Evidently Me Weekly Issue #9
The Quest for Product Market Fit: Why we're going to San Francisco
As many of you may know, James and I are heading to San Francisco, the land of hopes, innovation and people with lots of money. With this in mind, we’re heading over there to build relationships with advisors, early-adopters, founders and investors.
I thought it suitable to announce the beginning of a new series called:
“The quest for Product Market Fit - A deliberately unfiltered diary of our quest to building things people want.”
Our aim is to make this series as short as humanly possible.
We’re hoping a significant amount of ground-work, listening to problems, and a change of environment to foster new ideas will result in a focused approach to pursue a product that people want, need and love.
When does it finish? - When we feel that what we’ve built solves a significant problem for customers.
Our newsletter will be supplemented periodically between this series and our product updates, and will be a more organic insight into our journey as founders. I hope you enjoy this first instalment.
It’s time to get out and do something.
James and I have been working on Evidently Me since September 2023. Funnily enough, the longest we’ve ever worked together in-person consecutively is two days. (I crashed on a sofa bed in James’ bungalow just before we started building the MVP). So we’ve been working completely remotely for over a year, with occasional meet-ups in London.
We spent a long time knowing that we’d likely need to raise investment in the states, and more specifically, we knew that it was a much bigger market, with potentially more yield. However, we we’re comfortable, stuck in routine, checking in daily every morning and wrapping up on a Friday. Unfortunately, routine is the nemesis of creativity. So, we decided to vocalise to our mentor based in San Francisco that we’d like to pursue moving there, and were advised very quickly to come over for a visit.
Heading to San Francisco is a good chance for us to work together for 3 weeks, and grow as founders in the best environment there is for start-ups. We know that some new exposure to innovation, successfully funded start-ups and founders can only be good for us. Especially as we begin to explore the US market more actively.
Hey team, how’s your PMF?
When James and I were younger, we used to go to a basketball camp called NBC. James was a camper, and has been coaching there every summer for the past few years. They used to have this phrase designed to light people up and get them primed for the challenges ahead, the abbreviation: PMA = Positive Mental Attitude.
Coach: “Hey NBC, how’s your PMA???”
Campers: “Boy am I feeling good! Yeah baby yeah!!!”
What usually followed were push-ups until our arms stopped working, or suicide sprints that had us laying on the floor afterwards gasping for air. I’d say NBC was one of the most influential experiences that taught me mental toughness, resilience and grit. Both James and I have learnt to embrace challenges when they come, and the same is true for our start-up journey.
Now, James and I not only are trying to maintain our PMA, but pursue our PMF (Product Market Fit)… see what I did there? (*sigh*) 🤦
So, “Hey Team? How’s your PMF?”
“Well, we’re getting there. But, boy, we’re feeling good. Yeah, baby yeah!!!”
We’ve logged a lot of different pain points since the new year. An area we are finding quite attractive is database management. More specifically, how we can use Evidently Me’s new talent intelligence tool to build higher quality databases and enrich existing databases of candidates with quality skills information, screening and automated bucketing.
The challenges, they still (and will always) exist. There remains a lot of doubt, anxiety and pressure. However, we trust ourselves to get through it, and remain optimistic heading to San Francisco to meet amazing people and learn new things.
We’d appreciate any intros to people in your network as we head over there.
Thanks for reading!
Thomas Chiu
Co-founder, CEO - Evidently Me