How to Create Strong Positioning
One of my favorite positioning examples is Ben & Jerry’s.
This article is the second in a 3-part series on positioning. Other articles in this series include:
Part 2: How to Create Strong Positioning
Part 3: How to Incorporate Sustainability into Positioning (Published next month!)
How to Create Strong Positioning
One of my favorite positioning examples is Ben & Jerry’s. Co-founder Ben Cohen has Anosmia, which limits his sense of smell and taste. So when he and co-founder Jerry Greenfield began developing ice cream flavors in the late 1970s, Cohen focused on texture.
At the time, commercial ice cream manufacturing equipment could only process small inclusions – think pureed strawberries or tiny chocolate chip pieces. Large chunks meant customers might eat a spoonful of ice cream without a flavor chunk. Cohen and Greenfield chose to differentiate their ice cream by bucking the norm, prioritizing the possibility of a big chunk in every bite.
Ben & Jerry’s launched with untraditional flavors such as Heath Bar Crunch and Oreo Mint using small- batch equipment. However, scaling chunky ice cream required a significant technological investment, particularly as they innovated new flavors. In 1984, after a year and a half of research and testing, they introduced the first ever Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream.
Consistent with their anti-incumbent positioning on chunks, Ben & Jerry’s seamlessly integrated their countercultural values on environmentalism and social justice. It worked by differentiating Ben & Jerry’s from the rest of the ice cream brands at the time, pitting the small upstart brand against the conglomerate giants.
Here’s how I’d describe Ben & Jerry’s positioning:
A playfully irreverent, socially conscious brand offering unapologetically chunky, indulgent ice cream.
The Core Positioning Framework
While Ben & Jerry’s positioning strategy was built on their intuition and personalities, you can take a more systematic approach by defining the four core elements that underpin a strong positioning: customer, category, competitive alternatives, and compelling differentiators. I recommend identifying them in sequence initially, but the process is iterative and may require revisiting each category.
Positioning isn’t static, but it should remain consistent for several years. Establishing a clear territory in your customer’s mind requires consistency over time. Constantly evolving muddies the simplicity and clarity you aspire for.
Customer
Positioning is defined by how customers perceive you in a sea of alternatives. You need to determine who—specifically—you create value for. Customers have different needs and perceptions. If your target is too broad, your efforts to differentiate will be less effective. A broad customer target is a recipe for vague, vanilla positioning that doesn’t resonate. A narrow customer group allows you to solve a common specific problem and lays the groundwork for strong positioning.
Inspired by heavy metal and punk rock fans, Mike Cessario founded Liquid Death after noticing concertgoers consuming water out of Monster Energy cans. He created a brand with a countercultural, aggressive design and tone of voice. Cessario defined a specific customer group—people who desired a non-lame way to drink water—effectively differentiating his brand from dozens of water brands in the market. He also played heavily into the can’s recyclability with a “death to plastic” slogan.
Category
Second, clarify your category according to your customers’ worldview. Some brands, particularly those in services, have the freedom to define the category. For others, the category is set, but these brands can still draw inspiration from related categories to create differentiation.
Liquid Death first launched in the bottled water category but likened itself to energy drinks. Even though it has expanded to sparkling water, iced tea, and electrolyte drinks, the brand continues to leverage its edgy, energy-drink-inspired positioning to attract new customers.
Competitive Alternatives
Clarifying the category enables you to define your customers’ alternatives. Alternatives can mean competitors or alternate approaches that aren’t sold. This exercise forces us to define all the ways our customers accomplish their jobs.
For project-management software tools like Monday.com and Asana, the most common alternative frequently isn’t another project management tool but instead a handwritten to-do list or an Excel spreadsheet.
In the case of Liquid Death, concertgoers weren’t buying a different water brand. They were buying Monster Energy cans to hold their water.
A true alternative must be something your customer would consider. For example, some European companies offer consulting services for purpose-driven brands comparable to mine. However, they are not competitive alternatives because virtually none of my potential clients would hire a European firm. Just because a company delivers similar solutions doesn’t mean your customer views it as a genuine alternative.
