is a work in progress, but I think it’s consistent with your milestones.
The only part that confuses me (or where I may disagree) is that your customer traction includes an offer. I tend to insist that founders define a job-to-be done without any mention of the potential solutions. The purpose of the MVS milestone is to confirm that there is an gap in the market because there’s a job to be done. This is an opportunity for many solutions. Which one will be viable is deferred until they can articulate a validated design brief as the result of this first stage.
What do you think?
Michael Skok reference: https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/minimum-viable-segment/
Very interesting question Paul, Thanks!
I'm not sure I have a clear answer for what minimum audience sizes should be, I'll think about that some more.
My first impression is that it would be very hard to define a definitive number for each stage. To give one example, when I do customer discovery interviews, I define the job to be complete and validation complete when we stop hearing anything new and the learning is complete. Often, for some reason I cannot explain, this often happens around 12 people. But if the problem is noisy and there is not much consensus, it could certainly take longer.
Of course in the later stages of validation issues like statistical significance come into it. But in the early stages I say "if you need statistics to tell you whether it is significant, it isn't!"
Sorry I guess this doesn't answer your question, but I'll read your Skok reference and give it some more thought. Thanks again for your thoughtful input!
Hi Chris,
No worries about the number. My question was more about the fact that your first stage already has an 'offer' in mind, whereas I'm just requiring a problem with a gap to be iidentified. But it's completely agnostic as to what the solution might be. Or did I misinterpret that?
Ah I see. Well I do advocate for researching problem and need before introducing offer too. It’s just that in the simplified 3 step model I drew the line a little later, after the offer has been introduced.
So I agree there is a step before that where one should test the need before the offer, but it is a subset of the first phase outlined here.
Tell 'em Chris 👏🏴☠️
🤘