Get my weekly 2-3 min reads on SaaS growth.
On day one, I fucked up.
Keep in mind, I built two SaaS companies and exited both. I was also the Portfolio Director for a $36M fund, helping grow a stack of SaaS companies from the inside out. Growth is what I do. It’s what I know. So when I started Marvelous, I told myself I was going to build a growth engine for SaaS teams—exactly the kind of teams I’ve been working with for the last decade.
But the moment I launched, I pivoted. I told myself that targeting all remote teams was a better move. Bigger market, more opportunity, right?
Wrong.
Product-market fit. The one thing I’ve drilled into countless founders. And somehow, I ignored it in my own launch.
What is product-market fit?
Product-market fit is solving a specific problem (product) for one group of people (market).
That one decision created all kinds of problems. Instead of staying focused on helping SaaS companies grow, I found myself trying to build a solution for restaurants, real estate teams, financial institutions, car dealerships—you name it. After all, they’re remote too. But they all work differently. Their meetings, their goals, their problems—they weren’t the same.
How do you find product market fit?
The best way to find product-market fit is to experience the problem yourself. Solve it for you first. Then ask people like you if it solves the same problem for them.
Why you? Because building something for a problem you’ve never had doesn’t give you the empathy—or the obsession—to solve it well. And definitely not the drive to keep making it better.
- Experience the problem yourself
Dogfood it. If it’s not painful for you, it’s hard to build something others will truly love. - Define your exact market
Not “everyone.” Not “marketers.” Try “B2B content marketers at SaaS startups who hate reporting.” - Build a simple solution (MVP)
Strip it down. Solve the core problem. No bells. No whistles. - Talk to users relentlessly
Ask: What were you using before? How does this compare? Would you pay? Would you care if it disappeared? - Keep iterating based on real feedback
Not opinions. Not guesses. Watch behavior, solve sharper, go deeper.
Meanwhile, my product-market fit was falling apart. I wasn’t following my own advice. And I couldn’t even see it. I was chasing growth in the wrong direction and losing sight of the people I actually built this for. My vision for helping SaaS companies scale got buried in noise.
I wasn’t laser-focused anymore. I didn’t even know where to dig in, because I was interviewing teams from totally different industries—and each one had slightly different ways of working. Sure, I could build a flexible, modular meeting engine for everyone. But I’m not an expert in everyone’s business. That’s not the point.
And what about the bigger picture? The newsletter, the community, the webinars—how do I build content that speaks to a dozen industries at once? I can’t. Case in point: I fucked up.
The truth? Fuck-ups are fuel. Growth doesn’t happen in the wins—it happens when you screw up, stare it down, and get better.
A famous basketball player once said, “Before you win, you must first learn to fail.” I’ve always liked that.
2 quick lessons:
- Nail your product-market fit. Don’t sell out just because the market looks bigger.
- Failure is underrated. Just don’t fail at the same thing twice.
One last thing:
This post isn’t just for you. It’s a letter to myself that I’m going to bookmark. A reminder to start with the basics, stay focused, and trust the plan.