🚹 The PMF Trap That Kills Startups Before They Start

Sequoia just dropped the clearest way to know if you're building the right thing. Here's how to use it.

Author

PATRICK FRANK
June 05, 2025

⭐ Today’s Highlights:

🧠 The 3 market types every startup falls into (and how to win in each)

đŸš© How to diagnose your real product-market fit path

📘 The Arc Framework decoded. The PMF map every founder should know.

đŸ–ŠïžThe perfect copy framework for your landing page.

(Total read time: 5 minutes)

You Don’t Have a Product Problem. You Have a Market Match Problem.

Let’s be honest: most “failed startups” didn’t actually fail because of bad products or lazy founders.

They failed because they built for the wrong type of market — and didn’t realize it until it was too late.

That’s where Sequoia’s Arc framework comes in. It’s like a GPS for product-market fit. Not just telling you if you have PMF, but showing you what kind of path you’re actually on — and what it takes to win.

🧭 The Arc Framework (in Plain English)

Sequoia’s Arc program (think of it like their YC or startup bootcamp) introduced a new way of thinking about PMF that’s so clean, it’s criminal.

There are 3 types of markets, and each one demands a different strategy:

đŸ”„ 1. Hair On Fire

  • Mindset: “Help me NOW.”

  • Market Type: Crowded & competitive

  • Trap: Getting out-competed by a better, louder, faster version of your product

  • Your Move: Don’t just be better — be different

  • PMF Sign: Customers are already shopping for a solution and can instantly tell why yours is the one

You’re in a race. The fastest to deliver the clearest, most useful fix wins.

Example: Calendly, Stripe, Notion. Obvious problems, solved better and faster.

đŸ§± 2. Hard Fact

  • Mindset: “It is what it is.”

  • Market Type: Stagnant, habitual, dominated by legacy players

  • Trap: Customers shrug and keep doing what they’ve always done

  • Your Move: Reframe the pain. Show them it’s not just a cost of doing business — it’s solvable

  • PMF Sign: People say “I didn’t even realize how much this sucked until now”

You’re not inventing the pain — you’re helping people finally recognize it.

Example: Ramp, Superhuman, Airtable. The stuff people "tolerated" until something 10x better arrived.

🚀 3. Future Vision

  • Mindset: “Yeah, right.”

  • Market Type: Doesn’t exist yet

  • Trap: Being “too early” — or worse, building something cool that no one believes is real

  • Your Move: Paint the future, then back it up with short-term wins (“pit stops”)

  • PMF Sign: Early adopters become evangelists. Everyone else follows later.

You’re not competing. You’re convincing. And the best way to do that is by proving it works on the way there.

Example: Tesla in 2008. OpenAI in 2015. The vision sounded crazy... until it didn’t.

❓How to Know Which Path You’re On

Diagnose The Current Problem

Here are a few quick self-check questions:

Hair On Fire:
✅ Are customers already actively shopping for solutions?
✅ Can they instantly understand your differentiation?
✅ Are you faster than the competition?

Hard Fact:
✅ Are people stuck using legacy workarounds or outdated processes?
✅ Does your product create an “aha” moment?
✅ Are you shifting habits, not just tools?

Future Vision:
✅ Are you building for customers who don’t know they need it yet?
✅ Do you have short-term traction points to survive until the world catches up?
✅ Do you have the conviction (and capital) to outlast the disbelief?

Final Thought:

PMF isn’t about hype. It’s about fit.

Sequoia’s Arc framework doesn’t give you shortcuts. It gives you a map.

Use it to understand:

  • Why your early adopters aren’t converting

  • Why your traction feels “off” even if the idea is great

  • What type of proof your market actually needs to believe in you

None of these paths are better than the others. But confusing which one you're on? That’s a great way to waste 2 years and 2 million bucks.

Patty’s Picks (Real Tools. No Sponsorships.)

📘 Read: The Arc Product-Market Fit Framework: If you haven’t read this yet, bookmark it. Sequoia doesn’t publish fluff.

⚒ Tool: LaunchKit: MVPs, waitlists, and fast pages to test your ideas in real time.

👀 Top Article of the Month: The perfect framework for your landing page: (MUST READ) 

📈 Tool: UserLeap (now Sprig): Micro-surveys that tell you what your users actually think before it’s too late.

👋 Got an idea you’re building and want a PMF gut check?

I’ll give you my honest take — no fluff, no pitch.

Let’s make sure you’re building the right thing, for the right market, in the right way.

– Patrick

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