The Startup Therapy Couch™: Is there a need for your idea in the market?

We previously discussed the Harvard and Statistic Brain studies that gave us the series on the 7 most common reasons your startup might be failing. This week, we are looking at the Crunchbase study that explores the top 20 reasons why startups fail, based on 101 startup postmortems.

What was the #1 reason they found? In 42% of the situations? NO MARKET FIT!

There's nowhere to go with a business if the market doesn't have a need that your idea addresses. You might think that your own need for the thing you're creating is enough proof that there is a viable market, but you are a constituency of one. You have to talk to more people (a LOT more people) to understand the true market.

So how do you do product-market fit research?
1- You have to fully understand the problem you're trying to solve.
2- You have to identify your target users with that problem.
3- You have to TALK TO A SAMPLE OF THOSE USERS to understand how THEY perceive the problem and whether your solution resonates.

Are your users willing to change their habits, spend money, or both, in order to solve this problem? If the answer isn't a resounding YES, you don't have it yet. Don't go spend a bunch of money and years of your life on a market that doesn't exist.