PROBLEM FIT vs. MARKET FIT

PROPOSITION. All innovators believe they are focused, prioritized and results-driven, and they are. But, 80% of what they have in mind is a reflection of their own perspective.

One picture can be completely changed by looking at it from a different perspective.

For example, the founders of a brilliant product idea for indoor air purification were sure that their target market was the home (indoors) air purifier market.

They spent 3 years developing a product characterization in the context of the air purifier market needs and didn’t notice a larger new market for IoT (internet of things) that was developing...

As soon as the entrepreneurs realized that there was an interesting trend in smart home consumption behavior, they looked at the product more broadly –?what else can the product do?

The product can also provide smart home security through air purification.

Same product?– air purifier

Different value propositions?- the product?can also provide smart home safety.

The smart home automation trend is about products that?improve indoor well-being through personalized automation.?The business idea of developing a smart air purifier product to improve breathing indoors?can automate?its portfolio of sensors, in order to be relevant to this market's value.

For the founders of the air purifier product, this discovery helped them modify a better match and raise an initial fund of $1,200,000!?After 4 years, they reached $200M evaluation

PERCEPTION. A big mistake many businesses make is believing that all you need to do is identify a particular problem that the user may have.?User education is a challenge that requires the user to?actively?change existing habits and, therefore, can cost a lot of time and resources.?

For example,?in the air purifier market, the users are aware of breathing inconveniences and they actively advise doctors (smokers | asthma) or seek value for money solutions in polluted countries (they prefer local brands).

In the smart home automation market, users seek smart products to?improve?their daily routine without the need for user education.?

PERSONA. User segmentation is not only important, but vital, in order to optimize your marketing strategies, maximize a user's value to your business, and improve user experience and satisfaction.

For example, the founders of photo editing software for Mac computers wanted to understand why their marketing communications weren’t working well with their users.

They were sure that their users were photographers, but when they segmented the photographers' behavior, they found that only 30% had a Mac computer. They also needed to make 5 decisions before purchasing.

The level of demand among these users?dropped to between 1.5%-30%.

Instead of fixing the barrier and adapting the software to work with more computers, they focused on a user that only needed to make 3 decisions before purchasing.

The level of demand for these users?increased from 40%-100%!?

PLATFORM. In order for a business to serve millions of people over time, it must be based on an existing packaging (operational) network.

What made Thomas Edison's light bulb important wasn’t the light bulb itself, but the existing power lines and transmission lines that enabled the electricity to flow into the bulb.?In other words, the overall picture of the existing electricity infrastructure allowed the bulb to be relevant. Without a convenient and accessible electricity grid, the light bulb could have been almost worthless to people.

The Better Place electric car is a clear example of a good idea that lacks the right operational feasibility.

Better Place chose to combine an innovative operational model with an innovative product. The operating model, the first of its kind in the world, included the deployment of approximately 50 battery switching stations and thousands of charging stations near the homes of car users and their workplaces.

Since it was a new operational model, the car and the maintenance of the car were very expensive and not easy to use. The users needed to change their current habits and routine, just to be able to use the product. The lack of simplicity in using the product reduced the number of users, caused huge losses, and the inability to return the investment in a reasonable time.

Despite having raised a large amount of capital, the company went bankrupt within 5 years.

Written by Rinat Keinan.

In the last 2 years, Rinat was the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at ArborKnot.

Rinat specializes in user-oriented psychological techniques and product strategies and holds 11 years of experience in senior roles for global leading companies such as Teva pharmaceutical & Unilever Israel.

Prior to ArborKnot, Rinat worked for 5 years with startups and published two books that received world-class reviews: “Essential Read: The Pipeline Guide” in 2019 and “The Business Empowerment”, which reached #1 Bestseller in 3 categories on Amazon in July 2020.?

Rinat was chosen as?one of three promising Israeli female entrepreneurs in a German magazine?(femaleonezero), and her product method entered the entrepreneurship program at Zell IDC in 2020.?

Rinat holds an M.Des from the Bezalel University of Art in industrial design, and a B.A in human resources from the University of Haifa, Israel.?