Finding product-to-market fit (PMF), a crucial but elusive startup milestone, can be one of the biggest challenges for early-stage founders. Crucial because it shows you and potential investors that people want your product. Elusive because everyone defines it differently to begin with.
If customers are ripping products out of your hands, congratulations—you have PMF. But this definition doesn’t necessarily apply to every startup’s product or service. The murky definitions of PMF are murky challenging waters, but things get even more interesting during a changing market.
The right PMF determines the future growth and profitability of your startup, which is why we’re excited to have Pali Bhatt, Chief Product Officer at Reddit; Annie Pearl, CPO at Calendly; and Avlok Kohli, CEO of AngelList, join us on stage TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18-20 in San Francisco.
When startups have access to larger (and cheaper) amounts of VC money – as they did last year — can afford to spend more. What may appear to be PMF may be an illusion driven by huge sales and marketing costs.
The downturn is likely to tighten PMF definitions, making it an even more important milestone. Startups with products tuned to — and wanted by — their customers don’t need a lot of capital to grow.
Our panelists will discuss the challenges of finding a PMF and help founders refine their definitions. We’ll also ask how to measure PMF in a tougher market and what founders need to consider from both a fundraising and customer perspective. We think this is a must-attend session for early-stage founders.
Before joining Reddit as the company’s first Chief Product Officer, Pali Bhatt held senior leadership positions at Google for more than 10 years. Most recently, he led a team of nearly 1,000 engineers, product managers, user experience designers, and researchers in a rapidly growing product suite.
Bhatt was also vice president of product management and led Google’s payments products globally. Prior to Google, Bhatt held leadership positions at SAP Labs and McKinsey & Company.
Annie Pearl brings nearly 15 years of startup and entrepreneurial experience to her role as Chief Product Officer at Calendly, where she oversees the company’s product vision, strategy and roadmap. She leads and scales the product management and UX teams to deliver a best-in-class customer planning experience.
Prior to Calendly, Pearl served as CPO at Glassdoor and led the product, UX, and content moderation teams. Previously, she led enterprise product management teams at Box – both before and after the company’s IPO. Earlier in her career, Pearl was Vice President of Product and Founding Member of Xpert Financial. She is a board member of WorkRamp, Well Health and has several advisory roles.
Avlok Kohli is the CEO of AngelList. Before joining AngelList, Kohli founded and sold two companies – FastBite, a food delivery company (acquired by Square), and Fairy, a provider of high-frequency house cleaning services.
TechCrunch Disrupt will be held in San Francisco on October 18–20 with an online day on October 21. Take advantage of our Early Bird Sale and save up to $1,300 on full price entry. Buy your early bird passes for Labor Day before deadline is Tuesday, September 6th at 11:59pm PDT.