3 min read

Your PMF thesis and your niche


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Your market is more important than your product

Picking the right market might be the single most important decision you make on your journey

“A great entrepreneur in a bad market - the market wins. A bad entrepreneur in a good market - the market wins”

In order of importance

  1. Market
  2. Offer
  3. Marketing/Persuasion

Imagine if you had to sell a bottle of water for $100.

Imagine this person was stranded in the Sahara desert for two days and was inches away from dehydration…. you wouldn’t need to worry about a sophisticated offer or persuasion right?

You must battle test and optimise your market selection first; then spend time constructing your compelling offer AND ONLY then should you shape your marketing.

Your Product Market Fit Thesis

Question

Answer

What market are you in? 

(Eg, Decentralised storage)


Is it a growing market? What is the annual growth rate of your market over the last 3 years?


What is the projected size of the market by 2030 and where is it now?

(Eg, $40 billion with 20,000 users by 2030 and right now it is at $2 billion with 1000 users)



What is the core problem the market is trying to solve for?

(Eg, Information storage is centralised and vulnerable)



What problems do the current solutions have?

(Eg, Most “web3” solutions point to centralised servers like AWS because true on-chain storage is too clunky)


What is your Unique differentiated Solution?
(Eg. True on-chain data storage that doesn't point to any centralised servers and has faster integration than AWS)


Is your Unique differentiated Solution a “nice to have” or “mission critical”? 

Is your solution mission-critical for “the market” to go from where it is now to the 2030 projection?


Do you have compelling evidence of demand? Or is it a hunch?


Is your market easy to reach and target?

  • Do you know how to target them

  • Do you know how to reach them

  • Is it easy to target them


Does your market have the purchasing power to buy what you offer?


Other considerations

  • Regulatory landscape
  • Opportunity gaps YOU can exploit
  • Must be a market area you believe you can win in.
  • Should be an area where you can leverage your strengths.
  • Should be an area you care deeply about and want to provide high value.

*Confidence score: How confident are you that your assumption is correct
*Notes/Evidence: Provide any comment, notes or evidence. EG. “Is it a growing market? - Provide stats on year-on-year growth etc”

Niche down

We DO NOT want to be everything to everyone!

“The essence of strategy is, with the weaker army, always to have more force at the crucial point than the enemy” - Napoleon

Think about ImmutableX niching down into being the “Layer 2 for web3 gaming that do over X txs per hour”

  • Health→ Weight Loss→ Weight Loss for Women who just had kids→ Following Keto
  • Wealth→ Real Estate→ Flipping→ Without having to see a property all using DMs
  • Realtionships→ Dating→ Over 60→ Without awkward first dates
The same product but 100x the price!

Product

Indexing as a Service → for web3 data companies → focused on NFTs → with customer dashboards

Indexing as a Service → for web3 developer tools → with self-service UIs

Indexing as a Service → for web3 dev shops → that don’t have an existing data team

Indexing as a Service → for web3 traders → that look work with on and offchain signals

Indexing as a Service → for web3 companies → doing onchain transactions → that need audit / tax information of their actions

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