SimpliSafe Chased the Wrong Customer. This Pivot Saved The Business. SimpliSafe is a security system built for renters. But it unexpectedly gained traction with homeowners.

Chad Laurans was convinced he'd made the perfect product for the perfect customer. He'd done his research, refined his marketing, launched a home security company called SimpliSafe with high expectations -- and then was promptly disappointed. "Things were going pretty slowly," he says. "It felt like we were headed toward this middling outcome where we could spend years and maybe decades and not have much to show for it."

To save his business, Laurans began asking himself a difficult question: Did I build the wrong product, or target the wrong customer? It's a puzzle many entrepreneurs face as their businesses evolve, and as they seek what investor Marc Andreessen famously calls "product-market fit" -- that is, the right product for a good market. Entrepreneurs may think they know the answer, but until they launch, they really don't.

Laurans would come to discover just how important a true product-market fit is. After lots of investigating and hard work, he had an answer -- and eventually, a newly thriving business that serves more than two million people.