Look forward to PMS – the good kind
The most important mission at the start of your business is to prove your business model
by achieving what I call PMS: product market sync. This is when your product (whatever goods or services you sell) syncs, or connects, with the right customers; the people who
will buy from you consistently. You need to start the business with a target market. But sometimes your target market may not be who you thought it was and you need to figure this out right away.
For example, I have a friend who created a line of knee-high, sexy socks for women. Naturally, she thought women were her target market. But she actually found that men
are her target market because they buy the socks like crazy for their girlfriends or wives birthdays and holiday gifts. It’s an easy gift, very affordable and they can be guaranteed that the product will fit.
As a hybrid entrepreneur, you’re not betting your whole life on an unproven business that
hasn’t achieved PMS. You have time to tweak the variables that are going to make your business work – and you don’t have to risk your livelihood to do so. My friend who sells the sexy socks is successful now but if she had been depending on her business in the early days before she learned precisely who would respond to her product then she would have probably gone out of business or experienced severe financial stress.