About Adi Shmorak
Fractional CPO. Product/Market Fit Detective. Based in Jerusalem, working with founders everywhere.
Why a detective
As a kid, I read detective books all the time, often under the covers with a flashlight. It started with Enid Blyton: the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, and the Adventure Series with Kiki the parrot. But my real hero was Sherlock Holmes: logical, methodical and creative in the way he solved mysteries. That was for me. I decided that when I grew up, I’d be a detective.
I didn’t become a detective. I went into sales, then marketing, business development and finally product. But I still solve mysteries, and I still solve them the way Holmes taught me: backwards.
In 2019 I started mentoring early-stage startups at MassChallenge on their P/MF challenges. Founders’ questions felt like riddles, part of a bigger mystery. I’ve been solving them ever since.
Reasoning backwards
When a founder asks me, “Is my startup idea any good?”, I don’t start with “Can we build it?” I start at the end: can we sell it? Can we get to the moment where someone says, “Wow, that’s a great offer. Yes, I want that”?
From there I work back. If they want it, why do they want it? What does it have to deliver? How can we deliver it? I keep going back until I understand what needs to be built.
“In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much.”
Rereading my hero
A few years ago, a client who knew this story gave me the complete Sherlock Holmes. I was nervous to open it. He was my childhood hero, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to revisit him as a grown-up.
I did, and I loved it. This time I could see how closely the way he thinks matches the way I look at P/MF. A lot of lines hit home. I owe a lot of how I work to the Holmes stories I read again and again as a kid.
Holmes on product/market fit
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
“Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay.”
“You see, but you do not observe.”
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”
“I never guess. It is a shocking habit, destructive to the logical faculty.”
“Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.”
How I work
I help founders solve the four variables of Product/Market Fit, in order:
- ICP: who it's for
- Value Proposition: why they should care
- Product: how you deliver on the promise
- Business Model: how value comes back to you
The tools are assumptions, experiments and decisions. The method is backward reasoning: start from the evidence and work back to the cause.
I'm not a consultant who hands over a deck and leaves. I get my skin in the game and join you in the trenches.
What founders say
Read testimonials from founders I’ve worked with.