Every founder, business strategist, revenue focused executives, product management executives obsesses on Product Market Fit (PMF). It’s natural to think this way. “This is what we make, who might want to buy what we make? Who will be the best buyers of what we make?”
And we develop our GTM strategies: “Find as many people who want to/need to buy our product as possible, and as quickly as possible!” And if we look at that strategy, we tend to think of the product placement as the destination or goal–it’s our goal and it’s our customers’ goal, “find, select and buy a product.”
This strategy is ideal for customers who are in the solution selection stage of their change initiative. They know what they need, they are trying to select a solution. Competing in this market tends to be feature, function, pricing focused. We develop the checklist strategy in presenting our products to these customers. You know the comparisons of our product with the alternatives and ours always checks more boxes. And our competitors have their own versions of this.
The focus on PMF, can be very powerful. The customers are, as I’ve stated, highly knowledgeable, they have bought frequently before, and the risks of making a bad decision are very low. These are very mature product categories. What buyers are looking for is a highly efficient buying experience–which is why so many are moving much of their buying to digital interactions, and which provides great opportunity for “Agentic solutions.”
As a side note, this presents a very interesting challenge of early stage companies presenting solutions in mature markets. As we look at most highly successful early stage companies, they have tried, in various ways, to disrupt the market not by building a better product with more features and functions, but by getting customers to rethink and redefine the problem.
In complex B2B buying we know customers struggle.
They struggle to recognize they may be stuck in the status quo and there might be a better way to do things. Or, possibly, they recognize they have a problem, but they struggle with defining it, identifying root causes, identifying the risks of not solving the problem, identifying who else is impacted, defining a process by which they will define and solve the problem, ……
Their focus is all around the problem. And if all we can talk to them about is our product we have a communication/focus mismatch. As customers focus on the problem, the solution–if they get there is–is a means to the end, not the end. There is so much more than selecting a product that concerns them. In fact, the product selection is, often, the smallest part of their concern.
Yet we continue to focus on our products……
And that’s the critical disconnect. It’s what’s driving customers to find help/answers in other places. It’s a huge contributor to No Decision Made. And it’s completely misses the opportunity to change those who may be blind to the need to change. In short, the majority of change efforts, where customers struggle is with understanding the problem and all we are doing is presenting a solution to a problem they have not yet defined.
What if we were to look at things differently? What if, instead of Product Market Fit (PMF), we look at Problem Market Fit (PrMF)?
What if we started recognizing what our customers already recognize? Our solutions are a means to an end, not the end. And the customer is focused on the end,
This has the potential of more closely aligning us with our customers and how they think of things, and the help they need most.
We then start looking at our markets/ICPs differently.
We would ask ourselves, “What are the problems in which we have the deepest expertise–and which our solutions help solve? Who has those problems? That is a PrMF fit, that defines our ICP. Then our engagement strategies focus on the problem the customer is trying to address, moving them to the point where they ask, “How do you help us solve the problem?”
At this point, I hope I’ve laid the foundational arguments for thinking about PrMF rather than PMF.
But it’s important to recognize these strategies are not mutually exclusive. As we look at the evolution of B2B buying and as customers get greater experience and confidence in certain areas, we can see the customer moving from a problem to product focus. For example, CRM used to be a very complex buying process, today it is very well understood by customers and sellers. Where it may have started as a PrMF, it has migrated to a PMF.
Alternatively, using the same example, if our target for CRM sales is an individual or small team, a PMF strategy is probably the best. But if our target is to land an enterprise with 20K seats, spread between sales, marketing, CS, and other functions, we may have a PrMF.
Afterword: You will see some references to Problem Solution Fit. I tend to think this is a Variant of PMF linking the problem and solution. Most of PrMF is a focus on the problem/change process itself.
Afterword: If you want to nerd out on a deep discussion I had with ChatGPT on this topic. Please send a request for the transcript. You will see some high drama as I accuse ChatGPT of lying to me, another where ChatGPT gently rebukes me on my shortsightedness. We examine the pros and cons of each approach, we do deep dives on problem focused approaches like JTBD, Jim Collins’ Flywheel, Mort Hansen’s Collaboration, Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm, Cynefin and other models. It’s probably the best discussion I’ve ever had with ChatGPT. If interested, send me a request for the transcript.
Afterword: Here is the AI generated discussion of this article. It’s one of the better discussions the tool has created. Additionally, they come up with some interesting analogies and examples. Enjoy!
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