Tactic 4/90: Product-Market-Channel-Model Fit
Will Richman
Founder @ Upgraded. ~$137m+ for Clients. +$57,000/yr in 30 minutes. +$570,000/yr in 30 months.
Building a company is tough. Really tough.
Most people think just an idea is enough.
Most startup team-members think just a product or sales team are enough.
Most VCs think just a market is enough.
Some entrepreneurs (& accelerators) think just a great team is enough.
If you've done or doing it successfully, you'll know that just about anything in isolation isn't enough.
Everything has to work.
Brian Balfour, ex VP of Growth at Hubspot, talks about "the four fits" model for building an incredibly successful company, where he explains how the product, market, channel and model have to work seamlessly together to propel a company past $10M revenue per year.
Paraphrasing his post:
Market-Product Fit - We need to think about the market first, not the product.
Product-Channel Fit - Products are build to tap into specific channels. You can't treat the two in silos.
Channel-Model Fit - Specific channels fit with specific models.
Model-Market Fit - Your model must fit with the markets pain and perceived value of your solution.
If you'd like an in depth look of how to get everything in sync, I'd highly recommend checking out his post Building a GrowthFramework Towards a $100 Million Product.