Compelling Differentiators
Your compelling differentiators clarify why you are the obvious choice for your customers. These differentiators create a distinctive advantage that drives the desire to purchase over competitive alternatives. The customer, category, and competitive alternatives provide context for the compelling differentiators.
There are nearly endless ways to differentiate. Below are six categories with specific inspirational examples, but keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list.
How to Develop a Unified Positioning Statement
If you’ve done any work with positioning, you may have come across the standard positioning statement.
Not to mince words, this is a useless tool.
The standard positioning statement follows a generic formula: “To [customer], we are the brand of [category] that [insert list of benefits] so that [insert value created] that’s because unlike [competitive alternatives] we [list specific reasons you are different].”
While this exercise might be a nice summary statement of all potential positioning options, it gives you zero strategic direction.
Instead, take the four core elements of a positioning framework—customer, category, competitive alternatives, and compelling differentiators—and work through a prioritization process to create a simplified positioning statement. come
Your positioning statement may draw from any combination of the four core elements, but should only include the most critical, defining aspects of your brand. Distill this output into one sentence, or a partial sentence, for the clearest strategic direction.
Here are a few examples from common brands. Note that because positioning is an internal—and often highly confidential—company strategy, these are simply examples of how to express and write positioning rather than the company’s actual positioning.
Food Retailers:
Costco: Premium bulk products at wholesale prices
Whole Foods: Highest quality natural and organic products with rigorous standards
Trader Joe's: Curated selection of unique, high-quality foods at everyday prices
Cars:
Volvo: The safest, most reliable family vehicles
BMW: High-performance luxury driving machines
Toyota: Dependable, practical cars that last
Tesla: Cutting-edge electric vehicles that make gas cars obsolete
Positioning that Stands the Test of Time
Positioning is not guaranteed to last. The market shifts, technology advances, competitors evolve, and customer preferences change. But the best brands find a way to stay true to their core, preserving the foundational aspects of what differentiates them, while shedding the irrelevant.
Ben & Jerry’s positioning has remained both consistent and relevant over the past 40 years. The brand has effectively mixed its personality, values, social mission, and cultural relevance with indulgent, playful flavors. The inclusions and flavors have changed, but the chunkiness persists. The social issues the brand advocates for have also evolved, but the challenger mindset remains consistent (even going so far as to sue its parent company, Unilever!).
Fundamentally, positioning is a strategy. It is nearly impossible to run a simple A/B test to see if you “got it right,” as its effectiveness won’t be immediately clear. Even if the positioning is right, the execution might be wrong, which could muddy your analysis. You can only evaluate a positioning choice over time. However, a leading indicator of a strong positioning is asking the following question:
Do our customers consider our positioning meaningful enough to influence them to purchase our brand?
If you get this right, you are on your way to validating a strong positioning.
What is Positioning and Why You Need It (Part 1)
Positioning is one of the most foundational, misunderstood, and under-utilized parts of a company’s core business strategy.
Positioning is one of the most foundational, misunderstood, and under-utilized parts of a company’s core business strategy.
Poor positioning leads to higher marketing costs, lower margins, and slower growth—yet many companies invest more time in tactical marketing decisions than in getting their positioning right.
This article is the first in a three-part series on positioning. Here’s what we’ll cover over the next three issues:
Part 1: What is Positioning and Why You Need It
Part 2: How to Create Strong Positioning
Part 3: How to Incorporate Sustainability into Positioning
What is Positioning?
Positioning can be tricky to explain, so let me illustrate with an example:
My daughter recently got her ears pierced. The piercer told us to clean her ears daily with saline. So I trotted over to Walgreens in search of saline.
My first stop was the contact aisle. I found a saline solution for contacts, but suspected other active ingredients might be in it, which Google quickly confirmed.
