How to achieve product-market fit by running the experiments that matter most and building the right organization to run those experiments effectively.

1. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE1
The Search
for Product-
Market Fit
Jeff Bussgang
General Partner, Flybridge Capital
Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School
May 22, 2019

2. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE2
Concepts
• Startups as experimentation machines
• Deconstruct “Product Market Fit” (PMF), plus:
– Lean Start-Up Theory
– Customer Development Process
• Help you devise your approach to achieving PMF
and avoid wasting a lot of money
• The metrics that matter most

3. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE3
Taking A Page
From Experimental Design

4. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE4
Startup =
Experimentation Machine
CVP
Experiments
GTM
Experiments
BM/CF
Experiments
Which Experiments Should I Run?
CVP = Consumer Value Proposition
GTM = Go To Market
BM/CF = Business Model / Cash Flow
Source: HBS Launching Tech Ventures Course

5. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE5
Startup =
Experimentation Machine
CVP
Experiments
GTM
Experiments
BM/CF
Experiments
What Organization Should I Build?
GrowthProduct Sales
Biz
Dev

6. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE6
CVP
Experiments
GTM
Experiments
BM/CF
Experiments
Product
Machine
Growth
Machine
Business
Machine
What Machine Should I Focus My (Very) Scare
Resources On Building?
Startup =
Experimentation Machine

7. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE7
Experiments Drill Down
CVP
Experiments
GTM
Experiments
BM/CF
Experiments
WHO HYPOS
WHAT HYPOS
HOW HYPOS
SALES MODEL HYPOS
CHANNEL CHOICE HYPOS
PARTNER HYPOS
GROWTH HYPOS
MONETIZATION
HYPOS
PRICING HYPOS
CVP = Consumer Value Proposition
GTM = Go To Market
BM = Business Model
Source: HBS Launching Tech Ventures Course

8. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE8
Where are You?
Before Product-Market Fit:
Search & Validation
• Lean startup approach
• Hunch-driven hypotheses
• Minimum viable product (MVP)
• Product-centric culture;
informal roles
• Customer development process
• Pivoting
• Bootstrapping/pre-seed
• Small, founding team
• Founder selling - early adopters
• Early in sales learning curve
After Product-Market Fit:
Scaling & Optimization
• Building a robust, feature-rich
product
• Crossing the chasm
• Metrics, analytics, funnels
• Designing for virality &
scalability
• Scaling the team; more
formal roles
• Challenges with corporate
partnerships
• Building a brand
• Scaling a sales force

9. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE9
Lean Startup Principles
• No idea survives first customer contact, so get
out of the building ASAP to test ideas
• Goal: validation of business model hypotheses,
based on rigorous experiments and clear metrics
• Minimum viable product (MVP): smallest set of
features/marketing initiatives that delivers the
most validated learning
• Rapidly pivot your MVP/business model until you
have validation and product-market fit (PMF)
• Don’t scale until you have achieved PMF
Source: Eric Ries

10. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE10
“Lessons Learned” Drives Funding
Concept
Business
Plan/Canvas
Lessons
Learned
Series A
Do this first instead of fund raising
And perhaps even before writing code
(or raise seed round to test hypotheses…rigorously)
Test
Hypotheses
Source: Steve Blank

11. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE11
INBOUND15
Sales team hitting quota
Sales cycles short
40% test – if product disappeared
Product usage high, growing
LTV : CAC > 3
MRR growing > 10% MoM
Churn < 30% / year
NPS > 20
Criteria for Product Market Fit

12. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE12
Leading Thinkers/Books/Blogs
• Geoffrey Moore: Crossing the Chasm (read this!)
• Steve Blank: Customer Development Process (read Four
Steps to the Epiphany)
• Eric Ries: Lean Startups (read this too!)
• Marty Cagan: Silicon Valley Product Group (great book
and blog)
• Sean Ellis: Hacking Growth (great book)

13. CONFIDENTIAL PRESENTATION | PAGE13
The Search
for Product-
Market Fit
Jeff Bussgang
General Partner, Flybridge Capital
Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School
May 22, 2019