Every founder and investor obsesses over product-market fit. After a decade straddling product and product marketing roles at startups, I've identified an even earlier signal: content-market fit. It's the canary in the coal mine that tells you whether you're on the right track before you've built anything substantial. Here's the truth most miss: Content-Market Fit precedes Product-Market Fit. It's not just a marketing milestone—it's your lowest-risk path to validating you're solving a problem people actually care about, in language that connects with how they already think about their challenges.
What is Content-Market Fit?
Content-Market Fit exists when your messaging resonates so deeply with your target audience that they can't help but engage—they forward it to colleagues, they reference it in meetings, they slide into your DMs asking for more. It's when you've articulated their problems more clearly than they could themselves.
The Content-Market Fit Process: Descript's Audio Editing Revolution
Step | Definition | B2B Example: Descript |
|---|---|---|
1. Identify Customer Language | Mine conversations to find how customers naturally describe their problems | Andrew Mason noticed audio professionals and creators calling editing "tedious," "technical," and "intimidating" for non-audio people |
2. Create a Distinct Term | Develop a simple but powerful phrase that captures the problem in customer language | Positioned Descript as "a word processor for audio" instead of an "audio editing platform" |
3. Test Message Variations | Experiment with different framings of the problem to see which generates highest engagement | Tested messaging around "editing audio by editing text" vs "audio production for non-audio people" |
4. Build Content Foundation | Create substantial content that establishes thought leadership around the problem | Created accessible content explaining audio editing concepts in everyday language non-experts use |
5. Distribute Through Channels | Share the message everywhere your audience already consumes information | Targeted podcasters, journalists, and content creators where they gather information |
6. Track Customer Adoption | Monitor how often customers begin using your terminology | Saw creators adopt phrases like "edit audio like a document" when describing their workflows |
7. Drive Product Development | Let content-market fit inform product roadmap | Developed features based on how creators described their audio editing frustrations |
What made Descript's approach so effective was their commitment to using non-technical language that resonated with their target audience. Rather than focusing on technical audio terminology and waveform editing that intimidated creators, they framed their solution around the familiar concept of document editing—something everyone already understood.
By positioning their platform as "a word processor for audio," Descript made a technically complex tool feel accessible precisely because the messaging mirrored the natural language of non-audio professionals who wanted to create content without learning complicated editing software. This content-market fit helped them attract major publications like NPR, The Washington Post, and The New York Times as early users.
Content-Market Fit in the Wild: Companies Getting It Right
While many startups rush to talk about their amazing features, a few standout companies have mastered content-market fit by putting problem articulation first. These teams are creating content that resonates deeply before pushing product.
Pre-Launch Content-Market Fit Champions
Several companies have achieved remarkable content-market fit even before their products were fully available:
Coda found their audience long before their platform's general release through Shishir Mehrotra's "Rituals for Hypergrowth" content series. Rather than focusing on document platform features, they created content around "team rituals" and "how teams make decisions"—the exact language product leaders use when discussing collaboration challenges.
Superhuman mastered pre-launch content-market fit when Rahul Vohra created "The Fastest Email Experience" manifesto. Instead of typical email feature language, they used phrases like "email overwhelm" and "inbox infinity" directly from user interviews. Their exclusive invitation system built on content that perfectly mirrored how professionals actually complained about email, generating a 300,000+ waitlist before general availability.
Problem-First Founders
Some of the most successful startups lead with perfect problem articulation:
Descript broke through the crowded audio editing space because Andrew Mason's "Audio Editing for Non-Audio People" content established the perfect problem framing. By completely avoiding technical audio terminology in favor of creator language, they spoke directly to podcast creators using the exact phrases these creators use when describing editing frustrations. This approach made a technically complex tool feel accessible precisely because the messaging mirrored users' natural language about their challenges.
Maven built their cohort-based course platform on the foundation of Gagan Biyani's "Future of Education" content, which established their audience before the platform launched. Rather than focusing on education technology, they centered their content on creator economics using the language course creators actually use when discussing their monetization challenges. By mirroring the private conversations course creators were having about sustainable business models, Maven positioned themselves as the solution to a problem their audience already recognized in their own terms.
What unites all these examples is a fundamental understanding that content-market fit comes from letting your audience's language drive your messaging—not your founder's excitement about features. When your content sounds like it could have been written by your users about their problems, you've found your content-market fit.
MedDefend: Finding Content-Market Fit Through Storytelling
I met the MedDefend team before their app launched as an advisor at Hatchet Ventures. Before asking what space they did or what they wanted to do, I asked who are they trying to help. This helped unlock what their core mission is — helping misdiagnosed patients navigate the healthcare system with AI. In our early sessions, I advised the team to focus on their audience and engage with them where potential users were already looking for answers. During that time, Sarah created a podcast called "Medical Maze" focused on patient journeys through complex diagnoses, articulating pain points rather than promoting their yet-to-be-launched app.
Why start a podcast before the app launched? Two critical reasons: they needed to validate market demand and buy development time as their product required more engineering than initially planned. By amplifying stories of people dealing with rare conditions and misdiagnoses, they built a community of engaged listeners who saw them as advocates who truly understood their struggles.
This approach created a natural progression—podcast listeners joined a waitlist, which directed them to a newsletter and additional podcast episodes. By the time the app finally launched, they had a waiting audience of users who already trusted them as authentic advocates who understood their challenges.
Your Action Plan: Customer Language Mining
Finding content-market fit starts with speaking your customers' language:
Gather Raw Customer Language: Collect 10-15 artifacts containing authentic customer language (known as "voice of the customer") from support chats, research calls, and forums.
Extract Pain Point Patterns: Use your favorite AI tool to identify recurring phrases and emotional language patterns. For example, while we may use words like "optimization" and "streamlined", your target audience may use words like "feeling stuck" or "tedious".
Create Two Messaging Versions: Bring out your inner scientist. Test your current marketing language against direct customer language patterns, measuring engagement depth like time spent and next actions taken.
Build a Customer Language Library: As you discover high-performing phrases, create a shared resource that becomes your content foundation.
Start Today: Your First CMF Experiment
This week, select your 10 best customer conversations and extract the exact phrases they use to describe their challenges. Create content using only their language, and track how it performs against your standard messaging. Bonus points: Why not reach out and ask that person for advice on the problem you're trying to solve. Shoot your shot! You never know.
Let's Continue the Conversation
Thanks for reading this far. This is something I'm passionate about. As a serial early stage founding product marketer and GTM advisor, I can't emphasize enough that Content-Market Fit doesn't just precede Product-Market Fit—it accelerates it by ensuring your development priorities align with validated market demands. By speaking your customers' language before building features, you'll not only attract the right audience but build exactly what they're asking for.
What customer language patterns have you noticed in your market that differ from how vendors typically talk about solutions? Have you ever tested content using your customers' exact phrasing versus industry terminology? I'd love to hear your experiences. Drop me a message at: beatriz@pmm-mindset.com