Then I headed over to wound care. There were a few brands with a special spray nozzle, which I didn’t need, and the prices seemed crazy expensive for what is basically salt water.
I racked my brain, wondering what other category might sell a cheaper saline. Baby care! I remembered that Boogie sells saline nasal spray.
In this example, saline is the solution—the basic product, service, or technology. It has many benefits, serves multiple uses, and creates value for multiple customer groups. These products represent three different positioning strategies.
A positioning strategy clarifies your choices about who you serve, what category you play in, and why you are a superior choice.
Positioning informs almost everything about your marketing strategy and impacts decisions such as:
Who is your customer?
How, when, and why do they use the product?
Who are the competitors or alternatives?
What is the packaging? (This can be physical packaging or how services are “bundled” to create a service product.)
How is the product/service sold, distributed or accessed?
What are the benefits, results, or claims?
What is the price?
Your choices influence positioning. But ultimately, positioning happens in your customer’s brain. Customers evaluate your solution in the context of alternatives. You can make strategic decisions to influence how your brand or product is perceived, but you don’t control it.
A positioning strategy isn’t obvious. Rather, it is the intentional and often challenging process of narrowing to a more granular usage and context for how your solution shows up in the market. Just as with the saline example, a business must make choices to intentionally focus on a specific market, purpose, or usage context, so the customer knows the product is for them.
Consider the following:
Gum that cleans your teeth: Is it gum or toothpaste?
A sparkling fruit juice: Is it soda, a mocktail, or a prebiotic?
A digital transformation firm: Is it management consulting, IT services, or software development?
There are two primary types of positioning: product positioning and brand positioning. For the purposes of this article, I won’t delineate between the two as these principles generally apply to both types of positioning, but if you have questions about how your product/service positioning connects to brand positioning, reach out as I’d be happy to explain.
Customers Make Associations Based on Positioning
When we give our customers a specific category context, they make associations. These associations are neither inherently positive nor negative but must be considered to inform your positioning strategy.
When customers compare your product to alternatives, they will have specific expectations about:
Price
Benefits and functionality
Quality of service
Areas where you may underperform
For example, if you position a product as an eco-friendly cleaner, people may expect:
There are no chemicals in it (so they will have higher standards when reading the ingredient list)
The product may not clean as well
It comes in recyclable packaging
It will cost more than traditional cleaners
Evaluating how your solution performs against these expectations helps you frame your product to appeal to the right audience.
Common Positioning Pitfalls
Poor positioning creates internal and external confusion. Without a clear strategy, you risk appealing to no one and create ambiguity about the top priorities for your innovation, sales, and marketing efforts.
Here are three common positioning pitfalls for purpose-driven brands.
Pitfall No. 1: Positioning is too Broad
If you try to appeal to all your potential customers, you lose the ability to specialize for any one group. You will water down your benefits and your solution won’t resonate because you have failed to design and communicate for specific buyer needs.
Take our saline example. If you went to market with a generic saline solution, here’s what could happen (terrible design intended😊):
The retailer won’t know what aisle to put your product in.
The consumer won’t know if your product works for their situation.
Your messaging will become overwhelming and confusing as you highlight different types of uses and benefits.
Your product formulation and packaging will be sub-optimized for the specific use cases (e.g. wound care spray vs. contact solution).
Notice how even the claims are confusing. “Gentle on eyes and noses” may be technically accurate, but it’s difficult for a customer to envision how a single solution can do both functions well.
Pitfall No. 2: Creating a New Category
I commonly see companies who think they are creating a new category, believing “no one else is doing this.” As a result, they explain their offer in a vacuum, as though there are no other alternatives, and assuming the value is obvious.
This is a mistake.
First, if you don’t attach yourself to an existing category, your buyer will do it for you.
Second, true category creation is extremely rare and, even when it does happen, you still need to associate yourself with an existing category to help customers understand what you are and how they would use you.
Most products and services fit within an existing category. Understanding your competitive advantages and disadvantages compared to alternatives will set you up for a stronger strategy.
