# About Adi Shmorak, The P/MF Detective

> Canonical: https://adidacta.com/about

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."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *A Study in Scarlet*, 1887)

## 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."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *A Scandal in Bohemia*, 1891)

Fit the theory to the evidence, never the other way round.

> "Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *The Adventure of the Copper Beeches*, 1892)

No evidence, no conclusions.

> "You see, but you do not observe."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *A Scandal in Bohemia*, 1891)

Watch what users do, not only what they say.

> "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *The Boscombe Valley Mystery*, 1891)

Sign-ups and compliments look like proof. They rarely are.

> "It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *A Case of Identity*, 1891)

The small signals in usage show you who your ICP really is.

> "I never guess. It is a shocking habit, destructive to the logical faculty."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *The Sign of Four*, 1890)

Every assumption gets a test.

> "Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person."
> (Sherlock Holmes, *Silver Blaze*, 1892)

Talk your case through out loud. Holes show up fast.

## How I work

Adi helps 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) and Business Model (how value comes back to you). The method is backward reasoning: start from the evidence and work back to the cause.

Adi has worked with over 100 founders since 2019. He has 74 published testimonials from founders, accelerator leads and product executives (GrowthMentor, LinkedIn, Google, Facebook and direct), and a 5.0/5 average across all 47 reviews on GrowthMentor (https://www.growthmentor.com/mentors/adi-shmorak). Full text: https://adidacta.com/testimonials.md

Talk to Adi: https://adidacta.com/contact