Gusto co-founder Tomer London shares mental models for achieving product-market fit based on early enterprise discovery mistakes.
Insight
Tomer London: Initial product-market fit means 2 out of 10 prospects love the product
“Product market fit for me is that when you talk with 10 customers, two people are loving this and want this. That's great product market fit. Now, you need to figure out who's the two, who, what makes them special, who are the segments, and then you can pick 1…”
Insight
London: Payroll onboarding makes adding adjacent HR tools frictionless
“Payroll data is very, very powerful because onboarding is so complex. There's so much that you need to, we need to know about you as a company in terms of your employees and where, Where, where they work and how much they get paid and like your company address…”
Insight
Tomer London: Prior founder experience accelerates validation, but PMF requires luck
“I think having multiple founding journeys for me, having Josh and Eddie, having previous startups, it helps you by one, knowing how to avoid some mistakes. So you don't repeat the same mistakes. So for me, like I can give you a bunch of mistakes. We can talk a…”
Insight
London: A true growth mindset means feeling embarrassed by your past self
“What I mean by humble is self-critical in a constructive way. It's kind of like growth mindset, right? Like knowing that you are a work in progress. Every day you're supposed to be better, which means that if, when you look at yourself a month ago or it's a ye…”
Insight
London: Polite customer feedback provides zero signal compared to extreme reactions
“You need to build a business that's built on either
I want it right now.
Can I get it?
And then you put a price tag and they're saying, I will pay for it, right?
So strong positive emotion or strong negative emotion.
It's like, this is absolute shit.
I w…”
Insight
London: Product Creators Must Actively Seek Rejection in Customer Discovery
“When you speak with a customer, you kind of need to be in the mindset of seeking rejection. You go out there to learn, and again, the learning comes so much from rejection, so you got to go out there and seek that rejection”