Consider Uber at launch. Rather than comparing itself to a taxi or introducing “ride-sharing services,” a category that meant nothing at the time, Uber called itself, “Everyone’s private driver.” This concept leveraged customers’ understanding of a premium car service while elevating brand perception, enabling them to charge more.
Image Source: Medium
Pitfall No. 3: Positioning Isn’t Your Purpose
Many purpose-driven brands lead with mission or purpose as their messaging strategy, thinking it creates a distinct market positioning. But if purpose or impact doesn’t influence a buyer’s decision, it’s not a core factor in positioning. Positioning is about understanding the landscape of options and how you fit into those options in your buyer’s mind. Sustainability or purpose is often a peripheral factor in a buyer’s decision.
Additionally, values and purpose may actually be undifferentiated in categories where most players have similar purposes and similar environmental benefits. It’s important to communicate purpose to align with customer values and create relevance, but sometimes these efforts are table stakes vs. differentiators.
Tesla’s roadster is positioned as a premium sports car, even though Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. You don’t need a purpose-driven positioning for your business to have an impact.
Back to my saline story. I bought the Boogie saline spray, not because it optimally delivered my specific need but because it was the lowest cost per ounce of saline. (Side note, this is an amazing nasal saline spray, if that’s what you need!)
Had there been a product specifically designed for piercings – an easy-to-use wipe form that eliminated the need for gauze and claimed to prevent piercing infections – I would have chosen it (and paid more). Perhaps, this market is too small, at least for distribution at Walgreens. Still, the power of positioning is often also the power of pricing.
Do you have a clear positioning strategy?
In the next article, we’ll cover how to create one. Stay tuned!
If you need help crafting a strong positioning strategy, schedule a free 30-minute consultation here:
Grow More with Less: 5 Principles to Power Your ’25 Strategy
Startups think a lot about product-market fit (PMF). Established companies? Not so much. This is a missed opportunity.
It’s the new year and, along with millions of others, I am wrapping up my beloved annual planning process.
I enjoy this both personally and professionally – taking time to reflect on past goals, the learning and growth that resulted, and defining new plans for the year ahead.
Without exception, I end up with far more ideas and activities than are possible.
And it’s not just me.
Companies achieve only about 63% of their strategic plans’ potential financial performance. While there are many factors at play, one critical issue is a lack of clear priorities.
This year, I urge you to consider doing less.
I know this is counterintuitive. Growth, by definition, means more.
But as we pursue more things to achieve more growth, we create fragmentation of scarce resources and sub-optimal execution. We create products and services that our customers don’t want or need, resulting in unnecessary waste.
Consider what happens with a magnifying glass in the sun. When light passes through it, the focused energy can create enough heat to start a fire. Without the laser-like focus of the magnifying glass, the sun’s energy is scattered. It’s warm but not enough to catalyze a reaction.
To achieve maximum impact, we must narrow our focus to outperform
In Good to Great, Jim Collins’ research showed companies with a single-minded “Hedgehog Concept” had 6.9 times greater returns over 15 years compared to the rest of the market. Inspired by a parable, this concept compares foxes (traditional companies), which are “scattered, diffuse, and inconsistent,” to hedgehogs, who narrow their focus to what they can be truly best at. Hedgehogs offer products and services that deliver real value, a hallmark sign of a purpose-driven business.
As you wrap up your 2025 strategic planning, here are five specific ways to pursue “less” and why it will result in more growth.
1. Fewer Customer Segments
Companies often target too many customer segments or have too broad an overall audience, which results in a vague and cursory understanding of customer problems and needs. Rather than trying to serve all potential buyers, focus on the narrowest segment of customers for whom you offer the best solution. Work to understand them deeply and design all your products and services to meet this segment.
Example: Hubspot
HubSpot proved the power of a single ideal customer when they eliminated their small business segment (1-10 employees) to concentrate solely on mid-market companies, even though they were already a $50M business. This narrowed focus allowed them to build more tailored products and services for their core segment and accelerated their growth.
