In a startup's earliest revenue stage, does finding product-market fit matter more than sheer speed of execution?

Jason Lemkin · Nov 30, 2022

Speed still matters pre-product-market-fit, because faster iteration means getting to market sooner and running more tests

The initial launch was never going to be the right product, so he needed three or four iterations inside his ~24 months of runway

Scope: acknowledges the early launch was itself a mistake in execution terms

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Harry Stebbings · Mar 17, 2023

Speed of execution is the biggest determinant of whether a company works

It is the distinguishing factor he sees between companies that work and those that don't

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Tomasz Tunguz · Apr 21, 2023

The consumer internet is replatforming and the market share held by Google and Facebook is conceivably up for grabs — new travel agencies, shopping experiences, Stack Overflows and social experiences can be built on chat

The B2C ecosystem has been quiet for ten years because of Facebook and Google's dominance, and that dominance is now contested by a new technology

Scope: 'conceivably'

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Harry Stebbings · May 24, 2023

Granular speed of execution is the single biggest differentiator between companies that reach product market fit and those that don't.

Based on his pattern recognition across 170 investments over eight years.

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Harry Stebbings · Jun 26, 2023

Pre product-market fit, speed of execution and the time between iterations is the biggest determinant of whether a seed company succeeds

Pattern from looking across his own seed investments

Scope: especially pre product-market fit; based on his seed portfolio

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Harry Stebbings · Jul 28, 2023

Speed of execution is the number one difference between companies that achieve product-market fit and those that don't

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Akin Babayigit · Jun 26, 2023

Igor and Dimitri are among the best examples in mobile gaming of winning without prioritizing speed — they took their time to evaluate free-to-play and then executed extremely well

When he evangelized Facebook mobile free-to-play in 2013 everyone jumped on it, but Igor was careful and waited to see if it was real, and their eventual execution was outstanding

17:01 20VC: Eight Pieces of Startup Advice that are BS: Why You Do Not Have to Love Your Space, It Is Ok To Do It For The Money, Focus Is Not Everything, Speed Is Not The Most Important Thing with Akin Babayigit, Co-Founder @ Tripledot Studios

Gili Raanan · Mar 18, 2024

Figuring out product market fit matters far more than sheer speed of execution in the first $0-7M of revenue

Once you know the pain point, who has it, how to pitch it, how to run the technical evaluation and how to price it, you have a repeatable process you can fund and scale with account executives and channels

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Guy Podjarny · May 24, 2023

Speed of iteration, not speed of execution per se, drives product market fit — the faster you iterate the faster you learn — but only if you are iterating in the right direction.

It is hubris to think you can retreat to an ivory tower for a year and emerge with precisely the right thing; and since you optimize for the feedback you get, you must position yourself to receive feedback from the segment that matters.

41:42 Iteration speed drives pmf only when feedback comes from the right segment