Another great post in Marc’s series in which he makes the point:

The only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit. . . . being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.

And you can always feel when it’s happening. The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it — or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company checking account. You’re hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can. Reporters are calling because they’ve heard about your hot new thing and they want to talk to you about it . . .

The iPod, IMHO, exemplifies PMF. It wasn’t the first, and perhaps wasn’t the best technically, but clearly Apple read the market better than anyone.

Having gone through this ringer a few times, though, I’m often concerned by how people interpret having a good market. Many folks fall into the trap of waiting to see customers asking for product XYZ. While this may work for products that take a couple months to build, the market may shift completely before you can get a more complex product built.