Read this summary today. Will definitely also read the book, but to me it sort of seems like being a “not not” is sufficient, but not necessary to being a successful business. Like, is Pepsi a not not when Coke exists? Is commoncog a not not? I don’t necessarily think my products are, but I’d definitely say I have PMF.
Maybe sufficient but not necessary is OK/desirable if you’re early stage/trying to find PMF and you want to be as sure/fool proof as possible or don’t want to fall into the trap of wasting a bunch of time attached attached to a flawed idea, but otherwise I think it might be a tad restrictive.
Also this part:
Pain is not predictive because you and I have many pains that we don’t do anything about. We learn to cope. And so if we do not act on all our pains, then interviewing for pain is actually a crapshoot. There is no way to know, ex-ante, that a person or business’s pain point is something that you can build a product around.
Reminded me of this quote from The Mom Test re pains:
I was checking out an idea with a potential customer and they excitedly said, “Oh man, that happens all the time. I would definitely pay for something which solved that problem.”
That’s a future-promise statement without any commitment to back it up, so I needed to learn whether it was true or not. I asked, “When’s the last time this came up?” Turns out, it was pretty recent. That’s a great sign. To dig further, I asked, “Can you talk me through how you tried to fix it?” He looked at me blankly, so I nudged him further.
“Did you google around for any other ways to solve it?” He seemed a little bit like he’d been caught stealing from the cookie jar and said, “No… I didn’t really think to. It’s something I’m used to dealing with, you know?”
In the abstract, it’s something he would “definitely” pay to solve. Once we got specific, he didn’t even care enough to search for a solution (which do exist, incidentally).
It’s easy to get someone emotional about a problem if you lead them there. “Don’t you hate when your shoelaces come untied while you’re carrying groceries?” “Yeah, that’s the worst!” And then I go off and design my special never-come-untied laces without realising that if you actually cared, you would already be using a double-knot.
Rule of thumb: If they haven’t looked for ways of solving it already, they’re not going to look for (or buy) yours.