She Thought Nobody Wanted What Her Startup Was Selling, That Wasn’t the Problem

Are your customers skeptical? Or just confused?

image by yanalya

Last week, an entrepreneur wrote in with a long and detailed question, but one that I see a lot, especially from founders who are already on the market and doing crisp business.

It was actually more of a cry for help than a question. It seemed that after a healthy launch that resulted in hitting some lofty KPIs in her first year, new customers no longer wanted her product. Suddenly, she told me, new customer adoption had come to a screeching halt.

The customers she already had still loved the product — adored it, in fact. The market she was addressing was full of carbon copies of her best customer profile. These were prospects that should have been as enthusiastic to purchase her product as her existing customers were using it.

Same product. Same customer. Great track record. Brick wall.

So I dug in to find out why. Turns out her customers weren’t the problem.

The Gap Between Launch Success and Product-Market Fit is Real

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