Steve Blank talks about the idea that tech companies die because of lack of customers, not inability to build technology. Marc Andreessen says it’s the only thing that matters.

getting a low TTPMF is very easy: Just completely copy something that’s already at P/M fit.

be aware that a 100% clone has many weaknesses

It’s uninspired
You’ll never get to #1 since you can’t switch existing customers over
You’ll never grow the market in a new direction, giving you a different base of users- compared to an incumbent competitor
You let a competitor define the market, and you play catch up- you can never play offense
If it’s a networks-effects business, you can’t just clone a product, you have to clone a community. That’s hard.

keep the fundamentals the same (80%) while substantially reinventing 20% of the product.

TTPMF has to be less than 1-2 years or else your startup will implode. Ask anyone who’s been working on a product for more than 2 years and doesn’t have traction to show: It really, really sucks.

Ideally the differentiation is baked deeply into the core of the product, not out on the edges. Something the end user can see and feel within the first 30 seconds of using the product.

getting user engagement is hard enough, but when you couple it with a high bar on user growth, it’s 10x harder. So leave enough time to work on your marketing optimizations to get your product going.