Iterating Toward Product-Market Fit with the 6Ps

If you hang out in product circles long enough, you’ll hear the same refrain: “Find product-market fit before you scale.”

It’s the rite of passage every startup, every new product, every 0→1 team must stumble through. The challenge? PMF isn’t a single destination. It’s messy. It’s iterative. And frankly, there are a lot of competing playbooks on how to get there.

Dan Olsen gave us the Lean Product Process — a clean, logical sequence that walks you from target customer → underserved needs → value proposition → MVP → test.

Rahul Vohra at Superhuman built a PMF Engine around the “40% very disappointed” metric. Elegant. Quant-driven.

Both are brilliant in their own way.

But in my own practice, I wanted something a little different. Something that helps validate not just “do people want this?” but also “can I align product, sales, and strategy around it?”

That’s where my 6Ps framework comes in.

The 6Ps Framework

Here’s how I break it down:

Persona – Who are we building for? Not a vague market segment, but a sharp persona with context.
Problem – What pain are they living with, in their own words?
Proposition – How do we credibly promise to solve it?
Product – What’s the thinnest slice of solution we can test?
Positioning – How does this stand out relative to alternatives?
Promotion – How do we reach them with the right story, pricing, and proof?

It’s deceptively simple. But in practice, every P is a forcing function for clarity — connecting problem space and solution space.

Problem vs. Solution Space

Too often, PMs fall in love with features and roadmaps before they’ve earned the right. The 6Ps force you to live in the problem space before rushing into the solution space.

Problem space → Persona, Problem, Proposition.
Solution space → Product, Positioning, Promotion.

If you haven’t nailed the problem space, the solution space is just decoration.

Comparing Frameworks

Dan Olsen’s Lean Product Process – Linear, structured, great for clarity. Where it can feel rigid, the 6Ps add flexibility by connecting GTM earlier.
Superhuman’s PMF Engine – Quantitative, elegant, perfect for consumer products with early adopters. But less useful in B2B/enterprise, where GTM signals (win rates, sales velocity) matter as much as surveys.
Sean Ellis’s Must-Have Test – Lightweight and directional. Good for consumer, weaker in multi-stakeholder enterprise contexts.
Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) – Philosophically aligned with my Persona/Problem framing. But often stays too abstract. The 6Ps ground insights in packaging, positioning, and pricing.

Why the 6Ps Work for Me

The trade-offs are real. The 6Ps aren’t as mathematically precise as Superhuman’s PMF Engine. They’re not as academically neat as Olsen’s pyramid. But they’re pragmatic.

They help me:

Keep discovery and GTM experiments tightly coupled.
Translate customer pain into a product and a narrative sales can run with.
Pressure-test positioning and packaging before heavy build investment.

In short: the 6Ps help me not only find PMF, but also explain it to the board, the sales team, and the customer in one breath.

Closing Thought

PMF isn’t found in a vacuum. It’s the intersection of market readiness, customer pain, product craft, and narrative fit.

Whether you use Olsen’s pyramid, Superhuman’s PMF engine, JTBD interviews, or my 6Ps, the goal is the same: reduce the distance between what people need and what we’re building.

The 6Ps just happen to be my way of making sure no piece gets left behind.

-- Kyle