Earth Set:Build Webinar series 1.Product Market Fit
Paul Finch of Growth Studio’s presentation. Link to full deck below
Autumn 2025
Product Market Fit 101: Build Things People Want
The first session of Earth Set: Build opened with a hard truth: most startups don’t fail because the technology doesn’t work. They fail because they never find Product Market Fit (PMF).
Paul Finch, co-founder of Growth Studio, led the discussion, grounding it in practical advice for founders building in climate and impact sectors. This wasn’t about Silicon Valley slogans, it was about finding real users, solving real problems, and avoiding the costly trap of scaling before demand is proven.
What is Product Market Fit?
At its simplest, PMF means building things people want. Paul put it bluntly:
“Don’t fall in love with your product. Fall in love with the problem you’re solving.”
It’s not about adding features or chasing trends. It’s about discovering whether there’s a real, repeatable need for your solution.
Why Startups Fail
Drawing on Growth Studio’s work with hundreds of startups, Paul listed the classic reasons ventures stumble:
Competition & pricing
Lack of PMF
Team issues
Lack of funding
Poor execution
Timing
Each of these can be fatal, but most trace back to the same root: failing to establish PMF early.
Find the Market, Then Build the Product
A recurring theme was sequencing:
“You don’t start by building a product and then hope the market appears. You start with the market — with customers — and only then do you build.”
This means:
Spend more time listening than building or coding in the early days.
Test demand with low-cost experiments (landing pages, waiting lists, pilot offers).
Only invest in full builds once you see strong pull from users.
How You Know You’re Getting There
Paul highlighted the signals of PMF founders should watch:
Customers coming back without prompting.
Referrals and word-of-mouth adoption.
Willingness to pay — ideally more than your initial assumptions.
Frustration when the product is unavailable or buggy (“separation anxiety”).
He cautioned against relying on vanity metrics:
“Sign-ups don’t mean anything if no one uses the product twice.”
The Eight Golden Rules
Follow the market.
Focus. Be nimble, creative, and brave.Fall in love with your customers’ problems.
Know them inside out.Stay focused on the 2–3 metrics that matter.
Metrics that demonstrate PMF…Solve a burning problem.
Find the 30% solution.Think holistically.
PMF is positioning, marketing, channel, product, and pricing.Use data to drive decision-making.
Be unemotional.Find your evangelists.
Build with them. Secure your beachhead.Test everything.
Everywhere, all the time, with everyone.
Final Word
The first Earth Set: Build session left founders with a challenge: to treat PMF as their north star. Funding, features, even strategy all flow from it. Without PMF, nothing else really matters.
Or as Paul summed it up:
“Make things people want. Everything else is noise.”
Thanks to Paul Finch from Growth Studio for kicking off Earth Set: Build with sharp, practical insight. This was just the first of six webinars — plenty more to come. See you there!
