We released The Five Steps to Product Market Fit a few weeks ago and received lots of questions on how to apply the steps. In this episode, Rob and I share more colour and more stories on each step to help you understand how to apply them, and also, when these steps might need to be broken.

Re-releasing the BEST episode of all of season 1. 

I know most founders today are planning for the new year, so sharing the top 3 mistakes I've seen early-stage founders make when forecasting. If you're forecasting for 2024, you don't want to miss this.

Here are the key lessons from the past 60 episodes that we've released to date.  Each of the 5 steps to Product Market Fit is based on actual case studies with real examples you can use. It's a recap of everything I've learned over the last two years- you don't want to miss it.

As they say, "Experience is the teacher of all things"... and my last startup was a ruthless teacher. Today, my co-founder Lee Silverstone and ex-CEO Rob Woodbridge join me to go through some of the insane stories from Gymtrack,  our last startup. From strapping a whiteboard to the roof of Lee's Civic, to going to conferences with a 3D printed "smart" pin, to getting PR at the worst possible time, the stories are funny, engaging, and clear examples of what NOT to do. 

This is the story of the emotional rollercoaster that was my last startup, Gymtrack. Hope you find it helpful as you navigate your own startup journey. You can read the article here as well: https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/i-was-supposed-to-be-a-millionaire-at-25-instead-i-went-bankrupt-ef525370e353

Phil Knight, Nike's founder, might hold the all-time record for taking punches to the face.  From giving up 49% of his company to a part-time advisor; to having Prefontaine, a famous runner and Nike's main ambassador, die unexpectedly; to getting blindsided with a $25M import tax when he could not afford it. Anything that could go wrong, did. In this episode, multi-time founder Rob Woodbridge and Pablo Srugo go over Phil Knight's (founder/CEO Nike) road to product-market fit and why we...

Nike was built backwards. Instead of building a product and taking it to market, Phil Knight first built a distribution machine for running shoes. Eight years later, he finally launched his own product (the Nike shoe) and did $3M in sales in the first year. This is not the full story of Nike. It's the story of how Phil Knight got to product-market fit.

Mark (CEO GoBolt) didn't set out to build a billion-dollar company. He just solved a problem other university students were facing. And then he constantly "made the best decision possible at each moment in time". To be honest, that's how most unicorns are made.

Everyone tells you that you need to start with a niche, a beachhead market, and then grow from there. But how does that actually work? What does that really look like? It looks like Mark's story starting and growing GoBolt.  Mark started off storing items for students over the summer. He expanded to storing all things for all people. He now provides logistics for enterprises. He's raised over $150M and has over 1,000 employees. But it wasn't pre-destined, it was 100% organic.  What really...

Think of Product Market Fit as a pyramid. At the bottom you have vision, then value prop, then product and at the top is go-to-market.  As you go from 0 to Product Market Fit your job is to tweak the pieces of that pyramid, from top to bottom, until things click.

Founders are told to pivot when things aren't working. They're also told to never give up. So how do you know when to push through and when to completely change course? Like most things in 0 to 1, it's more art than science. And unfortunately, most founders can't figure it out until after they experience it themselves. That's why on this episode we spoke with Andrew Tai, the founder and CEO of MotoInsight. MotoInsight was acquired by Autotrader after it grew to tens of millions in revenue....

Weak customer discovery is the number one reason why most idea-stage startups fail. It usually leads to founders wasting months solving fake problems. In my case, bad customer discovery cost me even more-- I ditched a startup idea that other founders built into several companies worth $10B+.

Here's a step-by-step account of how to do proper customer discovery. From how to source potential customers, conduct proper interviews and test your early product -- Ron has done it all. He shares each step with lots of details, so you can easily copy (i.e., steal) his ideas. Rushing through customer discovery is the most common mistake founders make. Check out this episode to learn how to do it right. 

Being capital efficient is the #1 power move you can make as a founder. It gives you time, control, and a huge edge with investors.  Check out this episode to understand why it matters and what you can do to get there.

Michael Hyatt founded BlueCat, which was sold for over $700M. Since then he’s shifted to the investor side and has invested in dozens of startups. Through it all, Michael has seen three financial crashes: the Dotcom boom and bust, the financial crash of 2008 and the recession we are facing today. He shares several insights on what it’s like to be a founder and investor through these storms. Founders should pay attention.

95% of idea-stage startups fail because they don't solve an important enough problem in the first place. The most important part of customer discovery is to make sure you are solving real problems. But almost all founders do customer discovery wrong the first few times. Check out this episode to learn which mistakes you should avoid at all costs.

We've had plenty of episodes showing you what you should do. So here's an episode on what NOT to do. Myles is an exceptional founder, thoughtful and charismatic. But he's made plenty of mistakes: whether it's coming up with an idea the wrong way, doing fake customer discovery, or simply hiring too many employees.  These are all mistakes I've made in my startup days. Mistakes you've also either already made or are about to make. Unless, of course, you learn how to avoid them.

We talk about product-market fit constantly in this podcast. Hopefully, we learn from what others did and improve our chances of finding PMF. But, even if we do everything right, we may still fail to find PMF. That's why even repeat founders have only 1.5% chance of building a unicorn. But there is one way to guarantee that one day you will find product market fit. We explore that in this episode.

Marty (CEO of Blockthrough) is the definition of a “Founder Cockroach”—he can’t be killed. In this episode, he shares how after 12 years and 2 failed start-ups, he sold his company for nearly $100M. I've known Marty since my very first startup days. In 2013, we started our startups at the same time. I watched him take punches to the face for years. I watched him eat ramen noodles for way too long. And I watched him build an epic company and sell it. 99.9% of founders won't be the next Steve...

Every startup has the same competitor: Status Quo. Your customers have done things a certain way for many years. Status Quo might seem awful to you, but it's worked for them. It's entrenched. It's accepted. In many cases, it's loved.  Classically, your product needs to be 10x better to beat Status Quo. But what does that really mean? What is 10x better? And 10x better for who? In this episode, we deep dive into the two ways to win vs. Status Quo: (1) finding the weak spot, and (2) if you...

 "Wouldn't it be cool if..."  Usually, those words are uttered by first-time founders. And unfortunately, they usually lead to terrible ideas. It was no different for Plooto. Their first idea sounded cool, but it didn't provide real customer value. Fortunately, Hamed noticed it and pivoted. Not once, but twice. This is the story of how Hamed pivoted from a Bitcoin-based payment service to an Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable platform for small businesses. If you think you might need...

Most bad ideas are born the same way. A founder says to themselves: "Wouldn't it be cool if...". I know because I did it. "Wouldn't it be cool if your workouts were automatically tracked" was the genesis for Gymtrack, my failed startup.  When you do this, you are starting from the solution, not the problem. Great startup ideas come from uncovering real problems. That's why we always say that before Startup Mode, there's Research Mode.

Finding Product Market Fit is often a long journey, especially if you're a first-time founder who jumps in with two feet and no upfront research.  It took Rodolphe FIVE pivots to get from where he started to the $10M+ ARR startup he has today. This is the story of each one of those pivots. How and why he decided to make big changes each time, and how each pivot brought him closer to product-market fit. If you're looking for product market fit, you need to check this story out. 

Everyone pays lip service to focus, but few understand what it really means. Those who are truly focused often do things that look insane. That's why we say that before product-market fit, "Only the Insanely Focused Survive".