I think this is a great way of thinking about the early days, with one caveat.
When bootstrapping, it’s helpful (mandatory, even) to use revenue as the proxy measure for experimentation success.
There’s no better way to know if the problem you’re attacking — and how you’re communicating it — resonates than to ask for the sell. It’s hard to discern who is a target customer without putting a usable product in front of various groups of prospects.
The feedback received during that process should then dictate how you iterate on the product until something catches.
The constraint of customer-funded cash flow necessitates a high velocity and tight focus in seeking PMF. To your point, the thing making money in this case may be more feature or product than company, but that’s ok! With enough revenue coming in to fund operations, you get to live to see another day along the journey.
I agree that asking people to pay is a critical step in enterprise products, but it's not a good sign of PMF unless all of the customers are paying roughly the same amount to solve the same problem and they were acquired through the same channel. Someone who is willing to pay doesn't necessarily represent a market willing to pay otherwise. That makes it not a good proxy for experiment success.
But you are absolutely right that, regardless of whether you have funding or not, getting customers to pay is the best way to give yourself more time to experiment!
I think this is a great way of thinking about the early days, with one caveat.
When bootstrapping, it’s helpful (mandatory, even) to use revenue as the proxy measure for experimentation success.
There’s no better way to know if the problem you’re attacking — and how you’re communicating it — resonates than to ask for the sell. It’s hard to discern who is a target customer without putting a usable product in front of various groups of prospects.
The feedback received during that process should then dictate how you iterate on the product until something catches.
The constraint of customer-funded cash flow necessitates a high velocity and tight focus in seeking PMF. To your point, the thing making money in this case may be more feature or product than company, but that’s ok! With enough revenue coming in to fund operations, you get to live to see another day along the journey.
I agree that asking people to pay is a critical step in enterprise products, but it's not a good sign of PMF unless all of the customers are paying roughly the same amount to solve the same problem and they were acquired through the same channel. Someone who is willing to pay doesn't necessarily represent a market willing to pay otherwise. That makes it not a good proxy for experiment success.
But you are absolutely right that, regardless of whether you have funding or not, getting customers to pay is the best way to give yourself more time to experiment!
Great thinking here Sean esp at this point in the cycle. Stay focused on what your co stage dictates