Advice for the Pre-Product/Market Fit Days — This Founder’s Playbook for Pivoting with Purpose

There's a lot of conventional wisdom out there for how to build a successful product and company — like relentless grinding even when your product vision doesn't seem to be working, or the pressure to fundraise early and start building your team.

As a first-time founder, Tara Viswanathan has been on the receiving end of plenty oft-repeated advice — and she's learned that sometimes you need to sidestep some traditional startup "shoulds."

“I don’t think there’s any conventional startup advice out there where the reverse of it hasn’t produced a multi-billion dollar company,” she says. She points to a couple of examples. “You hear, ‘Don’t ever co-found something with your sibling or your significant other,’ and you look at Stripe and Eventbrite. I don’t think there’s one way to do it, which is why it’s even more important to observe what’s in front of you and focus on what’s right for your company.”

Another trap she finds well-meaning advisors often fall into? Doling out prescriptions that don't match the company stage. “Oftentimes startup advice is shared broadly without aligning on the relevant stage — but context is everything. In early-stage startups, there are two distinct phases: pre-product/market fit and post-product/market fit. Most conventional startup advice out there is post-product/market fit, but it’s dangerous to take that advice when you’re still pre-product/market fit," says Viswanathan.

With that in mind, in our exclusive interview on the Review, she shares her biggest lessons from the first couple of years building her company Rupa Health, specifically geared towards the pre-product/market fit stage.

She walks us through Rupa's different product iterations on the path to finding the idea that could go the distance — and her battle-tested tips for creating quick feedback loops with customers. She wrestles with the question of persisting or pivoting when it seems you've hit a dead-end, and although she admits there's no one-size-fits-all solution here, there are nuggets of wisdom all early founders should hear.

She then turns her attention to hiring the early team, including why she decided to go against the grain and lean on contractors, rather than hiring full-time employees before finding product/market fit. She also unpacks her favored alternative to the traditional job description.

Far too often, as a startup grows and the further away founders get from the early turbulence, the hard-won lessons become fuzzier. As a founder not too far removed from the pre-PMF trenches, Viswanathan shares her blueprint for surviving the chaos and coming out with a product with customer pull and a winning team.

As always, thanks for reading and sharing!

-The Review editors

Recommended resources: 

First Round's own Marketing Expert in Residence Arielle Jackson is creating a cohort-based course on brand strategy for startups.

5 Reasons your employees don't understand your company's vision.

The Atlantic's "How to Build a Life" column wrestles with the secret to happiness at work.

The 5 biggest mistakes in trying to find product/market fit.

Inspo for thinking outside of the box in your search for a co-founder.

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