Over the weekend, my friend and I had this fascinating conversation about how we found our other friends. I know, metaphysical, nerdy even. But nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed it. She posed the question: “Is it just based on how long you’ve known each other? And how often you see each other?” For most of my life, I would have said yes. Classmates that became friends were people I met and could chat with over lunch or after school. The same is true for colleagues. And strangers. Some happened exceedingly fast – within 24 hours. Others have taken over half a year before we “warmed up” to each other.
Unsurprisingly, it gave birth to the question: At what point does an acquaintance become a friend?
The PMF parallel
To be honest, I didn’t have a good answer then, nor do I have one now. Part of the reason I’m sharing this is to open up dialogue and draw inspiration from you, my readers.
Pushing up my glasses, which I’ve got to get a new pair (open to any recommendations), I couldn’t but analogize it to startups finding product-market fit.
How do founders know when they hit product-market fit? The TL;DR version: when you’re too busy to even ponder if you have product-market fit. Or simply, you’ll know it when you have it. For the longer, less nebulous answer, I recommend checking out Lenny Rachitsky’s piece on it, and some of other essays I’ve written on the topic:
- Consumer PMF metrics and idea-market fit
- Product metrics to track for customer retention
- Finding idea-market fit
Or as Casey Winters, Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite, says:
“Product-market fit isn’t when your customers stop complaining, it’s when they stop leaving.”
Some more examples include, when:
- You’re focused on upgrading your servers rather than acquiring customers.
- There’s so much demand, you’re writing “I’m sorry” and “Not yet” emails to your customers who are asking when can they get off the waitlist.
- Laggards on the adoption curve start using your product and saying wow. In Airbnb’s case, that was Joe Gebbia‘s mom using the product.
- There are handwritten love letters in your office mailbox.
- Customers are asking how they can pay (more) for your product.
- You’re feeling the pull of the market rather than pushing your product in front of people.
Friends
On a similar note, when the entropy of a relationship and the subsequent conversations break into an impetuous nature that eclipses the inciting reason for the relationship, you might have something going. Or in simpler words, you can’t stop the momentum of the relationship. “What about this?” “Let’s do that!” “Ahhh, not enough time!” Of course, as all relationships go, it takes two to tango. Just like product-market fit, when you don’t have it, it’s not obvious what you need to do make it click. But when you do have person-person fit, everything makes sense. And quite obvious, in retrospect.
While the above was my answer on Sunday, I’m not completely sold it’s the end all, be all. And as I continue to find new sparks and rekindle old flames, I’m sure I will learn more about myself and others. A provocative question that may require a more provocative answer.
Top photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
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