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Comment by ttul | Hacker News Reader

Are these really "mistakes" or are they just the random process of value discovery, which naturally involves a lot of failures. Finding product-market fit is not something you can engineer with perfect foresight. You raise money, you build something, and then you have a limited time to see whether your hypothesis about the market was correct. Often, if not most of the time, you fail to get the fit you need in order to succeed.

There are definitely execution failures, but in my experience spanning 20 years, I have seen far more failures that are really just failed experiments rather than execution failures. A half-decent team can get product-market fit; once you're there, attracting the people who won't fuck up the next phase is relatively easy. If you don't have product-market fit, no amount of genius will save your company.

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> You raise money, you build something, and then you have a limited time to see whether your hypothesis about the market was correct.

Or, you get to know an industry, see a need, design a solution, bounce your ideas off people in the industry, do some mock-ups to get some initial acceptance of the idea, ask if they'd pay for it, and if/when all that comes together, then start to build. If you cannot build it with your available resources, maybe look for some funding.

And then once you know an industry, see a need, etc... "You raise money, you build something, and then you have a limited time to see whether your hypothesis about the market was correct."

;)

Which is a process that happens all the time... in movies. In reality, it's chaos.

Works well if your startup is filling in a niche within an existing industry. Does not work well if your startup is creating a new industry. There is a reason why the failure rate for the latter situation is abysmal. But that is also the reason why the returns are so large and sought-after for that situation.

Why doesn't this work for new industries?

It's hard to "get to know an industry, see a need, design a solution, bounce your ideas off people in the industry" if the industry doesn't exist yet.

You also dont see this mentioned that often, but failed attempts can be key factors of success to the successfull ones that comes later.

Therefore, we should be less intolerant with failure and understand that it forms some sort of a ladder where the failed attempts are steps that lead to the successful ones.

I miss this sort of "tech archeology", and i think that the status-quo of tech would do a greate service to us all if they aknowledged the failed attempts more, as this would give more incentives to people to take risks on innovation, knowing that even if they fail, their efforts would be remembered as it would lead to something that worked fine, with a couple of tunings.

There are a lot of bold and bright people that did amazing things that may (or may not) lead to big things, but that face the cruel reality of not being remembered because they are not the success case.

Because in the end, we are only able to succed when we embrace failure and stop being afraid of it, knowing that even if we fail, it might be key to success if not ours, from others that can pick it up from where we stopped.

> Finding product-market fit is not something you can engineer with perfect foresight.

I think the larger problem is that is marketing is near ignored and not just by engineers either. Not many people want to talk to potential customers or users to see if there's product market fit, so they don't talk and listen to anyone outside of the friends and their team which is a huge mistake when they just go ahead and build. This is why I feel that Product Hunt's various hack fest events are more valuable than YC's virtual startup school. Product Hunt's hackfests are ingenious marketing classes in disguise. Product Hunt really forces you in a methodical way to market your product before it's built. What most people don't realize is that it's so important to build an audience before you finish building your product. Ryan Hoover and Co are right: "Build it and they will come" in most cases is a myth.

talking to potential customers and users about product market fit

is not a given it will work

Making a product based on your experience of a market - 25% chance it works out (of which 5% chance it will become a big company)

To that, even after talking to customers

you are only taking it to 30% chance it works out, and of which 7% chance it will become a big company

your hypothesis is based on data points

hopefully things like actual experience in the market

market research

seeing what sells

seeing what doesn't sell

Customers and users are just as likely to give you bad data (of what they THINK they will buy) or impractical data (something that benefits them and doesn't benefit you)

It only adds a few percentage points to your likelihood of success

on the other hand - seeing what customers actually BUY and SPEND ON, that has a lot of value

However, even that is a piece of the puzzle, and not the solution

With a startup nothing is a given. However talking to your potential customers increases the chances of success because it increases the chances of product market fit. It puts your hypothesis to the test.

Yes, those few percentage points count. Every little bit counts when the chance for failure is high.

I’m not really sure why you’re criticizing my argument.

Random process of value discovery?

This is entitled Software developers assuming they can jump into a completely different domain and instantly succeed. Sales? Fundraising? Business development? Operations? Logistics? Recruiting? Psh those losers make half of what I make I can do all their jobs at once no problem!

Oh wait this is hard and I’m not good at it I’m going to wonderful journey my butt back to a cushy ad company.

I think you totally misread the comment.

The process of value discovery involves all the business, ops, marketing, etc people you're talking about (they would be hired with capital or equity). No one is saying they can do it on their own.

Startups that have good business, ops, marketing, etc people don’t fail in the first place.

Yes they do.

This is extremely well put

-> You raise money, you build something, and then you have a limited time to see whether your hypothesis about the market was correct. Often, if not most of the time, you fail to get the fit you need in order to succeed.

A lot of people will try to counter it

However, that is REALLY what it comes down to

we have a HYPOTHESIS about the market. A product that we think will win/succeed/do well

The Market Always Wins

It either accepts your product (your hypothesis was correct, or became correct by the time you launch your product)

or it rejects your product

great comment

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