Product-market fit is anomalous

Having product-market fit is just as weird and hard as trying to find it in the first place.

Getting encouraging feedback from lots of potential customers is not the same as having product-market fit. On the bright side, you’re probably on the right track. You may know what product-market fit will look like, but you don’t actually have it yet.

You’ll know you have product-market fit when any capacity you add is immediately consumed and you can’t add more capacity fast enough. By capacity I mean whatever your business sells: products, services, inventory, time, space, bandwidth. Demand far outstrips supply.

Product/market fit is when the “good problems to have” start feeling really bad because you have way too many good problems. You must make a choice:

• drastically lower your quality

• drastically increase your price

• drastically improve your infrastructure

• do nothing

Most would pick the third option, but you can’t do so fast enough, because you can’t afford to, or you don’t have time to. Doing nothing is the path of the artisan: don’t compromise, just let people wait in line.

Having product-market fit is just as weird and hard as trying to find it in the first place.