Forcing Sales Without Product / Market Fit

Over the years, I’ve seen startups raise significant amounts of money from investors and plow it into sales and marketing. Only, many times this is prior to product / market fit — I call it forcing sales. The reason it’s forcing sales is that the product doesn’t meet the needs of the market (yet) and good sales and marketing can sell an inferior product.

What’s the tell tale sign sales are being forced?

Answer: high churn rates.

Now, some products, due to the nature of what they do, are prone to high churn rates (think of things that are one-off or temporary). But, products that are designed to be used indefinitely, as long as they are providing real value, shouldn’t have high churn rates (annual renewal rates in the 75 – 90% range are normal with 90%+ renewal rates being exceptional).

So, if you hear of extremely high churn rates, peel back the layers and see if sales are being forced without product / market fit.

What else? What are your thoughts on forcing sales without product / market fit?