product market fit Archives

Here’s Why Market Timing is Everything When it Comes to Startup Success

The following is excerpted from “SUPER FOUNDERS: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups” by Ali Tamaseb. Copyright © 2021. Available from PublicAffairs, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. In 1995, General Magic, the startup company where Tony...

byAli Tamaseb

August 9, 2022

What is Product-Market Fit? How to Leverage Customer Development to Move Your Business Forward

So, you've got a startup idea. The first major challenge you'll need to overcome is achieving product-market fit. So why do so many entrepreneurs leave this up to chance? Creating a product that solves a...

byJeff Solomon

October 21, 2021

What Many SaaS Startups Get Wrong About Freemium

Freemium is an extremely popular pricing model for software products, and on paper it looks ideal. The theory is that you’ll entice new customers with a free subscription and withhold certain features for the paid...

byJurg Benders

September 8, 2020

3 Types of Design Your Early-Stage Company Should Focus on

We’ve learned a lot at Aesthetic about how early stage companies can best leverage design to become more valuable, and we’re excited to share our learnings from working with more than 100 companies over the...

byJohn Milinovich

August 2, 2020

How to Choose the Ideal Side Hustle to Start at Home During Quarantine

There’s no time like the present to start a side hustle, especially since many of us have extra time on our hands while being stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. A side hustle can...

byKeith Shields

April 27, 2020

9 Business Moguls on How to Break Into a New Industry and Make it to the Top

Looking to blaze into a new industry? We asked some of the world's smartest business people and Advisors in The Oracles for their best tips for breaking into a new field, from tech to real estate to...

byThe Oracles

February 13, 2020

4 Steps to Scale Your Business by Fine-Tuning Your Product-Market Fit

In the exciting rush of developing a product and creating a company, founders don’t always remember a critical ingredient for starting a business: your audience. Unfortunately, not every business finds the right audience to fit...

byLydia Vargo

November 25, 2019

6 Performance Metrics Your Startup Should Track for Success

Revenue is an exciting and vital performance metric to track when starting a new business, but it’s not the only one an entrepreneur should be concerned with. While there are myriad metrics that experts across...

byMatt Shealy

August 28, 2019

4 Simple Ways to Implement Customer Research on a Budget

As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to get swept up in the allure of branding. If something is cool and pretty and makes us swoon, won't that same logo and color scheme draw in customers like...

byAnna Bradshaw

May 22, 2019

How to Scale Your Digital Marketing Efforts While You’re in the First Year of Business

You’ve got a great idea, enough funding to hire an expert team and a developed product ready for customers. You also have some marketing strategies in mind, and now it’s time to validate them, grow...

byByron Tassoni-Resch

November 5, 2018

Lessons Learned From Scaling an Early Stage Startup Internationally

Many companies that have their eyes on unicorn status first have humble beginnings. When launching your product or scaling your business, building the team is just as important as bringing your service or brand to...

byDavid Andreasson

October 4, 2018

3 Things Entrepreneurs Must Do to Increase Their Startup’s Chance of Survival

Entrepreneurship is often idealized — you can “be your own boss,” attain “financial freedom” and work a “four hour workweek” — right? Well, yes, those things are possible, especially in the long run. At least...

byTim Chavez

August 9, 2018

Entrepreneurs, is Your Product Fit For the Market?

As an entrepreneur, you may think that some of your ideas are pure gold. In these scenarios, it's easy to jump the gun and start planning your product's name, marketing campaigns, various features, etc. But...

byJustin E. Crawford

February 26, 2018

5 User Testing Mistakes That Even Experienced Startups Make

"We had a big idea and we freaking went for it," Kash Shaikh, Besomebody CEO, wistfully told the company's community earlier this year. The Boston-based business, Shaikh continued, would then shut its doors the very next day. It's...

byDarshan Mehta

September 21, 2017

Growth Hacker Raymond Fong on Taking Your Startup From Zero to 60

Raymond Fong is co-author of “Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley's Best Kept Secret” and co-founder of Deviate Labs, a marketing agency that has consulted for companies including Dollar Shave Club, HelloGiggles, Shoedazzle and several businesses that...

bySusan Johnston Taylor

June 29, 2017