What is the Product Market Fit and why most startups never find it | Nick Tomic about PMF, founders’ biases and communication through the website

How do you know if your product is truly needed by the market? Why do 11 out of 12 SaaS MVPs fail? What are the biggest mistakes startup founders make?

In this episode of the podcast, my guest is Nick Tomic, founder of Face2Face and researcher of Product Market Fit. He shares how he launched 12 SaaS projects in six months, why most of them failed, and how he came up with Face2Face. We discuss the importance of talking to users, the dangers of adding unnecessary features, and how AI is changing the SaaS industry.

Topics covered in this episode:

• When did Nick realize he wanted to become an entrepreneur?
• Why did 11 out of 12 SaaS MVPs fail?
• The biggest mistake startup founders make when searching for Product Market Fit.
• The importance of talking to users and having real-time conversations on your website.
• How did Face2Face emerge from Nick’s real problem?
• How AI is changing sales and the startup industry.
• Why Nick believes humans will always value human interaction.
• What skills will be essential for entrepreneurs in the next 10 years?
• Books that changed his perspective on business and life.

Don’t miss this episode—it’s packed with valuable insights! 🎧🔥

Why would anyone build a new sales CRM in 2025 when giants like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive dominate the market? What does modern social selling look like, and how is it changing sales?

In this episode, my guest is Arnaud Belinga, the founder of Breakcold, a modern social selling CRM that integrates LinkedIn, Telegram, WhatsApp, and other communication channels natively into the CRM. Arnaud shares how he went from studying law for seven years to launching a SaaS company, why most CRMs are outdated, and how Bootstrapped vs. VC-backed startups operate differently.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Why did Arnaud leave law to start a SaaS business?
• How did he and his co-founder find the right startup idea?
• How did Breakcold make $20,000 in its first month?
• Why are most CRMs stuck in 2010 while sales have changed?
• How do social selling and CRM work together?
• Why bootstrapping a startup is often a better choice than VC funding.
• How LinkedIn’s social selling evolved from 2019 to 2025.
• How AI is impacting sales and relationship-building.
• Why focus is the #1 skill for the next decade.
• The biggest mental challenges of being a startup founder.

This episode is packed with insights—don’t miss it! 🎧🔥

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Stay tuned!

Nikolay Toverovsky’s “Managing Projects, People, and Yourself” is a modern guide for managers, available only in an interactive format through a subscription on the Gorbunov publishing website. There’s no print version, and you can’t download it for free.

The book feels very user-friendly: it’s easy to read, well-structured, and has beautiful illustrations that make understanding the material even easier.

This isn’t a guide about setting up Jira or tagging tasks in Asana. It’s about the bigger picture: the role of a manager, setting priorities, communicating effectively, and understanding what it really means to create value.

If you’re new to management, the book will help you figure out:

• What does it mean to “do” and “deliver results”?
• How do you know your work is valuable?
• How do you communicate effectively with your team and stakeholders?
• Why is communication the key to any successful project?

If you’re an experienced manager, this book will help you organize and structure what you already know and maybe even remind you of a few forgotten lessons.

This was my first book of 2025 and also my first dive into project management literature. It was an easy read, and I noted plenty of useful quotes.

I read books. I save quotes from e-books in my Notion table. Quotes from physical books are marked with a sticker and highlighted with a marker.

It’s important to me that the quotes I liked don’t get lost in the depths of my database and that I can revisit them from time to time. I considered marking specific quotes with certain colors (green – for sharing in a channel, red – useful for business, etc.).

But then I realized I’d be too lazy to set aside time to find the book, locate the sticker, and reread the quote. So, I abandoned that idea.

The solution came in the form of a Telegram bot, which I created and linked to my channel. Now, every morning, it will send a random quote from the books I’ve read in my library.

1. Quotes from the books I’ve read are published.
2. I’ll revisit them regularly.
3. Everything is automated, except for adding new quotes.

I think it’s very convenient 🙂.