2. Fewer Messages
What is the one thing you want people to remember? When we say too much, we say nothing. Narrowing to one core message forces you to truly understand what matters to your audience (point No. 1). Validate that the message you chose is the right one.
Example: Volvo
With an unwavering focus on safety since 1927, Volvo is one of the strongest brands in the automotive industry. From inventing the three-point seat belt to their current commitment that no one should die in a new Volvo, this single-minded message has defined their brand and their product innovation strategy for nearly a century.
3. Less Innovation
A huge number of product launches fail. We feel pressure to launch new items to compete with other brands with multiple new launches a year. Paradoxically, this can limit growth. Rather than more frequent launches, focus on fewer, better, more meaningful innovations that are noticeably superior. Like an overcrowded garden, launches for the sake of news cannibalize scarce resources, resulting in sub-optimal growth.
Example: The Columbia University "jam study"
This famous study study compared an instore tasting display of 24 jams compared to 6 jams. The larger jam selection attracted more tasters than the smaller one, but it resulted in one-tenth the sales. This 'choice overload' principle suggests that focusing on fewer, better products can drive more sales than constantly launching new varieties that overwhelm customers and create decision paralysis.
4. Fewer Channels
An “omnichannel” marketing strategy is to be everywhere all the time. There are thousands of ways to reach our customers—we can’t be everywhere. Decide on a limited number of channels where you will win rather than pursuing channels simply because “everyone else” is there. If you can’t (eventually) master a channel, it’s not worth doing. This applies both to distribution and to content.
Example: Trader Joe’s
While competitors rushed to e-commerce during the pandemic, Trader Joe’s stayed firm in their store-only approach, choosing to invest in people and products rather than digital infrastructure, a decision that has helped maintain their strong culture and customer loyalty.
5. Less Speed
In the current pursuit of growth at all costs, businesses move at a frantic pace, expanding rapidly into new markets, rushing product launches, and scaling before systems are ready. But sustained growth is, by definition, sustainable. Moving thoughtfully allows you to build a strong infrastructure that ensures quality as you scale.
Example: Chick-fil-A
Chick-fil-A opens just 80-100 new locations annually, just a fraction of their fast-food counterparts. Their methodical approach to expansion focuses on quality and culture, creating more value than a rapid growth - their stores generate the highest revenue per store in the industry, twice that of McDonald's.
I share these principles not as rules but as aspirations from a fellow “more” addict. Following these directives isn’t easy to do. Implementing systems to create checks and balances is essential to ensure we don’t creep back into the “more” mentality. Systems provide structure that protects the resources and time required for true excellence.
Creating systems to do less
Here are a few specific tactics and approaches to enable a strategy of “less”:
Pre-set limits: Determine in advance a preset quantity of strategies or work; for example, two core customer segments, three strategic initiatives, four channels. Do not stray from this limit even if it seems there is a huge “opportunity.”
Do a resource planning exercise: Map out the actual people, hours, and dollars it will require to deliver each output. This will help you quickly realize what is and isn’t possible.
Conduct a memorability check: Wait one week after creating a plan (for example, annual strategic initiatives, a set of core messages, or new product initiatives) and ask the participants what they can recall from memory. If no one can remember each component, there are likely too many.
Adopt a one-for-one protocol: When you add something new, make sure you subtract something from the list.
Sustainable Growth Requires a Sustainable Pace
We say we want growth, but really we want sustainable growth. When we try to tackle too many things, our priorities are scattered. We cultivate surface-level learning and expertise. We create less value for our customers. We burn out. Making the intentional decision to set limits on markets, investments, initiatives, and messages requires tremendous discipline. But when adopted, the organization or individual has the ability to develop true mastery and value beyond what most others can deliver.
This year, I encourage you to do less. Let’s see how much more you can accomplish.
Do You (Still) Have Product-Market Fit?
Startups think a lot about product-market fit (PMF). Established companies? Not so much. This is a missed opportunity.
