Searching for Product-Market Fit
Product-market fit is the holy grail.
Best described by Marc Andresson as, “product-market fit is when a product hits that sweet spot of huge market demand, such that the product practically “sells itself.” Uber, Airbnb, Zoom, and recently, Cursor, ElevenLabs, Bolt, Lovable.
Yet “sells itself”… is vague. And conversations about product-market fit are almost always this way.
I’ve been playing a lot of chess and poker lately - and recently rewatched the legendary movie “Searching for Bobby Fisher.” The title for this post, “Searching for Product-Market Fit,” came to me in the same vein.
What’s the case when you think about greatness in chess or poker — is that greatness can be something that is as ambiguous and varied as much as it is obvious when you’re sitting in front of it.
And the path to get there is hugely diverse. There is training and methodology that can be applied, but a certain level of craft, creativity and luck is needed too.
Product-market fit has the same patterns. And, probably, success of any form.
Chapter One has started to run Product-Market Fit events, with the first two locations being LA and London.
The explicit goal of these events is to discuss product-market fit, learning from experts in the industry about what’s working, and where the market is now. Talk about the framework for finding product-market fit that First Round Capital created from years of working with top B2B founders. The 150 customer feedback interviews that Granola conducted to iterate and ultimately develop the cult-obsessed product they have today.
But the deeper value, in my opinion, is to be close to greatness.
To be in the same room as Harry Stebbings, Nikita Bier, Todd Jackson, Chris Pedregal, and many others. Founders and partners of 20VC, First Round Capital, Granola, Anthropic, etc. All achieving the success that we strive for.
To be inspired by their stories — remind us why we wake up, work 12+ hours a day, and make sacrifices for some future reward that we hope will be worth it.
We’re excited to keep these events going with more in the works. We’ll be in NYC in September, and SF after that. If you’re interested, keep an eye out for the next announcement!
Success is hard. Greatness is hard. Improving your Elo score is hard. But other people have done it, so why can’t you.
Photos from the London event, featuring incredible speakers including Harry Stebbings from 20VC, Chris Pedregal from Granola, Rebecca Harbeck from Anthropic, and Simon Taylor from Sardine.
Feel free to look at all photos from the event here: Chapter One - Product Market Fit London. Thank you, Adam Isfendiyar, for your amazing photography skills.
Jeff Morris Jr.’s opening remarks, location at Dawn Capital’s beautiful offices in Soho.
Chris Pedregal, CEO and Co-Founder of Granola.
Harry Stebbings, Founder of 20VC.
Simon Taylor, Head of Strategy and Content at Sardine, and author of my most-read blog, Fintech Brainfood.
Rebecca Harbeck, GTM at Anthropic.
Packed house! Event was 3x oversubscribed.
I’m an investor at Chapter One, an early-stage venture fund that invests $500K - $2M checks into pre-seed and seed-stage startups.
If you’re a founder building a company, please feel free to reach out on Twitter (@seidtweets) or Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesin-seidel-5325b147/).