Comments on: Before product-market fit, find passion-market fit

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 01:46:15 +0000

Love it. The hardest thing is believing you’re not crazy (well, just not in isolation anyway!). Love the extention of personality idea – and all those comments that followed on. Getting the Market:Product fit was the easy part; to an entrepreneur, that comes realitively easily… I don’t claim to be an entrepreneur, just an enthusiast with a marketplace following: What I’d REALLY love help on is managing senior exectutives as a junior start-up manager. Dudes with heaps of experience and contacts that just haven’t done the hard yards outside of a big corporate to understand what it means to be a start-up. any advice out there??!! How do you teach a wise old owl new tricks, without breaking the fish-bowl?

By: Terry Leach

Terry Leach — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:45:19 +0000

Exactly!! Passion-market fit will lead to product-market fit if it occurs for years, because it leads to a lot of obsessing and thinking.

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 03:36:48 +0000

I agree. I started to think about creating a hoodie for my cellphone long before trying to make it and bringing it to the public.

It is currently on Kickstarter raising funds.
http://kck.st/qxydfq

I admire entrepreneurs who risk time and money to pursue their dreams

By: Jim Kovarik

Jim Kovarik — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:57:02 +0000

“irrationally obsessed with the market…” that’s a good way to put it. What most others don’t see for some reason to you is perfectly obvious. That’s probably why so many entrepreneurs question their sanity.

By: Steve Deal

Steve Deal — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:00:03 +0000

“Every single simple thing that can be done is being done, or has been done. ” I’ve been wondering when people will turn their passion to doing the hard things that can be done.

By: Gordon Mattey

Gordon Mattey — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:45:10 +0000

I may be splitting hairs here, but before being passionate about the market, being passionate about the customer and their needs/problems/oppos is probably the first place to start… and it follows through to product-market fit and beyond as you scale and become a mature company..

Be passionate about your customer and their context first.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:02:06 +0000

As I read this, the point is that your odds of getting to product-market fit are a lot better if you are in love with the market — or the market is you. Naval’s not (mainly) talking about personal fulfillment here, he’s talking about authenticity + passion being the best tactic.

I don’t think he’s promising happiness. Just a better product!

By: Mark from NYM

Mark from NYM — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:41:13 +0000

Thanks. Let’s me know that I’m only 99% crazy.

By: Peter Su

Peter Su — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:39:43 +0000

I agree with you Naval. To be socratic about it, let me pose a question a to you (one that I faced myself when thinking about co-founding a company)

Would you rather co-found with a team of great people and figure out a business to go after, or focus on an idea/product and then build the team around it?

Ideally you’ll have a team that’s the best in terms of their complementary skillsets and passionate about the idea – but that’s not always the case.

In short, what’s better for the seeds of a start-up, team-centric or idea-centric?

By: Mario

Mario — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:32:52 +0000

fuck yeah!