The Myth of Product-Market Fit (And What Actually Matters)

Originally published in SeedStage Digest (May 2023)

“Product-market fit” has become the holy grail of startup culture — but most founders chasing it don’t actually know what it looks like. And worse: they often wait too long to act until they believe they’ve “officially” found it.

In reality, product-market fit is rarely a binary moment. It’s messy, iterative, and often more emotional than numerical.

“You don’t get a Slack notification that says, ‘Congrats, you did it,’” joked Lara Becker, founder of a niche recruiting tool. “What you get is a bunch of users complaining because they suddenly *need* your product to work better.”

Real PMF, according to dozens of early founders we’ve interviewed, looks like:
- Users trying to pay you before you’ve asked
- Feature requests that sound like demands, not suggestions
- A Slack full of bug reports — because people are using it enough to care
- Organic referrals, even without a referral system
- Retention curves that flatten instead of falling

It doesn’t always come from perfect UI, viral growth, or a flashy beta. Often, it comes from relentlessly solving one painful problem for a specific group — and ignoring the noise until something clicks.

Instead of waiting for the mythical “fit” moment, founders would do better to ask: Are we creating urgency? Are we replacing something in people’s lives? Are users *frustrated* when we don’t improve fast enough?

You don’t find product-market fit. You earn it — one user at a time.