After Product-Market Fit, Find Your Product-Pandemic Fit

What kind of a business does well in a pandemic, and in the deep recession on its coattails?

This is the central question entrepreneurs should be asking right now, pivoting their businesses and ideas toward a rapidly changing business landscape characterized by unpredictability and unevenness. The context is the pandemic: start here.

Some very stark differences in pandemic-vulnerable and pandemic-successful have already emerged: Restaurants, theaters and other businesses that rely on the gathering of people are in critical condition. On the other hand, delivery and digital services are doing very well, some are having their best times ever. Indeed, this may be a really great time to start your business. But there's more to the equation than these categories.

Product-pandemic fit is similar to product-market fit, but well more than that. You absolutely must have product-market fit — that is, a (growing) set of customers who are crazy for your product because it solves a point of pain or holds another appeal —but if it doesn't meet pandemic criteria, you may be toast.

So how do you get to product-pandemic fit?

Find the customer pain point. Just as with product-market fit, you must understand your customer. The pandemic-era customer has certain requirements that your product or service must meet: Among other things, they want assurances that physical products are thoroughly decontaminated, and they want you to offer the option of having your product or service available virtually or by delivery.

More pandemic customer pain points include:

• A need for essential goods
• A need for health support
• A need for community and connection
• A need to feel secure and assured
• A need for support at home in their jobs, parenting/eldercare, home maintenance
• A need for things to do at home to exercise or be entertained, for example
• A new outlook on budgets: The pandemic is creating a bifurcated consumer market, in which astronomical unemployment has created limited budgets for a large segment of consumers, while those shielded from impacts may have budgets to reallocate from travel and restaurants

Make sure tech is a big part of your plan. This is digital's day. Pandemic-era startups will need to lean very heavily on technology for everything from a robust customer experience to flawless work-from-home systems. Fortunately, many technologies developed over the last two decades have given us a slew of off-the-shelf tools and services to develop a digital-heavy business without as much investment. Still, when you're thinking about how to develop, launch and run a business that needs to remain at a distance from customers (and even employees), technology becomes a very big part of the equation — everything from solid customer support to effective e-commerce tools.

On the other hand, if your customer base includes a large portion of low digital access, your workforce and other infrastructure will still need technology, but you will need to consider non-tech ways to reach customers.

Consider the contamination question. If you can't put safety measures in place for customers as well as employees, you have a non-starter. So many entrepreneurs these days build digital businesses, but they are run by people, who have safety needs. Consider whether your team can work remotely and if you can support them. If you do have physical products, can you be assured that suppliers are meeting safety standards? Your safety strategy should cover everyone and everything that is in and touches your business.

Don't be tone-deaf. There's a reason luxury goods are suffering, as consumers largely pull back spending. This is probably not the time to roll out a high-end goods, or travel or events. Anything with a physical space is not going to find its moment right now. But the key is to know your customer and whether, how much and in what ways they have been impacted by the pandemic.

Prepare for unpredictability. Can your business shift on a dime if needed? In the Age of Corona, adaptability is king. Recovery may feature a rolling series of lockdowns; customer response to this has no precedent. Consider how the supply chain, which is exquisitely efficient, was so unexpectedly impacted because people's behavior changed so dramatically. Make sure you're able to walk away from your models and spin up new ones. (Or, be the company that helps those other companies deal with logistics in an unpredictable behavior regime, or that enable repurposing of products or raw materials.)

Unpredictability might also mean anticipating boom times sooner than later, if the stimulus package works and a vaccine comes soon. One can always hope.

Some questions to ask as you look for product-pandemic fit:

• Does any aspect of my business require people to gather in one place? Do customers need to come together, as in a restaurant, or workers to be in close quarters as in, usually, a call center (or a restaurant)?
• Do I have a clear, viable and verifiable decontamination plan for my product and workplace?
• Can my business be run by remote workers, and can it easily shift responsibilities if employees become sick and unable to do their jobs?
• Can I provide a robust digital experience to support my product or service, even if it's physical or real-world?
• Is my idea relevant to current customer pain points? Does it pass (or, rather, fail) the tone-deaf test?
• Will I be able to build up sufficient financial and people resources to lean on technology for my business?
• Will my business be able to react and adjust rapidly to further changes in customer needs or circumstances?
• Can I last at least a few years on thin margins or losses while the pandemic and recession play out?

You might also ask: How will my business adapt to a post-pandemic world? Some businesses that thrive in a pandemic will see demand ease as certain movement restrictions are lifted. Make sure your business fits both contexts.

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I'm a big fan of "fit" concepts. They increase the potential of an idea by front-loading the big questions. Tom Higley at 10.10.10 has developed "founder-opportunity fit," which focuses on that early part of the idea stage, when entrepreneurs are considering how they will invest the next several years of their lives (as surely happens in any startup). Founder-opportunity fit becomes even more important in a pandemic or recession.

Ultimately, the search for product-pandemic fit is an excellent exercise in creative problem-solving. Just as many of the most successful traditional and digital businesses were born in recessions, the constraints of the pandemic may lead to new giants that learned to thrive under these unique conditions.