Author: Jason Rosenthal

Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: a16z Crypto operating partner Jason Rosenthal summarizes three paths for current crypto projects to find Product-Market Fit: binding top clients to co-create, positioning for AI Agent exponential growth curves, and being the first user yourself. The article explores examples such as LayerZero, AgentCash, ZKsync, and provides direct reference value for teams that are pivoting or have not yet found PMF.

Product-Market Fit (PMF) is the most critical variable determining a company's life and death. When you find it, you have a chance. When you don't, nothing else can save you.

@jasonrosenthal tweeted:

Finding and achieving Product-Market Fit is the most powerful and important thing for any early-stage startup. I have spent a significant amount of time on this throughout my career, across multiple companies. Here are 5 strategies for finding PMF in Web3.

Pouring more money into it merely extends the runway to a bad outcome. Growth hacks that are disconnected from a genuine strategy and ongoing airdrops, rather than being a path to PMF, are often a cover for the fact that you haven’t found it yet. Some of the most powerful weapons in the crypto industry (tokens and network effects) can mislead projects in their PMF judgment.

The good news is that top teams are now finding PMF faster. Killer applications like stablecoins have been successfully established, and traditional finance and a broader consumer base are also accelerating their entry.

Here are three models that are currently working. If your project is still before PMF or is pivoting, take a close look.

1. Bind top clients and create products based on their needs

Find the most experienced potential clients in your field and co-create products with them. Their needs become your product specifications.

This approach is slower than developing a generic product and then iterating publicly, but if your first client is handling trillions of dollars in transactions daily, their adoption is more valuable than any media coverage, TVL data, or retail interest. The essence of PMF is that your product resonates widely with customers, and these flagship clients are the best indicators.

From themultiple high-profile collaborations and product releases between crypto startups and traditional financial companies, it is evident that the current product roadmap is being written by institutional clients. Blockchain is beginning to support global financial infrastructure.

2. Find an exponential growth curve and position yourself early

PMF sometimes comes from serving an existing market better, and sometimes it comes from seeing where the market is heading before it has fully reacted, and positioning yourself early enough.

The most apparent curve currently: AI Agents are turning into economic entities. They autonomously call APIs, deploy funds, and execute transactions at machine speed. The assumption of “humans in the loop” is collapsing faster than most expect.

In terms of agent commercialization, Samuel Ragsdale and Ryan Sproule saw this early at Merit Systems, building AgentCash based on the x402 protocol. AgentCash allows AI agents to pay for API access fees in cryptocurrency, which is the infrastructure for agents to autonomously execute programmatic trades without manually managing bills.

Payments are the key link that transform Agents from “assistants” to “participants.” Whoever builds these payment rails now will own a foundational layer when the Agent economy arrives.

3. Be your own first and best customer

The most enduring infrastructure companies do not just wait for external developers to validate their technology. They first build applications on their own tracks, proving their capability through actual operations, and then invite others to use it.

Amazon has taken this approach to the extreme. AWS was not initially sold to startups. Amazon first built the necessary infrastructure for its e-commerce business, and after running it successfully in large-scale scenarios, gradually opened it up to external parties.

Alex Gluchowski of Matter Labs is running the same script.

He did not market Prividium as an abstract enterprise product but anchored it to a specific application: tokenized deposits. The result is Cari Network. Regional banks in the United States like Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyCorp, and Old National Bancorp can now transfer customer deposits between banks in real-time on the blockchain without these funds leaving the regulated banking system. ZKsync has not only built the tracks but has also found a killer application on those tracks.

Three models, one underlying logic: the fastest path to PMF is not through repeated trial and error in the dark, but by choosing the right battlefield and pressing on with belief before everyone else jumps in.

Co-create with that validated effect compounding customer. Stand in front of the curve before consensus forms. Be your own first best customer.

Choose a model that fits your product, then take action.