The Product-Market Fit Manifesto

10 commandments for your startup to put up on a wall

Moses came down the mountain with 10 commandments for a religion. As the startup cult is pretty religious too, I thought of writing down 10 commandments for product-market fit. I present to you, the Product-Market Fit Manifesto, first draft.

The Product-Market Fit Manifesto

1. A startup is a group of people looking for a novel, repeatable, scalable business model.

2. A business model is the way a startup creates, captures and delivers value

3. The way a startup creates value is by having a superior solution to the competition out there—it’s their only moat

4. Therefore, any startup should obsess over creating a product that everyone wants and getting that product to as many people as possible

5. To create successful products, i.e. to unlock demand, one must deeply understand the desires and needs of the customers

6. To successfully market products, one must deeply understand what words and channels to use to get on the radar of potential customers

7. Only when the founder can convince customers that the value generated is higher than the costs associated, startups are allowed to deliver and capture the promised value

8. Initially, this process is clumsy, not scalable, and inefficient.

9. In the end, successful startups can:

   1. Offer a product people want

   2. Sustainably acquire and retain customers

   3. Deliver the product profitably at scale

10. Only then, a startup has the right to claim to have reached product-market fit.

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