3 experiments for early-stage founders seeking product-market fit

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There is a fund for pre-seed and seed-stage investments, a venture studio and an EIR program.

We discovered a lot about how different founders fulfill their journey of customer discovery and product-market fit. One of the biggest challenges for pre-seed and seed stage founders is figuring out where to start. What should you do at each stage?

Three founders from our portfolio ran discovery experiments to find their product-market fit at different stages of their company's development.

Here is what they had to say.

Pre-MVP/customer discovery phase: Tiny Organics

Tiny Organics is a plant-based baby and toddler food company on a mission to shape children's palates so they will choose and love vegetables from their earliest days. The company raised $11 million in their Series A in 2021.

The EIRs went through a six-week discovery sprint. They knew they wanted to build something to make life easier for parents, so they threw a lot of ideas at the wall from the Finnish baby box.

The most pressing and urgent needs of new parents were tested.

• Conduct a “Start with Why” exercise
• Define the “Jobs to be Done”
• Create a lean canvas for each (viable) concept
• Define the user journeys
• Conduct user surveys using platforms like pollfish.com and 1Q (instant survey tool)
• Identify and define their customer personas
• Conduct customer interviews and synthesize them
• Construct concept prototypes

They conducted a focus group of 15-20 moms. The idea for Tiny Organics was sparked when the founders asked them to text them what they were feeding their children, and they realized there was a lack of healthy finger foods in the market.