Product/Market Fit questions

One question per page. Direct answer first, then the reasoning.

• How do you find product/market fit for an AI product?

  Adi Shmorak on P/MF in the AI era: building got cheap, being wrong didn't. Why AI products need stronger evidence of movement, a clear answer to 'why not just ChatGPT?', and a product that owns real context.

• How to define your ICP: signals, not labels

  Adi Shmorak on finding your Ideal Customer Profile: a group so alike that the same message moves them and the same product satisfies them. Find it where profile, signals and engagement with your offer overlap, filtered by how often and how badly it hurts.

• How to prove product/market fit to investors (before you have it)

  Adi Shmorak on what investors actually look for at pre-seed and seed: not a P/MF claim, but evidence that you know how to find it. The evidence pack and the 60-second formula.

• How to run a B2B pilot or design partnership that proves product/market fit

  Adi Shmorak's guide to B2B pilots and design partners: why to run one, how to set goals and KPIs, who owns what, and how to turn a pilot into a paying customer instead of a free trial that never ends.

• Not selling? How to tell a P/MF problem from a go-to-market problem

  A diagnostic from Adi Shmorak, The P/MF Detective: five clues that separate a broken go-to-market from a market that doesn't want what you built.

• P/MF survey template: the Sean Ellis question and the follow-ups that matter

  A ready-to-use product/market fit survey: the Sean Ellis 'very disappointed' question, plus Adi Shmorak's follow-up questions for each answer, so the survey tells you who your ICP is and what to fix, not just a score.

• Pivot, persevere, or shut down? How to decide

  Adi Shmorak's decision framework for founders stuck between pivoting, persevering and shutting down: set the thresholds before the data lands, find which P/MF variable broke, and change only what the evidence says.

• The P/MF Matrix: 4 steps, 3 tools, 12 questions to find product/market fit

  Adi Shmorak's P/MF Matrix crosses the four steps to product/market fit (ICP, offer, product, business model) with three tools (assumptions, experiments, narrative). Twelve questions that tell you what to work on next.

• What should a product team build before product/market fit?

  Adi Shmorak's rule for pre-P/MF product work: build the shortest path to one Aha! Moment, test it with the cheapest MVP that delivers real value, and cut everything else.