I spent 2–3 hours working with ChatGPT and setting everything up, and then another hour troubleshooting why the server wasn’t starting at the scheduled time and identifying the errors.

Here is the Repo: https://github.com/gmaramigin/book-cites-to-telegram-channel
Here is the channel with the bot: https://t.me/emaramigin_blog

I was a client of https://htmlacademy.com and started from the basics.

I learned how it works when I type a website name into the address bar and the website loads.

How does it works?

1. Imagine a website is a house where all the information you want to access lives.
2. The IP address is like the exact address of the house: street, building, apartment number. Without it, the mail carrier can’t find the right house.
3. When you type a website name (example.com), your computer looks into the internet’s phone book (DNS).
   It translates the name (example.com) into the precise house address (IP address, like 93.184.216.34).
4. The browser acts like a mail carrier who travels to that address to pick up a letter (information from the website).
5. The mail carrier knocks on the door and asks: “Hello, I’d like to get the main page information of this house!”
   This is called an HTTP request.
6. The server is the homeowner. They check that the mail carrier has the correct request.Then, they prepare and hand over a letter with the requested information.
7. The homeowner gives a letter filled with photos, text, and instructions (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).
8. The mail carrier returns home (to your computer) and unpacks the letter.
   The browser reads the instructions (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and neatly displays the content on your screen.

To sum up:

🏠 Server → A house with information
📍 IP Address → The house’s address
📖 DNS → A phone book for finding the address
📬 Browser → A mail carrier delivering the request and retrieving the response
🚚 IP (Internet Protocol) → The GPS and address system guiding the carrier.
📦 TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) → The rules ensuring every page (packet) is delivered correctly, in order, and without loss.
📝 HTTP Request → An order for the letter
📄 HTML, CSS, JS → The content of the letter
💻 Browser Screen → The unpacked letter you can read

My GitHub https://github.com/gmaramigin

Essay by Paul Graham – Do things don’t scale
https://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Your life is not a story: why narrative thinking holds you back
https://psyche.co/ideas/your-life-is-not-a-story-why-narrative-thinking-holds-you-back

Friends Over Lovers by Mark Manson
https://markmanson.net/breakthrough/099-friends-over-lovers

$100K monthly business with content strategy
https://pierreherubel.substack.com/p/they-built-a-100kmo-business-with

How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future | Scott Galloway on TED

This good article is related to David Epstein’s book — Range.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289624000230

What for do you do this? Interesting video from TED.Talks by Ricardo

Alex Hormozi, again, I like the 9th piece of advice due to I’m trying to finish tasks without focusing on finishing it well

How to reach the Product-Market Fit, Harvard Innovation Lab prepare it for you
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mOcfBwN2-xVxH7JcIND_CwJjW8vphqm16DbyXLV7t7k

To Share or Not to Share Secrets? Secrets Can Have Different Weights and Can Feel Like a Physical Burden
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/is-it-better-to-share-or-hide-a-secret-they-can-both-mentally-and-physically

A collection of public company organizational charts — from Google to Miro and Notion. Plus lists of employees and their social media profiles — a good tool for networking
https://theorg.com/

I’m working on growing my product on Reddit, but I still have low karma, which limits my ability to post and engage in some subreddits. I found this approach to using Reddit quite.

How to successful growth via Reddit.
https://x.com/milkkarten/status/1844437783487840495?s=46&t=9e5XQOEwd42JneHlbf2lYw

I used this article as inspiration to create our presentation. I’d love your feedback on it!
https://parmacrm.notion.site/CRM-add-ons-for-smart-sales-teams-11bf2e6173f780969f04c69dc99b4ed1?pvs=4

The Greatest Sales Deck you’ve ever seen
https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0

When working on different products, it’s easy to overlook these three crucial points: the obvious, the easy, and the possible. This reminder really hit home.

The obvious, the easy, and the possible in Product creation
https://x.com/jasonfried/status/1846292578687504811