📝 usncan Note: From MVP To Message-Market Fit
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It’s not enough for your product to solve a problem. You also have to explain that solution in a way that instantly resonates with your audience. Read on to find out how.
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Most founders obsess over building the right product. They rush to an MVP, get feedback, and iterate toward product–market fit (PMF). But there’s a parallel test that’s just as critical: message–market fit.
It’s not enough for your product to solve a problem. You also have to explain that solution in a way that instantly resonates with your audience. Many great products fail not because they didn’t work, but because potential customers never understood why they mattered.
1. What Is Message-Market Fit?
Venture capitalist Wes Kao calls message–market fit “the point where your positioning and messaging are so clear, your target audience immediately ‘gets it.’” It’s when you describe your product and people reply with, “Oh wow, I need that” instead of “So… what does it do?”
Similarly, First Round Review has written that startups often die in the “messaging gap,” where teams assume customers think in the same way they do. In reality, prospects don’t speak in feature sets; they speak in outcomes, frustrations, and jobs-to-be-done.
Message–market fit is about finding that shared language.
2. Why MVP Alone Isn’t Enough
Your MVP proves there’s a functional solution. But adoption doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens when real people see your message, understand it, and decide to take action.
Take Slack. Early versions weren’t positioned as “group chat for teams.” They were framed as “making work less busy.” That narrative clicked because it was bigger than features – it connected directly to a universal pain point. The product was strong, but the exact message is what unlocked initial growth and helped their early adopters “get” the offering.
Contrast that with countless productivity tools that never broke through. Many technically worked, but their positioning was generic: “a better way to collaborate.” Without crisp language and a cultural fit, no one remembered them.
3. The Cost Of Bad Messaging
Without message–market fit, three things happen:
- Slow adoption. If users can’t explain what you do, they won’t share it.
- Misaligned customers. Ambiguous messaging attracts the wrong users, who churn quickly.
- Wasted marketing spend. You pay for clicks, but confusion kills conversion.
As investor Marc Andreessen famously put it, “In a startup, absolutely nothing happens unless you get your product out.” But once it’s out, nothing scales unless your message resonates.
4. How To Test Message-Market Fit
Just like you iterate on product features, you should test language. Practical methods include:
- Customer interviews. Listen to the words prospects use to describe their problems. Then mirror that language back. April Dunford, author of Obviously Awesome, stresses that “great positioning starts with customer language, not founder jargon.”
- A/B testing copy. Run ads or landing pages with different headlines to see which sparks higher engagement.
- The repeat-back test. After you explain your startup to someone, can they explain it back accurately in one sentence? If not, you haven’t nailed it.
- Onboarding clarity. Measure whether new users complete activation steps. Confusion at the first interaction is usually a messaging problem, not a feature one.
5. Evolving Language as You Grow
Just like your product roadmap changes, your messaging evolves. Often, corporate language is stale and inauthentic, and unfortunately, this is often natural as corporations grow and have to bet on a safe language and narrative. This is not something you are forced to do in the early startup stages. Use this to your advantage and use a bold and natural language that your target customers find authentic. Later on, your message will inevitably evolve to reflect your changing organization and expanding customer base.
Notion started with a broad story: “the all-in-one workspace.” Over time, as they saw adoption among teams, they refined the language to emphasize collaboration, knowledge management, and replacing fragmented tools.
The lesson: message–market fit isn’t a one-time milestone. It’s a moving target as your market shifts and your audience broadens.
