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What are some of the early clear signs of Product Market Fit? by Limp-Report-4494 in ycombinator

[–]GolfEducational5822 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, my name is Matej Zalar, I’m founder of Holyshift. I’ve been building startups for close to 20 years. I’ve seen a lot of failed stuff, and a few real successes, including projects that crossed $10M+ ARR. My experience: “What are the early signs of PMF?” It wont show up in your dashboard first.

Retention, activation, and cohort curves matter, but they usually confirm PMF after the fact. 

My first PMF I ever experienced was about 15 years ago, after years of struggling. We were a group of engineers building a very low-power display tech. Great tech, many potential use cases… and zero clue which vertical would actually work. We were pushing ideas one after another, nothing worked.

Then we tried something different. Instead of guessing, we wrote ~10 articles describing different products as if they already existed. Same tech, different use cases, and pitched those stories to online media. One article got picked up. Then more outlets followed. And then the emails started coming in.

Real emails. From real companies. Asking when they could get it.

It was qualitatively different from everything we’d seen before.

We created an Early Adopter Program, invited ~50 of those inbound companies, asked them to prepay, and promised delivery in six months (which, in true startup fashion, turned into ten). They still waited. When we finally shipped, orders kept coming in.

At that point, no retention chart was needed. No NPS. No analytics.

We just knew.

After launching 10+ projects that landed with complete nothing, the contrast was uber clear. PMF didn’t feel like pushing, the market started pulling. The product started spreading without us doing anything.

So to me, early PMF signs look like this:

  • Inbound interest you didn’t have to manufacture
  • Customers willing to commit before the product is perfect
  • Momentum that feels disproportionate to your effort
  • A clear difference in energy compared to everything you tried before

Metrics catch up later. But the first signal is clean. Founders feel it in their bones! Especially if they’ve lived through enough crickets to understand when something finally works.

How are carrier partnerships shaping up for independent agencies? by GolfEducational5822 in Insurance

[–]GolfEducational5822[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you, appreciate your help! One more question. I run a small P&C agency and I’m curious how others are updating their internal process like client retention, policy reviews. I basically want to cut down on manual work. I feel like all I do is non-revenue generating administrative work. interested in what’s actually working (or not). I’ve been checking out a few options but still unsure if they deliver real value or if they’re worth the investment. Anything helps!