Startups think a lot about product-market fit (PMF). Established companies? Not so much.
This is a missed opportunity.
Established businesses tend to assume that a track record of financial sustainability indicates having reached and maintained PMF. This is not necessarily the case. Companies must evaluate PMF with each new market expansion or product innovation and continuously re-evaluate.
The concept of PMF is relevant whether you sell products or services and whether you’re a 100-year-old or 100-day-old company. Every company I work with is trying to grow. Growth requires improving current offerings, expanding to new markets, or offering new products or services—none of which can occur without a foundation of successful PMF.
Purpose-driven businesses especially benefit from PMF. When we offer true value and solve real customer needs, we don’t need aggressive or manipulative sales and marketing tactics to acquire customers. As Peter Drucker says, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
So What is Product-Market Fit?
While the general concept of selling products that meet a market need has existed since the industrial revolution, Marc Andreessen popularized the phrase in his 2007 blog post, “The only thing that matters”. His description: “Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.”
But what is a good market? And what is a product? Let’s break it down with my own definitions as they pertain to PMF:
This includes not just traditional products, but also services, experiences, information, and ideas offered or sold as concrete units (digital, physical, or conceptual) that deliver value to the customer. This definition is particularly important in the services sector where the salable unit isn’t obvious. Service examples include a month of consulting advice, unclogging a drain, or a year-long access to software.
The most critical element of this definition is sharing a common problem. Industry verticals aren’t markets. They are often too large and don’t necessarily share a common problem. Your market must be big enough to deliver your revenue goals, but specific enough that you can offer a valuable (and concrete!) solution to the shared need. Market specificity should set you up for a compelling “right to win.”
Your market ideally speaks the same language, shares common triggers, and is a set of individuals vs. entire organizations. Examples include health-conscious Gen Z consumers who track their macros, sustainable children’s apparel shop owners, or B2B SaaS Product Managers using Jira for project management. As your business scales, so too can your market. For example, Dropbox started with tech-savvy creatives who needed to share large files, and now, it serves nearly anyone needing digital file storage.
Product-market fit exists when a specific market consistently chooses your solution to solve their shared problem because it delivers superior value at an acceptable price.
How Do You Know if You Have Product-Market Fit?
Traditional PMF metrics, such as organic growth, Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer lifetime value (CLV), repeat or retention rates, are useful indicators of success. But they don't tell you why customers value your offering, how to improve it, or how sticky you are.
My favorite indicator is a question from authors Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown in their book, Hacking Growth:
The authors’ benchmark (based on working with over 100 tech startups) states that if more than 40 percent of your answers are “very disappointed,” you have achieved PMF.
To avoid catering to everyone, the authors suggest improving the product using the “very disappointed” group’s suggestions rather than input from those who are “somewhat disappointed” because it focuses your improvements on your best customers’ needs.
While the 40% benchmark may vary across organizations, this question is helpful for all businesses. It strips away attributes that may muddy the data, such as brand perception, strength of customer relationships, aggressive sales or marketing tactics, and switching costs.
Instead, the metric exclusively focuses on product value. It helps you understand how replaceable you are. For example, someone may be “very satisfied” with your quality or service but “not disappointed” if they couldn’t use your product anymore because of suitable alternatives.
Ask this question (followed by “why?”) every time you revalidate existing PMF. It’s also an extremely helpful question to ask after initial pilots for new product launches or expansion into new markets. Being able to answer this requires a handful of customers to have actually experienced the product or service. Sometimes, businesses pour tons of resources into product launches without first validating PMF.
How to Ask:
In customer reviews and customer advisory board meetings
Through formal customer research (surveys, qualitative interviews, and pilot programs)
During trade show conversations and industry events
Via prospect discovery meetings and market interviews
How to Improve Product-Market Fit
If you don’t have PMF or you have lost PMF (due to market changes, new competitors, or cuts that have resulted in lower quality or performance), you must modify your product or market. It’s an iterative process of refinement to maximize value creation for your customer.
