Adjacency Matrix: How to expand after PMF
We hear customers from emotionally overcharged outbursts on Twitter, or public reviews encoding their ire or gratitude, or filtered through the problem-solving of tech support, or teasing us with an if-you-build-it-we-will-come sale that hasn’t yet (and may never) close. We then convert what we thought we heard into features and bug-fixes, prioritized by impact and growth ideally, but more likely by pride and intuition; sometimes we get lucky and those are the same thing.
This works, after Product/Market Fit. That is, once everything is fundamentally working, and the job is “don’t break what’s working.” Then we should incrementally add utility and delight while not disrupting the money-making flywheel. Before PMF, it’s not working yet, so the job is to identify what can work, and for whom, not to make slight adjustments to something that’s not working.
Not a pivot—that’s for companies that are staring death in the face, that must strike out in a new direction for a chance at survival. Rather, an expansion—to keep what’s working, but sprout new shoots in new directions. Adhering to the rules of great strategy by leveraging existing assets to attack a valuable new opportunity with asymmetric upside. (Add your favorite buzzwords; those were mine.)
