This was one of the top answers in my survey about the main challenges to the global. And then I found a cool article where more than 20 founders shared their experiences of finding PMFs and got a lot of inspiration.

To begin with, a little standing, which can calm some and alarm others a little. Between the time you have an idea and the first time you feel you have found PMF, about 2 years will pass.

To begin with, a little standing, which can calm some and alarm others a little. Between the time you have an idea and the first time you feel you have found PMF, about 2 years will pass.

For about a year, the solution will have to be constantly changed so that it turns into a product that users really need.

Some companies (Slack, Figma, Airtable) took more than 4 years, but these are rather exceptions. The path of others can be viewed on the chart 👇

And another important point: none of the companies ever felt that they were exactly in their niche. Finding PMF is not a journey with a clear destination, rather it is a journey where you constantly change your route depending on internal and external circumstances.

And I can clearly feel that right now as we shape and iterate the Dashly product. For me, finding a PMF is inextricably linked to creating a solution.

I have a formula that I remember when putting together a product. Because the product is not a set of features, but a solution. The solution is not just like that, but the solution of some problem. The problems are not with anyone, but with a specific user/person. A person is above a vacuum, and a specific context and a specific company. A company in a specific market segment.

As a result, the product is:

Solving a problem for a specific person in a specific context and market segment.

Let’s start with the problem

The problem arises precisely from deep immersion in the context. What is hurting companies now?

As it often happens, you work for a long time in some field and accumulate a critical mass of knowledge about the problem. You understand that there is such a problem and now you need to find where it occurs most often, in which context and in which segment.

Another option.

You don’t know the problem. But you can get involved in a fight in a specific segment/context and find a problem along the way. Also a working strategy. You think, yes, I know nothing about this problem in marketing, but I love marketing + AI + content. I want to work with it, and you’re going to figure it out.

At Dashly, we are developing a product that aims to double the inbound funnel pipeline.

In our case, I heard about the problem, soaked it up and did a lot of research. On the market, we ourselves encountered it more than once. Did I understand it by talking to different CEOs? CMO and Head of Sales. He made decisions in our company and advised other teams.

And then I went to find out whether this problem is confirmed in the American market. And it turns out that it is even sharper there, but from a slightly different angle.

Plunging into the context of this problem, you start to think about it and talk about it much better.

We collect “segment – person – context”

My basic point here is to be inside the market. So you get much better and faster feedback from the world, you understand whether it works or not.

I will continue using Dashly as an example. We have a problem between the marketer and sales — a gap in the growth of metrics, costs for generating Meetings, Demos. The marketer leads, then the sales 1 line loves them: (

By talking to people, we add context to this problem: appointments are made by people. People who are both expensive and fake. Moreover, people cost money (surprise). It still costs money to hire them (sometimes X2 to the monthly salary)… In general, there is a lot of context.

Okay, so what verticals actually have CJM meetings that we can help with? We describe the context and see that such a gap works in EdTech, Wellness, SaaS and others.

Then decide which of these segments to focus on. This is needed again for deeper immersion in the context.

And confirming the vertical is quite simple: you need to find companies that are really ready to pay for your decision 😉

We create a solution

The solution is formed through communication with the ICP and with the first customers. With the help of their context, it is assembled into a single picture and inevitably changes. And more than once (read with pain in the soul).

In the article I mentioned above, the first step to finding PMF is to get one customer to fall in love with your product, do everything to get the customer to start using, loving and continuing to use the product. And it seems to me that this is the most important thing when forming a product.

Some founders said they set up Slack messaging and contacted customers as soon as they had a problem. In another company, a special team was created to customize reporting as needed by the client.

At Dashly, we work in a pilot format. We ourselves, with our team, implement for the client “the work that our product hires.” This means that we are in constant contact with customers, deeply immersed in their context and pain. We test product scenarios ourselves, collect the results ourselves. The main thing is to get the result for which the client and I have gathered here. This helped us make several important decision pivots.

For example, earlier it seemed to me that the main solution to the problem in the funnel is work with conversion. Conversion to an application, to a meeting, and so on.

It doesn’t seem so to me now. Conversion is still important, but there is so much additional invoice.

Conversion is a very volatile thing that depends on many factors. From advertising channels, the current market situation, seasonality. Therefore, making a decision that promises an increase in conversion with this volatility is such an idea.

But there is another approach: make decisions that will become a must-have for organizing the process. Which will replace the client’s current, less efficient solution.

For example, Calendly. A calendar is an important thing for organizing meetings. It affects conversion. But Calendly itself is not needed for her, but so that a person can book an appointment in a convenient format for her, at a convenient time, with clear options for choosing. Conversion itself is a consequence here.

It’s about improving UX.

So we stopped looking at conversion as a key goal. Depending on external factors: the client started to grow traffic, and then the conversion dropped because the advertising channels deteriorated.

But they discovered another problem – managers. They are still not working well. Always. Because the system built on human reliability, initially unreliable.

And only this diving deep into the context of the problem provides insight into what to make the product about.

“Releasing” first-line managers and stabilizing the conversion into a dialogue and into a meeting is also about conversion, but it already sounds completely different.

And if we talk about our current solution, the hypothesis is to free up the first line of managers who deal with scheduling appointments.

We make Conversation AI a platform that qualifies the lead, makes sure that he is MQL, pulls the lead into a dialogue in the “hard” channel, books a meeting with him at the right time and makes sure that he reaches it. You could say AI Sales on steroids.

The point is that it creates a process, but in a fundamentally new way.

The role of the CEO in shaping the vision

The first thing, of course, is to make a decision.

What hypothesis are we testing? What is the focus of the team? What are we making the product about?

Here we have changed the focus from conversion to creating AI Sales assistants. The decision is quite important from the point of view of product strategy. And you need to have the ability to make such decisions.

If the hypothesis doesn’t work, whose responsibility is it?

Decisions that affect the entire team cannot be made by a person who is not responsible for the entire team and its results.

The second point is interaction with customers.

Making informed strong decisions requires a lot of context. The more texture you collect, the deeper you dive into it, the stronger your hypotheses are born.

That is, here 50% is intuition, and the other 50% is supervision.

Communication with customers is the biggest channel for training your intuition. I talk with the client and I say “Oh, it seems that there is a growth point” and so on my task is to combine the vision of the solution with what I saw in the client.

And hypotheses should be discussed with the team.

If I don’t do this, I take full responsibility for the decision I made. Without any filter, without any feedback from the world, etc.

And therefore, the opportunity to talk with someone (with an expert, team, client) is an opportunity to check and validate your decision. Because if it is wrong, it will affect the results of the whole team.

Does it work for us?

We have early adopters who took this risk with us and continue to pay because we create value for them. But have we found PMF? No:) It’s a journey.

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DISCLAIMER: This article was written for my TG channel From 0 to 1. Go global. There I share cool experiments that we run with clients, insights on working with inbound funnels and the experience of going global. Subscribe so you don’t miss new materials 🙂