Finding the Fit
How to identify and close the product gap faster.
Out now
It is well worth the time and the effort spent to navigate through this book when starting a company or investing your time and effort in a new idea. OPTICS will help founders challenge their own assumptions and take a more systematic approach before overbuilding.
Nancy Kunz · VP of Innovation and Retail Analytics, Meredith Corporation
Ninety per cent of startups fail. The industry treats this like gravity, a law of nature founders have to accept. This book argues it's not inevitable.
Drawing on founder interviews and field studies, Natasha Gorobinskaya traces most failures to identifiable gaps in customer understanding and validation, then offers a way to close them. Her OPTICS method gives founders a clear, easy-to-follow structure, building on Steve Blank's Customer Development and her proprietary Experience-Value Framework, and lands on a traceable product-market fit evaluation. AI-assisted when you choose, for early-stage and mature ventures alike.
Why most startups fail, where founders miss their customer, and why Customer Development so often goes unapplied.
Observation, Problem, Targets, Insight, Calibration, Strategy: the six moves from first signal to validated strategy.
Evaluating outcomes, how OPTICS sits alongside other frameworks, and bringing it all together.
The companion materials referenced in the book will be published here on 15 October 2026:
Want a note when they're live? Write to natasha@blueberryresearchgroup.com.
Written for the accelerators, studios, and incubators building the next wave of companies, and for the founders inside them who suspect the standard startup playbook is incomplete. Coaches, mentors, and investors who want a faster, evidence-based way to evaluate ventures will find it just as useful.
