Marc Andreessen says the MarKet is the most important factor in StartUp success. In a great market - a market with lots of real potential customers - the market pulls product out of the startup... The product doesn't need to be great; it just has to basically work. And, the market doesn't care how good the team is, as long as the team can produce that viable product... This is the story of search keyword advertising, and Internet auctions, and TCP/[IP] routers... Conversely, in a terrible market, you can have the best product in the world and an absolutely killer team, and it doesn't matter - you're going to fail... This is the story of videoconferencing, and Work Flow software, and Micro Payments... Can't great products sometimes create huge new markets? Absolutely. This is a best case scenario, though... The only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit. Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market... Carried a step further, I believe that the life of any startup can be divided into two parts: before product/market fit (call this "[BPMF]") and after product/market fit ("[APMF]"). When you are [BPMF], focus obsessively on getting to product/market fit. Do whatever is required to get to product/market fit. How does this compare to Crossing The Chasm?

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