Did Vercel Have Enterprise Product Market Fit?

Jeanne Grosser says Vercel did not have full enterprise product market fit when she joined, even though her first view was that the product was ready and the real gap was go-to-market.

No one has ever come up with a test for product market fit. When growth is slower than people want, the standing question is whether the problem is product market fit or go-to-market. At Vercel, large existing enterprise customers were already using Vercel but did not yet have Vercel in front. The team picked 10 of the customers and ran the product manager and the lead engineer through conversations with all 10 in a row so they could get pattern recognition. After the 10 sessions, the group concluded they did not have full enterprise product market fit. A set of product changes was needed so the product would be much easier to sell. Some enterprises still bought it, because a visionary customer will work through the pain.

Vercel also extracts objections from calls and scores how well the team handled them. When an objection cannot be handled because of a gap in the product offering, a feedback tool automatically submits an entry for a product ask.