YOU: Founder-Market Fit

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The single most important thing in all of this is that the value proposition is built around you. This isn’t about technology on a PowerPoint slide; it’s about you.

The best value propositions are developed by people who, because of their background or experience, are uniquely able to see an insight that advantages them in addressing the problem and providing a solution, something they’re passionate about and genuinely believe they can deliver, whether as a discontinuous innovation or a disruptive business model. So ask yourself three things. First, do you uniquely understand the problem you’re addressing? If not, why are you doing it, because you’ll face competition from people who understand it better. Second, given what you uniquely know, what can your solution deliver uniquely well? Third, can you bring it together around a disruptive business model so it’s sustainable? When those line up, that’s what people often call founder-market fit: you are uniquely positioned to solve this particular value prop, in a way that endures.

So my closing appeal: believe in yourself. I’ve seen incredibly unlikely stories turn into great companies, purely because of the entrepreneur’s conviction in their own understanding of a problem. If you have that belief, plus the passion and persistence to go after it, everything I’ve said tonight will just become a framework that drops away into the distance as you succeed in building a business. Have fun defining it, have fun evaluating it, make sure it’s built around you, and you’ll have a great company.