PMF Method Retreat October 27-30

Early B2B Founders, Apply Now to Increase Your Odds of Finding Product-Market Fit

Earlier this year, we launched PMF Method to help super early sales-led B2B founders meaningfully increase their odds of finding product-market fit. Building on nearly two decades and over 500 pre-product-market fit investments, we distilled insights from our own data and hundreds of founder interviews into a detailed framework and an intensive 14-week experience.

We decided to publish the first session in full, walking through the four levels of PMF so all founders could check it out, even if they weren’t able to participate. (We also shared a detailed overview on Lenny’s Podcast if you prefer to watch/listen.) 

The response was overwhelming. Thousands of applications poured in — for just a handful of spots.

It quickly became clear that there was an intense hunger for tactical, practical guidance on finding product-market fit. We were blown away not just by the positive comments and real interest, but by the exceptional quality of the applicants.

After carefully reviewing each one, we hand-selected an exceptionally high-caliber cohort of second-time founders of unicorn startups and builders who hailed from companies like Stripe, Retool, Twitter, and Vanta. The past few months of working closely with these founders has been nothing short of inspiring. 

They’ve already generated impressive momentum, sharpening their initial ideas, nailing down their positioning, closing design partners and customers — all while getting personalized support from our team, digging into detailed exercises and frameworks, and learning firsthand from incredible founders who are a few steps ahead, like Vanta’s Christina Cacioppo, Vercel’s Guillermo Rauch, and Looker’s Lloyd Tabb.

While the depth and intensity of our 14-week program was great, we heard from many founders who were eager to accelerate their progress but couldn't commit to a months-long experience — or make the temporary move out to San Francisco.

That’s why we’re excited to announce PMF Method Retreat. 

The same experience for super early B2B builders, but refactored into a 4-day retreat that packs a serious punch. 

This retreat will offer the same high-impact content and support but in a format that can more easily fit into a busy founder’s calendar — and bring more builders outside of SF into the fold. 


Here's what to expect:

We're condensing the best parts of our 14-week program into one intensive retreat. Here are the details:

  • When: October 27-30, 2024

  • Where: Sonoma, CA

  • Who: Any early founder working on a new B2B SaaS company is welcome to apply. Maybe you've been working on an early idea for the past year. Or perhaps you’re still dreaming at your day job, a few months away from taking the leap to found your company. We're also open to founders from all around the world — as long as you've raised less than $2M and can make it to Sonoma for the experience, you're in the running. 

We've turned what iconic enterprise founders did in their first six months of company building into a condensed series of tactical sessions for taking a straighter path to PMF.

  • Session 1: The 4 Levels of PMF. Build a foundational understanding of our product-market fit framework, from nascent to extreme PMF.

  • Session 2: Customer Discovery & The 4 Ps. Everyone says talk to customers, but most founders just listen for what they want to hear. Learn proven techniques to uncover what customers truly need and will pay for, and develop your company hypothesis using our "4Ps" framework. We’ll also review a couple of your customer calls ahead of the retreat, with an emphasis on what we call “dollar-driven discovery,” and help you dig in to get to the kernel of truth.

  • Session 3: Markets. Too many founders focus on the house they’re building — not the neighborhood it’s in. Determine whether your chosen market can support a viable venture-scale business, validating a credible path to at least $100M in ARR by examining market dynamics, not just size or growth potential (or high-level TAM slides and McKinsey-ish top down numbers).

  • Session 4: Design Partners & Founder-Led Sales. Many technical founders are great at building a product but less great at selling it. Learn how to sign your first few design partners, iterate with them and begin to build what can become a repeatable go-to-market approach. We’ll dive into outreach tactics to feed the top of your funnel, show you how to move customers through it, and close big contracts.

To make our time together as impactful as possible, you'll complete some prework in advance, including crafting a positioning statement, taking a first stab at your ideal customer profile, and submitting 2-5 customer or discovery calls.

How it's different:

  • No strings attached: PMF Method Retreat is completely free. If you’re accepted, the only “cost” is your time (well, and getting yourself to and from Sonoma). What’s more is, this isn't an accelerator. We give you $0 and take 0% of your company. Our sole goal is to equip you with our proprietary playbook for unlocking product-market fit.

  • Time to value: We're packing maximum value into just four days. It's perfect for founders who want to accelerate their progress — but need to get back to building as quickly as possible.

  • Building with like-minded founders: No crowded cohorts with tons of founding teams vying for attention and resources. We're hand-selecting a small number of promising teams to work with closely. You’ll get the chance to build deep connections with other top 1% B2B founders at your same stage, joining a tight-knit group of founders who are hungry to find PMF.

  • Practical, not theoretical: It’s a hands-on experience. We cover topics like "How do I tell if this path is going to lead to PMF?" or  "How do I know if I'm targeting the right buyer?" and "Is this actually a good market to be building in?” — the questions founders desperately need to work out the answers to in the early days. Along with rigorous exercises in customer discovery, market sizing, positioning, product scoping, and founder-led sales, we provide feedback on your calls, small group discussions, 1:1 support and office hours — even after the retreat wraps.

If you're an early-stage B2B SaaS founder looking to validate your market, refine your product, and close your first sales, this retreat is for you. It’s a chance to condense months of learning into four intensive days that could change the trajectory of your company. 

Apply now — or nominate a founder friend who needs to be there.

Don't just take our word for it

  • ""I 100% had no idea what I was doing when I started on this journey. As a first time founder, you literally gave me a playbook, almost a cheat sheet, for how to navigate so many of the 'firsts.'"

  • "PMF Method helps you take the (understandably) chaotic, mythologized, and 'hard-to-evaluate-progress' parts of building an early company, and turns it into a framework to focus and make progress. You'll accelerate your company's path to PMF by months to years. And you'll have access to an incredible cohort of advisors, founders and resources to get tactical tips that go beyond the typical startup platitudes."

  • "Even as a second time founder who built a unicorn I learned so much. It’s great structure, amazing people, super valuable content and very good vibes."

  • "I have spent the last 6 years of my career in early-stage startups (and consuming a steady information diet of startup wisdom/advice) but feel like I learned more about what greatness looks like in the full journey of building a startup from this program than anything else."

  • "Execution was meticulous — from the people to the vibe to the content. I loved the focus on learning insights together (so many of these VC retreats are like 2 days straight of what feels like semi-adversarial networking)."

  • "I walked away from the experience having an incredibly valuable set of practical frameworks that I am now using to structure my next few weeks. I feel 10x more powerful, armed with frameworks, insightful historical data points, and resources to power through the path to nascent PMF."

  • "You tremendously accelerated our growth as founders and opened our eyes to many new dimensions of building a company. Most importantly, we are coming out of the retreat with SO MUCH energy and confidence in ourselves and our company."