Lack of PMF usually comes down to four common pitfalls:
1. Lack of Customer Understanding
You can’t solve a problem you don’t fully understand. Most companies think they know their customers but may have dangerous blind spots, especially as the external market shifts. In some cases, businesses have too broad a customer base which prevents them from identifying the primary problem they address.
Example: In her first job, positioning guru April Dunford called users of an unsuccessful startup product. The first 20 people said they hated the product or couldn’t remember using it. The 21st said it changed their life. After 100 calls, 94 users had no interest. Six said the product was life-changing. Thanks to those six users, instead of killing the product, her team clarified the product’s specific use and refined its features.
What to do:
Create a monthly “customer connect” program where leadership directly engages with customers (no sales agenda!)
Map the complete customer journey, focusing on pain points, use occasions, and triggers
Implement feedback collection systems at key touchpoints (particularly after purchase and first use)
2. Wrong Customer
Catering to the wrong customer is doomed to fail. You must validate a real problem for which a customer will pay for a solution.
Example: Dinnr, a meal-delivery app, created meal kits for special-occasion home cooking, delivering pre-portioned ingredients and recipes for romantic dinners. Their assumption failed when they discovered that target customers preferred buying ingredients locally or ordering ready-made meals.
What to do:
Analyze your most satisfied customers to identify common characteristics and use cases
Exit or deprioritize segments where you can’t deliver exceptional value
Reallocate resources to segments where you have a clear competitive advantage
3. Wrong (or Outdated) Solution
Your solution may not effectively solve the customer’s problem, even if there’s a clear market need. For established businesses, a solution that may have worked ten years ago is now outdated and doesn’t reflect the changing needs of the customer. Kodak didn’t evolve to meet digital photography needs, and Blockbuster ignored streaming; both became irrelevant.
Example: EventVue built a platform for conference attendees to network before events. Organizers loved the concept but weren’t willing to pay for what they saw as a non-essential feature, revealing a fatal flaw in the business model.
What to do:
Analyze how customers currently solve their problems (including non-traditional competitors and workarounds)
Identify which features or benefits drive the highest and lowest satisfaction before investing in improvements
Validate that your solution delivers better outcomes than an alternative
4. Poor Solution Quality
No amount of marketing can compensate for a product that doesn’t deliver on its core promise. That promise is an always-moving target as the competitive environment changes and customer expectations evolve.
Example: Tesla’s early Roadster, while revolutionary, had significant quality issues that limited adoption. They had the right customer (luxury performance car buyers interested in sustainability) but needed to improve quality before achieving true PMF.
What to do:
Implement quality metrics that directly tie to customer success measures
Create rapid feedback loops between customers and product development
Focus improvements on product elements that create real customer value
Rethinking Product-Market Fit for Purpose-Driven Business
Traditional PMF frameworks overlook a critical third dimension: values. When we expand beyond just product and market to include values, we create a more comprehensive model that considers impact on all stakeholders—employees, community, environment, supply chain. Alignment with customer values and societal needs creates a foundation for sustainable innovation and growth.
This expanded approach reveals common PMF failures in established companies:
Selling what exists rather than creating what's needed
Using marketing to mask poor product-market fit
Ignoring the negative externalities of their solutions
Failing to evolve products as values and needs change
Consider Instagram’s recent launch of its Teen Account, a response to years of criticism about negative social impact. This example shows that companies must evolve beyond traditional PMF to consider broader societal impact and alignment of values.
Product-market fit isn’t a destination—it’s an ongoing journey of alignment between your solutions and evolving customer needs. For purpose-driven businesses, this journey must balance commercial success with positive impact. True PMF allows your marketing to focus on authentic connection and value communication rather than manipulation or artificial demand creation.
Regular PMF assessment gives you early warning signals when market needs shift, helping you adapt through innovation rather than aggressive marketing. By maintaining strong PMF, purpose-driven companies can grow sustainably while staying true to their mission and values.